The mid-season premiere of USA Television’s hot new show White Collar got of to a bang with Neal becoming convinced that Peter was the one hiding and controlling his love interest, Kate. This came about by a picture Neal saw of the man who is manipulating them that showed a unique ring that he wore. After coming over to Peter’s home to work on a current case Neal finds a picture of Peter wearing the ring which convinces him he has been double crossed.

While they’re working the case of some corrupt Wall Street investment brokers who are swindling naive investors out of their life savings, Neal confronts Peter about the ring right in the middle of the undercover operations. Peter is forced to give up Neal to the bad guys in order to save another of their undercover agent’s life as she is brought to one of the head bad guy’s home for interrogation which could lead to her being murdered.

Peter and Neal go back and forth and cleverly workout the bad situation to get the top two guys in the whole swindling scheme working against each other.

One is a sharp, but brash 29 year old that was out to double cross his partner to begin with. Neal claims that he is working for that other partner but that he can be bought off. Then he goes the opposite direction and tells the partner of 29 year old he has been hired by the other and have them both at each others throats.

There is a close call as one partner cannot wait to confront the other and barges in while Neal and Peter are in the process of busting the 29 year old. They are in a special room where comic books are kept and the room is designed so that it sucks out the air keeping the books safe and fire resistant. Unfortunately when the crap hits the fan and Neal and Peter are discovered they are trapped in this room suffocating.

White Collar stays true to the format of most drama shows and keeps it tense until the good guys rush in at the nick of time to save the day. Peter then sits down with Neal and tells him that his love interest seems to be in cahoots with an FBI agent that is out to get him. More specifically they want an antique amber box they believe Neal stole and still possess and now the question everyone wants to know is what’s inside the box.

I found this episode of White Collar to be very good overall. It’s a pretty interesting twist to the cops and robbers angel.  The acting and plot is great and the storyline keeps you highly interested in keeping up with each episode.