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'Covert Affairs,' 'White Collar' reviews
Updated 5:28 pm, Monday, June 23, 2014
White Collar: 9 p.m. Tuesday (July 10) on USA.
Covert Affairs: 10 p.m. Tuesday (July 10) on USA
In the TV business, achieving success can bring new challenges for young shows, and that's true for USA's hits "Covert Affairs" and "White Collar," each launching a new season Tuesday night.
How do you keep a hit show evolving without changing it so much that you endanger your fan base? "White Collar" offers one approach in the first three episodes of its new season, as it picks up the story from the cliff-hanger conclusion of the third season.
"Collar" is about a former con artist, thief and forger named Neal Caffrey (Matt Bomer) who has struck a deal with FBI agent Peter Burke (Tim DeKay) to aid the bureau in solving crimes while wearing a tracking anklet. The two men have had their issues over the years, but have not only achieved a certain level of trust but also developed a strong friendship as well. At the end of last season, Peter was instrumental in helping Neal escape before he was rounded up by Agent Kramer (Beau Bridges) and forced to work with him instead of Peter.
At the start of the new season, Peter has to walk a fine line between protecting Neal and dealing with agent Kyle Collins (Mekhi Phifer), out to track down and capture Caffrey no matter what it takes. This time, the bureau wants to put Caffrey back behind bars.
So where is Neal? Living a life of seeming leisure on a tropical isle beyond the reach of extradition treaties, but not necessarily beyond the reach of Collins.
Tuesday's episode is almost a letdown. We pretty much know that Collins is going to find Neal one way or another, but things don't really start heating up until the second and third shows of the new season. It's difficult to imagine where the series can go in the future, though. It's toyed with letting Caffrey escape and it moves closer and closer toward a complete commutation of his sentence, which would make him just another FBI agent, but, of course, smarter. This season is likely to be crucial in determining the viability of future seasons.
"Covert Affairs" has a similar challenge at the start of its third season and meets it by shaking things up just slightly. Several plot elements have already been resolved. At the start of the series, Annie Walker (Piper Perabo) was able to maintain her cover as a Smithsonian Institute employee while secretly working for the CIA. Even her sister, Danielle (Anne Dudek), didn't know the truth about Annie's real job, but she does now. Annie's best friend at the agency, blind but brilliant Auggie Anderson (Christopher Gorham), was smitten with another agent last season, but is now back at Langley.
Then, all at once, everything changes. A major character is apparently killed off at the start of Tuesday's season opener, Annie isn't blamed for the death per se, but her involvement gets her re-assigned, as is Auggie. Meanwhile, Annie's now former boss, Joan Campbell (Kari Matchett) not only has to adjust to not having Annie and Auggie working with her anymore, but is also finding herself marginalized by her own boss, Arthur Campbell (Peter Gallagher), who is also her husband.
All of this is intentionally unsettling, but that only serves to deepen our interest in the characters and their personal as well as professional relationships. One of the many smart things about "Covert Affairs" is that the writers have always dangled Annie and Auggie's romantic possibilities before us, but without detracting from the international intrigue that remains the show's primary focus.
But the smartest thing of all about "Covert Affairs" is the casting. Perabo and Gorham are terrific, and much more than just a couple of pretty faces. They each possess a kind of retro classy-sleek quality, faintly evocative of Grace Kelly and Cary Grant, but convincingly updated to the 21st century. The rest of the cast is just as good. The relationship between the Campbells is fascinatingly complicated, which suggests there's still a lot more for the writers to mine there.
"Affairs" could and should go on for years, and we'll be happy to go along for the ride.