Fridge / White Collar

• Fridge Logic: S4E05, "Honor Among Thieves". The villain of the week tries to blackmail Neal...This falls apart when you remember that his anklet is accurate TO THE YARD, and he at no point entered the Marshall's building. DNA or no, one look at his tracking data would prove his innocence.
  • This might actually be a case of Fridge Heartwarming. It would take a few hours for the Marshals to send the tracking data for the time of heist, showing said innocence. Meanwhile, Peter would have doubt, quarrel with the knowledge of the bad things Neal has done, put against the good. Neal didn't even want Peter to think for a second that he had done something so stupid and illegal. That's how important his trust was to him. Worth getting arrested for a small crime he actually committed...as opposed to a worse one he didn't.
• Fridge Brilliance: When Diana, played by British actress Marsha Thomason, speaks, sometimes she gets a case of Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping, which makes sense when we learn that her father was a diplomat and she probably spent part of her childhood in England with dear old dad.
  • She had a British nanny as well, so she may have picked up something of an accent from her time spent with the nanny.
• Also, when Neal reveals that his father was a police officer, his aversion to and proficiency at using guns makes much more sense.
  • Neal's revelation that his father was arrested for confessing to murder makes his aversion to guns even more understandable.
    • That also explains why Neal gets so on edge every time a dead body turns up during a case.
• Although Neal makes it pretty clear in the third season that he wants to stay with the FBI even after he's released, there's a line in Hard Sell that made me realize he was thinking about that even in the first season. When Peter shows him the ring, he explains that everyone who's been with the FBI for ten years gets one. Neal's first question is, "Will I get one?" His prison sentence is only four years. So even as far back as the show's eighth episode, he had already decided to stay (or was at least considering it) after his four year sentence ended.
• There's a case of possible Fridge Brilliance connecting the Season 5 Episode "Controlling Interest" and the finale. In the episode, Dr Summers explains that the criminal who feels guilty for his actions, are more likely to repeat these actions, than a criminal without. If you believe A- that Neal doesn't feel guilt, at least not as much as a typical "repeat offender" and B- that he's reformed after faking his death and moving to Paris, then her lecture rings true. Even if it takes him a while Neal does, in this case, stop his criminal acts. It can be attributed to the lack of guilt providing the individual with more depth as to their goals connected to their crimes, i.e why they commit them, what they want. And the perspective to decide when to quit.
  Neal: [in "Scott Free"] The con is a rush..it's an addiction. You have to hit rock bottom before you can change.

• In "Burke's Seven", Mozzie says that he can't identify his shooter because he doesn't remember what happened. It makes it worse when you remember that Mozzie has perfect recall.
  • Being able to recall long-term memory perfectly still requires the short-term memory to be recorded to long-term memory, a process that often fails during extreme shock.
• Aside from a few passing comments about the radio antenna Mozzie is trying to build, Countermeasures seems to be a standalone episode. Until you watch season three and realize that the entire purpose of the episode is to foreshadow the treasure story arc of the third season.
  • Even more fridge brilliance: Countermeasures sets it up to make it look like Ford is a cautionary tale for Neal. They spend a good portion of the episode comparing the two, with Peter heavily implying that Neal could turn out like Ford if he's not careful. But when you start drawing parallels between the older trio of criminals and the younger trio, you get this:
    • Byron/Neal: The ringleader. The charismatic charmer that everyone loved. Liked the challenge of the con, but ultimately wanted out, because he realized that getting the girl and having a normal life meant more to him.
    • June/Kate (and later Sara): The girl who fell in with a criminal and his best friend, and became almost as skilled at pulling heists as they were.
    • Ford/Mozzie: The one who never quite got it. The one who had been a criminal for so long, he was absolutely convinced that there were only two options—the big house or the big score.
  • The third season makes you realize that Ford was a cautionary tale, but not for Neal—for Mozzie.
• I was a little confused at first when Ellen said that Neal loved school when he was little. Neal is a genius, and geniuses often have a hard time in school because it's too easy and they get bored quickly. Then I remembered what makes Neal such a good con man—he likes people. So in all likelihood, it probably wasn't the actual schoolwork that made Neal love school, it was the chance to interact with a lot of people on a regular basis.
• In Identity Crisis, Jones claims to be a descendant of Jefferson's when Stringer asks whose descendant Jones is, as Jones is black and the Culper spys were not. It had long been suspected that Jefferson fathered children with his slave Sally Hemmings, and was proven by DNA is the late 1990's.
• Fridge Logic: Neal and Mozzie both emphasize the importance of stealth to pulling off their plan in "Countdown," and yet an essential step in the plan winds up being Neal parachuting off of the top of a Manhattan high rise that's under FBI surveillance in broad daylight. Might be excused under Rule of Cool if it weren't such a stretch to accept that NO ONE saw him.
  • He jumped off a building in New York City. You know, the place where aliens are advised to just "land anywhere".