- Title: White Collar – Master Plan
- wiki: link
When Elizabeth (Tiffani Thiessen) grows suspicious that a lost heir (Zachary Booth) to a powerful fortune, and an old friend who she tutored as a child, may actually be a con man, Neal (Matt Bomer) goes undercover as the family’s new butler. After a crash course in the family from the longtime, and recently fired, butler (T. Ryder Smith), Neal takes his place to find possible proof that the heir is an impostor but the the man’s meticulous, and suspicious, nature of not leaving a single trace of himself (no fingerprints on a discarded glass, no usable DNA on his hairbrush or toothbrush) makes it more difficult than originally planned.
After the man both Neal and Elizabeth know to be a fake passes a blood test, Elizabeth finds herself exiled from the home for her suspicions but Neal stays on the case long enough to figure out both how the impostor faked the blood test. Peter (Tim DeKay), after battling a cold in the episode’s B-story which is only fought off by Mozzie‘s (Willie Garson) magical elixir made from the colony of bees he conned Neal into keeping on his balcony, goes undercover as a threatening acquaintance of the true heir forcing the impostor to lead the FBI to the real Patrick and reunite him with his father (Richard Thomas) and sister (Kara Hayward).
Although the case still fits in the White Collar Division’s jurisdiction, the case of an impersonating con man who even temporarily outsmarts Neal is offers a slightly different type of mystery or Peter and Neal to solve. All the goofiness surrounding Peter’s illness takes up a bit too much of the episode for my tastes, and “Master Plan” certainly spends an inordinate amount of time discussing bees and honey which makes me wonder if the show is laying groundwork for something later in the season.
