Episode 'White Collar' Season 3, Episode 3 - 'Deadline' Recap

Damn the rules, “White Collar”! Must the art thief with the cat-that-cooked-then-served-you-the-priceless-rare-canary grin have all the fun?

Must the by-the-book-so-close-you-can-read-the-page-numbers-on-his-fingers partner get all the glory?

Quite frankly, this week answered “no” and “no.” In fact, it’s Agent Diana Barrigan (Marsha Thomason) that is thrown into the fire under the guise of a hard-nosed, harder-assed journalist’s assistant.

But first, Peter (Tim DeKay) has a little errand for her to carefully run right beneath the nose of Neal (Matthew Bomer): translate the German manifest for the recently recovered, more recently destroyed U-boat that packed a Nazi art collection worth a grand fortune, and deliver it to Washington, D.C. Art Crimes agent Melissa Matthews (Anna Chlumsky, who does not appear in this episode) before Friday.

Diana first tells Peter she can work out the translation in hours, but shifts her estimates to a day or two with “a cup of tea and a German dictionary” when Peter asks she keep the project untraceable by keeping off the Internet.

Tell me, though: would this be “White Collar” at all if the good Mr. Neal Caffrey weren’t waiting patiently, anticipating blurting out this joke’s punch-line? No sooner is Diana traipsing out of the FBI office, then Neal sends a text to Mozzie (Willie Garson) that “The swap is on,” and he’s out the door himself to return Diana’s fortuitously forgotten scarf.

Mozzie awaits nearby with a dummy briefcase as Diana and Neal chat, only to be joined at the pivotal moment by Diana’s girlfriend, Christy. The three chat a little more and exchange plans to meet for dinner soon to sample Neal’s allegedly superior mushroom risotto alongside Neal’s own lady love, Sara (Hilarie Burton).

Circumspect

Somewhere that is else, Peter and Jones (Sharif Atkins) have their own business afoot. They’re at the offices of political digest Circumspect, as a favor extended from their White Collar Division boss to golfing buddy and media magnate Leland Shelton. It seems he’s about to yank his ace politico Helen Anderson from the field over some serious threats directed her way concerning her research into what’s happening behind closed doors at pharmaceutical titan Prager & Vaughn.

Anderson takes the concern about as her boss clearly expected: she terminates her assistant on sight for passing the FBI the threatening materials, displays with pride knives, grenades and torched effigies others have thought would shut her up, and finally shows Jones and Peter the door. On the way out, they reach a conclusion: they’re not the most qualified men for the job. In fact, there is no most qualified man for the job.

There is Diana, though.

She’s thrilled at the prospect of going undercover schlepping coffee for her favorite politico muck-raker, though a touch skeptical about the request that she adopt a Manchester British accent and eventual aces her interview to get a foot in the door by telling Anderson off after Anderson deems her “too old and over-qualified,” even with what Peter promised would be a “bulletproof” resume and cover.

Elsewhere, Peter and Neal work that Stockton-and-Malone-in-wingtips magic to pose as FDA agents to steal some information from Prager & Vaughn boss Paul Sullivan. The two have gleaned already that things had long since gone sour at the drug giant over FDA investigations into product recalls and bad manufacturing. They march unannounced into Sullivan’s office, though Sullivan has just enough time to get his assistant to hide something in a file cabinet.

Neal has just enough time to see where she hid it and pick up on her phone’s extension.

He passes that extension off to Jones via text message, who determines that she’s Amy Sawyer. She’s blonde. She’s single. She’s in Research and Development.

And Introducing...Boots

Oh, and she owns a dog named Boots.

Jones phones her and masquerades as her neighbor, saying Boots got into the hallway and she needs to come pick him up before he has to leave for work. That gets her away long enough for Neal to slip from the office, pick the cabinet’s lock, retrieve the document and make he and Peter an exit.

Back at the office, Neal reveals that with the document being printed on a fine paper stock, it can split evenly in two. With a little fingerprint dust, it can reveal on its bottom layer what was printed on it that was blacked out on the surface: a request for an estimate on the cost of a drug called Zybax, an antibiotic used to treat persistent infections.

At the Circumspect offices, Diana has her own problems, and they don’t all have to do with the Devil with the Deadline and a wheatgrass stain on her blazer: someone’s infiltrated her home and sent pictures to prove it.

Andersonis outraged, but undaunted: Diana gleans with a convenient phone tap and a good bluff that Andersonhas a meeting with a source from inside Prager & Vaughn. Getting an “in” on the meeting isn’t easy: Anderson tells her to cancel a dinner, reschedule then move her son’s birthday party, get her son the favorite toy on his birthday wish-list, get her apartment the most secure lock available, translate a Portuguese document, and Anderson will let Diana drive her to the meeting.

So naturally, Anderson has help. Peter retrieves the gift, some nameless agent translates the document, Diana re-schedules the party while Peter enlists Elizabeth (Tiffani Thiessen) to plan it and Neal and Mozzie sweat the lock while discussing how they’ll swap the manifest with the dummy.

Mission Accomplished

Sort of.

Diana makes the meeting, but Anderson tells her to hang back – way back – so that her source doesn’t get sudden cold feet. Diana does as she’s told, but rushes the meeting beneath a park bridge when she spies a shadowy figure pulling what is definitely the shadow of a silenced pistol. Andersonis first infuriated, then once more undaunted as she points out that her source gave her a flash drive before he could say anything more.

Home goes our intrepid agent-assistant to a bubble bath, a little wine, a little Michale Buble, a crook and his foxy ginger cooking with Christy . . .

Yep, that Neal and his initiative. He and Christy had a chat and decided this would be the night for the happy couple to meet his risotto.

And a nice chat they turn out to have, too. Christy even volunteers to run the sets of numerical codes through her hospital employer’s database and see what they turn up. As Neal attempts goading Christy and Diana into sharing the tale of how they became “they,” he signals for a “Wally Burns” to Sara mid-conversation and with Christy and Diana none the wiser that the old friend Wally Burns that Neal referenced really directed Sara to distract Diana with dishes while he chatted up Christy and cast a casual eye about the apartment for some intel on his manifest MacGuffin. Christy eventually reveals indirectly that Diana dropped it off that morning, putting the squeeze on Neal and Mozzie to somehow, some way get into Matthews’ hotel room in two days and make the swap.

Later, Neal, Peter and Jones hit pay-dirt: Christy’s search revealed that the numbers were codes for packages of defective Zybax. Prager & Vaughn had been planning a covert operation in which they would swap the defective meds out for clean ones, so as to avoid the cost and bad publicity of a recall. But all three know that there’s no way they could’ve caught every bad package. Fortunately, they have the name and address of R&D head Casey Mendell from the lifted document.

Zybax

Meanwhile, Anderson once more lets Diana tag along on a crucial errand: an invite to a Zybax launch party, from Anderson’s secret source.

While Anderson and Diana are getting into their evening-cocktail best, Peter and Neal are discovering that Mendell was found dead in his apartment by his wife. It’s at about that same time that Diana is putting pieces together that it was never Anderson’s source that invited them – it was a set-up for a hit once Anderson had been lured away to an empty office to discreetly lift a document of her own.

Diana rushes the office just as a hitman is about to drug Andersonjust subtly enough that it appears to be a death by natural causes. She shoots her way in with the needle inches from a struggling Anderson’s throat and warns the would-be hitter that she’ll put bullets in his knee caps with one wrong move.

“Damn right, I’m over-qualified,” a now-outted Diana tells Anderson.

All seems well that seems to be ending well. Later, Anderson comes by to personally not only thank Diana, but to offer her the permanent assistant gig at “more than double” whatever the FBI pays her. Andersonis grateful, but politely declines, saying she knows where she belongs and that Andersonshould just rehire her old assistant.

As Diana, Peter and Neal share a little banter, Neal is interrupted by Mozzie on his cell. As Diana and Peter walk away, Diana reports that the manifest never left Matthews’ sight. Peter smirks and tells her, “I made sure it stays that way.”

Mozzie gives Neal the worst news he could: somehow, the Travel Administration intel he’d gained on Matthews’ flight time was wrong. She’d caught an earlier flight. The manifest is winging its way to the D.C. FBI office.