‘White Collar’ season 5, episode 10 review: Did Peter or Neal stop Hagen?

“White Collar” returned to Thursday night after a brief hiatus, and it wasted almost no time to deliver a caper that was very near to Neal Caffrey’s heart: Specifically, we are talking about Rebecca. Hagen captured her early in the episode, and then a chain of events unfolded in which we saw him do what many Mark Sheppard characters excel at: Force someone else to do his bidding.

While this put Neal in a position where he really had to help an enemy, the one silver lining is that while he was in the process of working on this, Peter was also plotting a takedown of his own. This was trouble for Neal, since there is one thing that he cannot have him know: Everything that Neal has been doing for Hagen, even if some of it was against his will. If the wrong bit of information came out, everyone could be behind bars by the end of this.

Well, we started to inch closer and closer to this worst-case scenario, as Peter did manage to bag Hagen for at least a short amount of time, but then things went a little haywire with his own plan to show Peter “something.” This plan, in turn, led to something we did not expect to happen until a little later in the season: Hagen’s death. Who would have killed him? While there are many things that Neal has done, taking down this guy is not one of them.

And now, we come to that HUGE twist at the end: Rebecca is hardly the person that Neal Caffrey thought that she was. Are you surprised at all by this? It was done pretty well, but it’s hard for us to really be that stunned. There have been hints the entire time, especially when it comes to the reveal that she was able to help run a heist this past go-around.

But even still, a predictable ending doesn’t mean it is a bad ending. Instead, what we felt in the closing minutes was that this season was really starting to get going. Grade: B+.

What did you think about tonight’s “White Collar” episode? Let us know your thoughts below.