‘White Collar’ season 6, episode 2 preview: On Peter, Neal, and father figures

Thursday night’s new episode of “White Collar” is almost surely going to be a whole lot of fun, and we say that right now without even getting to watch a single bit of footage for it.

Why do we feel pretty confident about this? It mostly ties into one of the main aspects of a case this week, where Neal goes undercover as Peter’s son. There’s been a bit of this dynamic constantly over the entire run of the series, and the timing could not be better now, given that Tim DeKay’s character just learned during the premiere that he and Elizabeth are expecting a child.

Speaking to Zap2It about this undercover mission, creator Jeff Eastin explained just how this case is going to work, and the reasoning behind giving us this particular story so close to the end of the show:

“That’s definitely the most common fan observation, that Peter is Neal’s father figure … We did that entire season with Neal’s dad, and the parallel we were trying to draw there is he may have a biological father, but really Peter is the person who most shaped who Neal is now. Neal’s always had a soul, but Peter really gave him the morality to go with that soul.”

We’re also hearing that some of the most touching moments of the entire series to date could come through this episode, and some of the individual storylines that it presents. We’ll have a better chance to learn that tomorrow, and we also still have the Pink Panthers out there to worry about.