White Collar Theories: What About Mozzie?

Some of you may have noticed that in my last White Collar entry I mentioned five theories. I pretty heavily addressed the first three and touched on the fourth, but pretty much ignored the fifth point, the one about Mozzie. It's time I finally addressed it. For those of you who would like refreshing, I mentioned that Mozzie was not a part of the conspiracy against Neal, but that the writers were certainly making it difficult for me to maintain that belief.

So for today, let me flash back to last week's flashback episode and point out what why Mozzie could be a part of Adler's con every bit as much as Kate or Alex. Also, I'll mention why if Mozzie is involved, he'll be working with/for Adler, not above him as was suggested in the comments on my earlier post. Finally, I'll address why Mozzie actually won't be involved, once the final curtain has been pulled back (if it ever is).


Why Mozzie Is In On It

Neal says it right at the beginning of the first flash back sequence. "If you want to know about Adler, we've got to start with Mozzie."

When Neal first meets Mozzie, the toupee'd  goatee sporting fellow is running a street con, and Neal is his first mark. Of course, Neal outsmarts the sneaky duo and goes off with an extra $500 of Mozzie's money in his pockets. Now, one of Moz's greatest features is his unwavering loyalty to Neal. Only once have we ever seen him betray Neal, ratting him out to "the suit," and that only results in an emotional break down for the little man. You'd think he'd extend this loyalty to his other friends and partners as well, but he abandons his card spinning cohort almost in the blink of an eye to track down Neal. When Neal questions him on that very fact, Mozzie just shrugs and says that he "wanted an upgrade." Well maybe Adler was the upgrade now that Mozzie could bring him a mark like Neal. Caffrey even suspects him at first, asking him, "What's your angle?" before letting him into the apartment.

Apparently Mozzie's angle is that he wants Neal to pull off the perfect con on Adler. That's what we're led to believe anyway. Here's a fun little memory game for you, though. When Neal and Mozzie are discussing the new con, Caffrey asks his new friend, "who's the mark?" What happens next? Mozzie replies, "Vincent Adler." Right? Wrong! As soon as Caffrey poses the question, the shot cuts to Peter answering, not Mozzie. It's the con man's greatest trick, getting the mark to supply the needed information. Mozzie didn't have to speak the lie because Peter did it for him. Now I realize that these two events were happening 8 years apart in completely different time lines, and I'll even concede that Mozzie almost assuredly uttered the same words to Neal in the past scenario that we just don't get to see. The fact that we don't see it happen though, that's important. The writers, the Adlers to our Burke in this game of FBI vs ConMan that they're playing with the viewers, show us what they want us to see.

If you want a little less "meta" justification for Mozzie's involvement, I'll point you to the fact that Mozzie brought Neal to Adler in the first place. Adler would never have been able to start his long con on Caffrey if Mozzie hadn't pushed the two into each others' lives. Neal practically says so himself, explaining to Peter, "that was the first time I heard Adler's name," referring to Mozzie's plan to retrieve the password.

The final argument on this topic is the one I made earlier for Kate. Adler, wanting to get close to Neal, uses his cohorts to do it for him. And who is closer to Neal than Mozzie? Burke's getting up there, but still, Mozzie has him beat. Mozzie even makes significant effort to get closer to Neal throughout the "Forging Bonds" episode, going so far as to persistently try to pull Neal away from Kate, his other friend, in order to remind him of their mutual crime and bond. "Don't kid yourself, Kate doesn't even know your real name!" He insists, one time, trying to keep Neal on track to steal Adler's cash. But then again, why would two people who are working for the same man with the same basic goal try to keep their mark away from the other? If professional jealousy isn't enough, (ie they both want the glory of being the one to break him) then you have to consider that one of the two isn't working for Adler. Which brings us to segment number 2.


Why Mozzie Isn't, or If He Is, Why He's Not the Mastermind


One very simple reason. We see him get shot.

If you would like me to explain that a little better, I'll break it down into parts. One, he gets shot by Adler's hit man. Why would Adler kill his own man. But the same hit man supposedly killed Kate, and it is my theory that Kate is still alive, so why not Mozzie too? Part two, we saw his shooting occur. We watch the hit man shoot Mozzie. It's an offhanded side shot as the man is walking by. It's not a carefully aimed shot calculated to miss vital organs so that Mozzie can live through the shooting and survive to continue working on Neal. We don't see Kate's death. There could very easily have been a complicated (or not so complicated) escape plan that had her off the plane well before it blows up. Just sayin' there's a difference.

For this same reason, Mozzie can not be behind Adler. The argument could be made that Adler decided to have Mozzie killed off once he had learned too much. If Adler is working for Mozzie though, then there is no way Mozzie gets shot casually on the park bench.


Why Mozzie's Isn't In On It: Meta Reasoning

Mozzie is one of the key three characters.
(I distinguish him as one of the key characters by the fact that he had an episode devoted to him. Remember that one where we got to meet his lady friend earlier this summer?)

It is the style of White Collar thus far to follow Neal and Peter, our heroes, and ignore the plot lines of the villains, except in the snippets that Neal and Peter witness them as they cross paths. If Mozzie were to turn out to be working for Adler, or even if Mozzie were the mastermind behind Adler, then he would cease to be a character whose antics the audience is privy too. Either that or the nature of White Collar would have to so drastically change to accommodate the villain's story that it wouldn't really be White Collar anymore.