So here's my comment on the White Collar season finale

[giandujakiss]

I've seen a million posts go by on my FList and I didn't read them to avoid spoilers, but I really only have one comment.

It was only about halfway through the episode that it finally sank in that they've been trying to create sexual tension between Neal and Alex.

My head was so thoroughly absorbed with the true romantic conflict at the center of this show - Neal/Kate versus Neal/Peter - that it literally did not occur to me that the show was trying to suggest there was tension between Neal and Alex.

And then halfway through this episode I'm watching and I'm like - Oh! They were serious about that?

Comments

[delphinapterus]

By the pool scene I'd realized that they wanted to create tension between Neal and Alex but it just never worked for me. I can see a lot of competitive tension between them but it just didn't really seem sexual no matter how the show tried. At this point I'd say Neal has more sexual tension with Pete and El than he does with Alex. I really love the character of Alex and I'm really hoping that White Collar doesn't mishandle her as badly as SPN mishandled Jo in seaosn two.

[giandujakiss]

Even in the pool scene I didn't really perceive it as genuine sexual tension - more like she was teasing or something. And it was only in retrospect that I realized the show actually expected us to see sexual tension, which boggled, because - the story is Neal/Kate or Neal/Peter - Neal/Alex has no role in that.

I ... have no particular liking for the character of Alex, because she reads like a plot device to me. i.e., she's there to advance the music box/Kate MacGuffin, she doesn't strike me as having any more of a role.

[damned_colonial]

I totally see Neal/Alex as a sort of no-strings fuckbuddy thing. Like, they're young, pretty, and naked, hey why not? If I were either of them, I would. But it's not exactly tension, no.

[giandujakiss]

It's not tension at all. And yeah, if I were either of them, sure - but I didn't even get that much. Like, I saw that there was flirting but I didn't take it seriously, I didn't feel like I was supposed to take it seriously, like they might actually hook up - because the show is so overwhelmingly designed around Neal/Kate and Neal/Peter that it just didn't occur to me that they were setting up another romantic interest for Neal. The foil for Kate is Peter, not Alex, and my brain just could not wrap around any other structure :-).

[unusualmusic]

I realized when she gave him the box that they were setting her up as a possible replacement for Kate. I was not impressed.

[giandujakiss]

I don't know what they're doing with that, actually. I pretty much always saw Alex as a plot device - i.e., the mechanism by which Neal gets clues about Kate. I tend to assume Kate's still alive, so I don't think they need a replacement. And they Kate storyline has never been finished - I mean, we don't know anything about what's going on - so I don't see why they'd feel a need to replace her. But neither Alex nor Kate has been particularly developed, so I can't say I'm invested in either of them. I'm just amused because I so completely saw this as a story about whether Neal will choose Kate or choose Peter that I couldn't see that the show was trying to raise a question about Alex as well.

[unusualmusic]

yeah that last part when Peter was trying to stop Neal from boarding the plane pretty much steamrollered over any idea these people were trying to introduce about Neal/Alex. Alex annoyed me anyway. I am so tired of sexy mysterious women to last me ten lifetimes.

[neekabe]

I've been reading Neal as an asexual bi-romantic for the longest time due to their inability to convey sexual tension between Neal and anyone. It might not be intentional, but it's kind of refreshing ^_~

[giandujakiss]

Yeah, I think you're right that he actually doesn't really have great sexual tension with anyone :-). Still, with respect to Alex, my issue was also that it was so obvious to me there wasn't a place for that in the plot - because Neal is clearly caught between Peter and Kate. An affair with Alex just wouldn't have room in there.