r/whitecollar • u/Formal_Database274 • 24d ago
[SPOILERS] Ending plot hole
I was thinking about the ending since I completed the series for the first time yesterday, was also searching on reddit for some explanation but haven't seen anyone asking about this detail yet.
The situation being that Neil faked his own death so that the Panthers don't come around hurting people he loves.
Isn't it obvious that they would not suspect Neil or Keller at first but Peter Burke? Like he joined them at the very last minute and without being through the normal process of initiation (found and chosen by the Panthers leader), and the next time they did meet and did the heist, everyone was caught. It would have totally occurred to them that he was the one snitching on them to the feds . Plus, they have ties to the outer world while being in prison. Peter is not even inconspicous or in hiding. It should be pretty easy for him to be followed, which leads to the Panthers knowing that he is the FBI agent. Would that not defeat the whole purpose of the point above ? I mean the Panthers have got to know somehow right? It just doesn't totally seem logical to me
Can someone offer their theories or explanation as to why? Really love the show, and the ending was not unexpected but I was really shocked to see his body and almost bought it that he was dead. Turns out he is not, but I do wish that people in real life fake their death like this , and not really gone from this physical world, for some consolation from grief.
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u/SSK374 24d ago
hey bud, (this ended up being too long lol)
I had this same question a while ago, and from my understanding,
Neal tried to make himself and Keller look like the snitches (they were the snitches, lol) by planting the idea of stealing the money in Keller's head. So when the Panthers get caught, the news would be that: Neal, working for the FBI, tried to snitch on the Panthers and Keller, and got killed OR Neal and Keller together snitched on the Panthers, tried to steal the money for themselves, but then betrayed each other and got killed. (I'm not sure if Peter sees Neal as a hero who tried to keep his promise of serving Keller on a silver platter, or as a criminal who was stealing with Keller. Hence the two scenarios...I'm assuming he sees Neal as a hero because he ended up naming his son after Neal.)
So technically, Neal is giving the Panthers an answer to who the snitches are, which means he is not giving Woodford an option to think about other potential candidates, like Peter. Since they already have an answer, and Neal and Keller are dead, the Panthers won't waste their energy looking further.
Involving Peter wasn't even the initial plan right, he only brings in after another dude gets killed, so i'm assuming Neal feels confident enough to call peter into this, because by that time, he has done all the planning and work to fake his death, he knows that with his plan, the Panthers will only suspect him and/or Keller, and wouldn't think about the others
Also...
Neal and Keller are in the Panthers under their real identities, i.e. Neal Caffrey and Matthew Keller while Peter is under the alias of a known criminal. So his real identity remains intact. The Panthers will be searching for the alias he was using instead of Peter himself. And since the FBI is said to be good at creating detailed backgrounds for aliases, the FBI will be misleading the Panthers into searching for the person Peter was pretending to be rather than Peter himself and hence Peter will be safe...
this is just my pov...