Remember Bryce Larkin from the much-beloved and yet currently not-on-the-air “Chuck”?  Matt Bomer played Chuck’s nemessis and seems to have a corner on the sexy villain-hero role, because he’s playing a similar character in this new series.  His name is Neil Caffrey, a con-man and mult-tasking criminal, who after serving nearly all of his four-year jail sentence decides to escape maximum security prison and find his girlfriend.  Caffrey is too late, however; she’s fled the country and Peter Burke, the FBI agent who originally caught Caffrey, finds him and puts him back in prison.

Caffrey offers his inside knowledge and experience in helping Burke catch his latest white collar criminal, “the Dutchman,” who has eluded Peter for almost three years.  Burke eventually agrees and Caffrey becomes a paroled, FBI “consultant” who wears an ankle GPS bracelet to track his every move.  Together they try and catch a famous counterfeiter.  Forgery fascinates me, especially on something as specific as a bond or on something as public as artwork.  Do you remember the movie, “Catch me if you can” with all those counterfeit checks and forged documents?  Such attention to detail just doesn’t fit my mental of image of a crook.

Plot aside, Neil is a fun lead character to watch.  Yes, he’s so good-looking it almost hurts, especially once he loses the orange jumpsuit and dons all those fabulous Rat Pack suits.  Fly me to the moon, baby.  He definitely has the charm thing going for him, too.  I couldn’t believe how easily he struck up a conversation with June, a very rich old widow, at the thrift store.  Before you know it she’s given him all her husband’s old yet top-of-the-line suits and she’s letting out her guest room to him.  Nice that it happens to be on the upper east side with an incredible view of Manhattan.  Speaking of views, the locations they shoot on for this show are pretty amazing and make me wish I were in New York with them.

Burke is of course the opposite of, and therefore perfect foil for, Caffrey.  All business, no charm.  How and why he is married to Tiffany Thiesen of Saved by the Bell fame, who appears about fifteen years younger and five times better-looking, continues to baffle.  As Liz would say, “These are Hollywood rules, not real life rules.”  Anyway, the tension and almost friendship between Neil and Peter makes for some fun dialogue, and even if that fails I may still watch it just for the eye candy.  Yum.

White Collar is on USA, Fridays at 10pm, Pacific time.