"I need to be able to live with myself"

[aragarna]

I'll make a proper and illustrated squee later, but I wanted to talk a little about Peter here, because, as they say on tumblr, Peter needs more love.
Yes, it hurts to see the boys at odds, and it's a complicated situation but I don't want to put the blame on anybody. Yes, Neal did the only things he could to save Peter, and it's legitimate for him to feel like he did the right thing. But Peter is Peter, and from his point of view, this cannot be the right thing.

This is a very complicated for Peter, and I'll try to make it coherent. It was kind of a test, and as a character, I think Peter passed it.
But first of all, I think it's important to point out that after 4 seasons and a half of shenanigans and love, it should be an established fact that Peter cares very much for Neal, so anything that rips them apart is just as painful for Peter as it is for Neal (and for us). Neal feels hurt and betrayed. Peter very much too.

There's a right way and a wrong way.
Peter's a man of law, he believes strongly in his duty to serve Justice. He doesn't place himself above the law, but he needs to be above suspicion and reproach. He has high standards to live up to. To "serve Justice" he needs to be untouchable. He can bend the law, and sometimes obtain leads without warrants - leads, not evidence. But in the end, he always makes sure everything fall back within the law, and that he is serving justice. Bad guys are being arrested and will face trial, he gathers evidence, and protects the victim.
Contrary to Neal's remark, it is not "the end justifies the mean." The mean has to be acceptable. And like I said before, if Peter can venture outside his law book, he will never venture outside the right side of moral.
And faking evidence, bribing a judge, that's simply NOT acceptable. Period.
What would it say about him if he accepted that? That would make him just as corrupted and morally wrong as any of the criminal he arrests. Morally, he should arrest himself.
That conversation with Elizabeth was particularly heartbreaking, and I love Peter so much for his internal troubles. He'd rather risk a trial - that doesn't even look good for him - than compromise himself. And it's not a pose. It's that deep down, he couldn't live with himself if he was corrupted. Peter needs to believe he is a good person.
I need to be able to live with myself.

Now that he knows, he feels like it's his duty to reveal everything, even if the consequences would be disastrous for him.
Of course, in the end, he accepted a compromise, because he's also caring, and Elizabeth should not have to pay the price of his conscience crisis. And neither should Neal.
But accepting this compromise cost Peter a lot, and it's legitimate that he doesn't want to be placed in such a situation again.

Peter is actually terrified of what it means for him, of who he's become. How did he end in a situation where he had no right way out? How come that the only thing to do was to compromise himself, doing something he deeply despises?

During four seasons, Peter thought he was pulling Neal to the right side, showing him he could become someone better. And now he is realizing it's actually Neal who is dragging him on his side. And that's a side Peter doesn't want to go to.
Solving things illegally and against the system always come back to bite you, it only created more chaos. If you think only in term of self-interest and not in a larger view of restoring justice, it doesn't actually solve anything.

So, Peter is also disappointed. In Neal, who he really wanted to believe was becoming a better person, and in himself, for fooling himself in believing so.
There's also the fact that Peter didn't ask for any of this. He was ready to accept the consequences for his actions, because he always does. He'd do anything for Neal, disobey order or help his father, and he's ready to accept the demotions or unfortunate turns of events. If he had lost his job, he would have accepted it, because he was convinced he had still been doing the right thing helping Neal.
Peter has no problems taking full responsiblity for his actions, but it's harder to accept things he didn't do, wasn't asked about and wouldn't have accepted. And it's not just that it's easy to say when you're free, because if it wasn't for El and Neal, he was ready to turn himself in.

Honestly, from Peter's point of view, this is hearbreaking. His whole world has been turned upside down. He feels like a fraud. He is doubting himself, and he feels like distancing himself from Neal is the only way not to lose himself. And because it's an established fact he loves Neal, we know it's costing him a lot. Just like it costs Neal a lot to deceive Peter. And despite everything, Peter couldn't resign himself to arrest Neal. And he kept the Welsh coins off record in Dekker's interrogation.

I honestly don't know how they'll solve this.They'll probably need some sort of cathartic event (hopefully not too catastrophic, and soon enough...). And I'm actually worried that there's still a lot that Peter doesn't know and won't like anymore than the corrupted judge. Hagen. Siegel's death.
But I was looking forward to (and dreading at the same time) that moment where Peter will discover the truth about his release, and I have to say, I am satisfied of the treatment. I like that the show dared going fully into the moral dilemna for Peter, and managed to keep him true to his character. It would have been much easier for everyone (mainly us) if Peter had accepted the situation with a pat in Neal's back. But that would have compromised Peter, as a character. That would have made him no better than all those TV cops who think they know better and think they're above the law and the system.
I'm proud of my show for not taking the easy road, and for not sweeping it all under the rug like I've seen so many other shows do (NCIS, The Mentalist...).
And god, I'm glad we won't be left rotting several months after that episode!

ETA: make sure to also read veleda_k's anlysis HERE, who adds a very important point: from what Peter knows now, it's Neal who stole the gold to bribe the judge on his own.

If you think Burke is a jerk, please refrain from commenting. I don't think he deserves any hate or any less love than Neal.
If you're willing to courteously add your own observations, please feel free to join the conversation.

Comments

[aragarna.livejournal.com]

You and Sheenianni bring a very valid point. But I think Peter makes a distinction between law and justice/moral.
Whatever he does, he is still serving Justice. This might be naive, or maybe wrong at time, but this is what he believes in (like Neal believes in the fact that helping someone is a valid reason to break all the rules).

I've read several comments about Peter using Neal and making do illegal things for a case, and then calling him out on other occasion.
But Peter is just using Neal as his CI. A criminal informant doesn't need a warrant to gather intel. And I don't recall them ever gathering evidence that way. They would simply find a lead, make progress in the investigation, and then, will caught the bad guys properly, with all the warrants and acceptable evidence and willing confessions.
In the end, the bad guys are brought to justice, victims find repair, and justice *is* served. It makes the system work. This is about restoring order. As Sheenianni says, Peter understands the shades of gray, but he always uses them for a morally right reason.

But here the situation is different, it's only a temporary fix that can come back to bite them anytime. And that only feeds the rampant corruption. From Peter's point of view, Justice cannot be served by bribing a judge, where's the restoration of order in that? It just makes him one of them. He should arrest himself, and from what he knows, it's Neal who bribed the judge, he should very much arrest Neal.


I don't know, maybe I'm blinded by my own bias, but I do see a difference.
Note that I really don't condemn Neal's action, but I still think Peter has a legitimate right to feel betrayed.

And in the end, I think Peter's biggest problem is what the compromise he was forced to do makes of him. Maybe he *was* corrupted before, but it's only now that he sees it. And he has no way out.

Anyhow, I do agree that this is a valid point and even if in Peter's mind there is a difference, it's probable that it's not that clear in Neal's.

Thank you both for stepping in, and sharing your view. :-)

[sheenianni.livejournal.com]

I've just read another valid point mentioned by veleda_k, and that is that Peter doesn't know exactly what happened - he doesn't know that his prosecutor was crooked and he was never going to get a fair hearing. So the way Peter sees it, Neal has simply decided not to have faithin the system (again), bribed the prosecutor while acting on his own and thus destroyed Peter's chances of being acquainted without even trying to let the system do its work first.

This leads me to another question - how much does Peter actually know or thinks he know? We know that he suspects Neal of helping Mozzie, of stealing the 2 million and of being involved with Siegel's death. So, because Peter isn't stupid, I sincerely doubt that he thinks that this was all about just the prosecutor and the coins. Which of course only gives him more reasons to be upset, angry and, frankly, frightened.

As for Peter being compromised, to a degree, he has been compromised for a long time (as Kramer points out in Judgment Day). But I guess the difference is that Peter had chosen that course of action back then knowing the consequences, whether here it had been forced on him by Neal. Also, in this case, if Peter was ever to be blackmailed by this, he will have to expose Neal who was only trying to help (no matter how much Peter hates the way he went about it) - so not only Neal has compromised Peter, he has also put him in a position where at anytime he might be forced to incriminate Neal and send him to jail, and I imagine that that must also hurt a lot on some level.

All in all, I feel genuinely sorry for Peter (and Neal of course) - and I still stand by what I said; that no matter their current estrangement, the only way they can resolve this is by working as a team. I really hope that they BOTH realize that before it'S too late.

[aragarna.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure Peter has make a connection with Siegel's death. He seemed convinced when he told Jones he doesn't believe Neal was hiding info.
Though when that will come out...

But I agree with what you say, and yes, I really hope they'll be back on the same page soon! I don't want the whole rest of the season with them upset! They need it, and we need it too!

[doctor-fangeek.livejournal.com]

Just popping in on this part of the whole conversation to say, "Me three," to the I hope they're back on the same page soon.

[sheenianni.livejournal.com]

I don't know... I had the feeling that Peter wasn't really as certain as he sounded when he was telling Jones that Neal wasn't involved... I think he wants to believe it, but at the same, it seemed to me that he was trying to protect Neal - to not voice that suspicion until he was absolutely certain (because once he did, it could very well be over for Neal). But that was just my impression of the scene and the subsequent events.

I guess we'll jsut have to wait and see how it plays out.

[aragarna.livejournal.com]

True. It can be seen either way. I don't know...

[doctor-fangeek.livejournal.com]

I would agree that Peter's biggest problem here is probably the fact that this solution, which he didn't ask for and doesn't condone, was forced on him, and he doesn't see any way out that doesn't leave him compromised in some way. As I said in my comment above, I understand why Peter is angry about it. I don't even necessarily think that Neal being encouraged to use his skill set, contacts, etc. in the service of the FBI is a big problem. Conning the bad guys to bring them to justice is what he's supposed to be doing (though I can also see where Winterstar is coming from on that point).

That said, there are examples in the series that go beyond that, a couple of which I noted in my original comment. Just this season, Peter is okay with Neal drugging the psychiatrist to get a confession (which certainly seems like him doing something illegal to obtain evidence). And as I noted above, Peter steals a surveillance tape to protect Neal from being sent to jail. When Neal steals and erases the tape Fowler is going to use as evidence that Peter bribed a judge, Peter thanks him. In one of those cases, Peter breaks the law to help a friend, and it has nothing to do with solving the case or "restoring order." And in the other, while preventing Peter from being falsely accused of bribery is ultimately important to getting the bad guy, it's hardly the case of a criminal informant "gathering intel."

I do note that you aren't condemning Neal's actions here. Note that neither am I saying that Peter doesn't have reason to feel angry or even betrayed. :-) But I also think that essentially telling Neal that he (Peter) was foolish to think that Neal could be better, that he could behave in any other way, with the clear implication that Neal didn't even try to do anything else, was not entirely fair. And that given past events, Peter is on somewhat shaky ground.

[aragarna.livejournal.com]

Yes, actually you're right. And I had forgotten about the shrink.

I am certainly not condemning Neal's actions. I did say from day one it was stupid and would come back to bite him, but it was out of love, and it was certainly a huge sacrifice. To me, Neal sacrificed his own redemption for Peter's sake.

But as Veleda pointed out in her recent post (http://veleda-k.livejournal.com/353546.html#). Peter doesn't know the whole story. All he knows is that Neal stole the coins to pay a judge. That's where his "you couldn't help yourself" is coming from. I'm not totally sure why Neal doesn't want to talk about Hagen. But until he does, Peter has no way to think Neal was forced to do anything. It was Neal's entire responsibility.

[sheenianni.livejournal.com]

I'd say that the reasons why Neal doesn't meantion Hagen are pretty clear:
a) he helped him go free, therefore setting loose a killer, comittign a crime, breaking Peter's trust and destroyingthe first case peter and Neal had ever closed
b) he is still trying to protect Peter and keep him out of this as much as he can
c) Peter being already furious enough
d) Siegel.

Of course it's going to come to bite them in the ass, but at the same time... I can sympathize with Neal's reasons to play this close to the vest, even though he's probably making another mistake.

[doctor-fangeek.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the link - very interesting point. And I agree, both that Neal sacrificed his own redemption for Peter and that Peter not knowing the whole story makes Neal look worse (and makes Peter's anguish even more understandable). I still think it's problematic that in other cases it was "okay" for both Neal and Peter to commit a crime to help a friend, and I also still think that Peter is implying that Neal basically defaulted to a criminal solution (which, even if Hagen hadn't been involved and Neal had actually done what Peter thinks he's done, wouldn't be true). That said, I *also* think that Peter's reaction makes more sense in light of what he actually knows (and doesn't know), and I feel like I understand it/him better in light of that.

Also, thanks to you, too, for the good discussion. It is most welcome.