GOD i forgot about Agent Rice but literally that was one of the first episodes where i was like damn these people do not give 2 fucks about Neal because besides Peter and his immediate team, it seemed that nobody cared about Neal being taken??? And and and!!!! the worst part is that Rice gets away with it with like a slap on the wrist and saying "i didnt know wilkes would take neal, he just said he wanted a meeting" when LITERALLY earlier that day, Rice asks Neal when the last time he saw Wilkes was, and Neal replies "Probably when he tried to kill me". LIKE!!!!
From the get go, Rice and everyone in the FBI *KNOW* that Wilkes wants Neal dead, and HAS TRIED BEFORE!!! and that doesn't stop Rice from giving him up, and she simply deflects when it happens and tries to pass it off like she didn't know that would happen, but realistically she did. It was the first episode where you get a CLEAR AS DAY sense that Neal gets treated as less than human compared to the other workers at the FBI because hes a felon, and gets treated as disposable (though this is discounting peter, obviously, who sees Neal as more of an equal) for that same reason. Its like his life just doesnt have the same value simply bc hes a criminal/not a regular worker.
Honestly, what happened in Front Man was the best case scenario in the situation Rice put him in. Wilkes could have just killed Neal straight away, instead of forcing him to be Wilkes' front man. There was no guarantee he wouldn't. And if the FBI hadn't found him in time, Wilkes wouldve killed him anyway. Like imo Neal was way too forgiving in that episode. And Rice for sure got off easy because she should've been fired the moment she handed Neal over, but she's just taken off the lead and replaced like thats an appropriate punishment for something like that????
On the one hand, Rice is infuriating for all the reasons you say, but I appreciate how deliberately dehumanizing this episode was. It's very intentional in how it treats Neal—from Rice calling him "a tool in [her] belt" to feeding him to the sharks as a very slim chance that Wilkes would just give up the Lindsey once he had Neal (and really, what kind of sense did that make to Rice? If all he wanted was Neal, why not just take Neal? Wouldn't it be easier to grab him off the street than to go through with the kidnapping of a rich guy's daughter?").
Also, an I recently just had this conversation with another fandom friend, I consider this episode to be pinnacle WC. It has the boys at their best: Peter missing Neal as a friend, Neal relying on Peter, Peter being snotty to Rice on Neal's behalf and Neal thumbs-upping him with a nice! over it, and then also Neal putting himself in harms way to do what's right—it's all around quintessentially what I love and expect in a WC episode.
Including the fact that Neal is treated as less than human by everyone but Peter (et al), and that's part of what makes the show so interesting.
Also I want to see Rice's "disciplinary committee," and learn that there were actually consequences for what amounted to attempted murder of a CI.
