8 Alternate TV Endings Much Better Than What We Got

White Collar brought the curtain down with master conman Neal Caffrey pulling off his sneakiest stunt: faking his death so he could escape to Paris and rob the Louvre.

But an alternative conclusion outlined by creator Jeff Eastin sounds more creative, positioning Matt Bomer's charming crook at a crossroads and giving viewers a glimpse at two potential endgames for the character.

Eastin's original idea was to have Peter willingly release Neal from FBI servitude, a move which would either see him go on to become the world's greatest criminal, or the finest agent in the FBI's white collar division in the long run.

The showrunner told TVLine...

"I had a different ending [in which] Peter finally released Neal. This was going to be the moment when Neal has to decide what he’s going to do. And so he walked up to the Flatiron building in New York, and he’s tossing a coin. In one version, the coin lands heads, and he goes to the right and he gets in a limo with Mozzie and they go off to be the greatest criminals ever.

"Then we’re back with Neal, and he’s standing at that same intersection, tosses the coin and it comes up tails and he goes left and he goes to the FBI. We realise it’s a few years later and Neal’s taken over Peter’s job as head of the White Collar Crime division and he’s now an FBI agent and very happy."

White Collar's original ending would have given the fans two conclusions for the price of one and highlighted both aspects of Neal's character. Moreover, viewers could essentially have made up their own mind about which direction they wanted the protagonist to head it, kind of like one of those old-school adventure books.

There was nothing wrong with the ending which aired per se, but it left a lingering question regarding the protagonist's ultimate fate in Paris. The alternate one would have done much the same, but with double the possibilities.