Castle: The Nose – A Good Cop/Bad Cop Review
“You’re easier to be around when I can’t smell you.” ~ Mia, “The Nose,” to Castle
This week’s Castle episode, The Nose, brought back more of the humor we love, and yet it had an incredibly sad undercurrent, thanks to Kate still keeping her distance from Rick. I laughed out loud many times while watching this one, but at the end I wanted to cry.
Most of the show revolved around the sense of smell—surprising, since the case of the week involved a murder over a stolen painting. Turns out a strange woman with an acute sense of smell witnesses the murder and eventually gives Kate and Rick a clue that helps them find the real killer. Yes, they built theory together, proving they’re still in sync. I really won’t get into the case itself, but will leave that dissection to Lee.
I will, however, comment on something that really bothered me. Esposito and Ryan went into a building after a suspect, split up, and Ryan ended up shooting Espo in the butt. I know things like this can happen when partners don’t follow protocol when clearing a room (I learned that at the WPA!)… but I also feel sure that Ryan should not have been able to go right back to work after the incident. Nobody took his gun, nobody questioned either of them, and nobody, not even Captain Beckett, said a word about it. Really? Wow. I know the show must take place in only 40 minutes or so, but one sentence could have added a little realism to this scenario. Right, Lee?
Kate is still down the rabbit hole, living only God knows where, and apparently she’s running out of clothes. We learn this when Rick shows up expectantly at the precinct, and she tells him she needs to stop by the loft to “pick up the rest of her stuff”. I was surprised he didn’t argue with her, but finally decided he probably feared that his doing so might only push her further away. So heartbreaking.
The woman with the keen sense of smell, better known as The Nose, was hilarious. She tested perfume for several companies, and that made a lot of sense considering how much bad smells bothered her. Her scenes with Castle really cracked me up—especially the decontamination scene and the one in which he needed to convince her to go back to the precinct with him. I also loved the “smell” lineup. Hahaha!
The Nose also served another purpose: Through her, we learned that Kate really does still love Rick, thanks to the strong pheromones she gives off whenever he enters the room. That fact alone seemed to give him new hope, especially after Kate told him she needed to pickup the rest of her things from the loft.
She couldn’t possibly have gotten “the rest of her stuff”, however, because when she arrived at loft after solving the case—with him not yet home—she only brought the same small bag she’d taken when she first left. She shoved an armful of clothes into it, then turned and spotted his shirt on the couch in his office. With tears in her eyes, she picked it up and pressed it to her nose, drawing in his scent and reveling in it. She does still love him. I don’t understand why she won’t come home. It’s so ridiculous. She did leave Rick one of her NYPD T-shirts, though, and in the last scene, he comes into the loft looking for her, spies the shirt, and lifts it to his nose to draw in her scent. Yes, he still loves her, too. I can’t wait for the day when the powers-that-be finally bring them back together. Can’t happen soon enough for me.
Please note: We will get no new episodes of Castle until November 9th, when Cool Boys airs. That one will be “Beckett-lite” (which should please Lee to no end), because Stana apparently had a provision in her contract to allow her to attend Fashion Week in Milan the week they filmed it. They do, however, bring back Detective Ethan Slaughter, played by Adam Baldwyn, from season four, so that should be fun. Then only two more episodes to go until episode eight, when the dynamics of Kate and Rick’s relationship will apparently shift again. I don’t know what will happen, but I do know that I crave more Caskett happiness. Enough of this contrived angst!
Lanie deserves the accuracy award this week. I know…but she really does. However, that’s not saying much. Two GSW’s (gunshot wounds) at close range was the cause of death (COD) she offered as explanation as to how the victim died. Although she couldn’t positively say this was the official COD until autopsy, it was a reasonable conclusion at the time. She even said she based the time of death (TOD) on the 911 call from a witness. This was a refreshing move since she typically pulls the TOD from…well, I’ll be polite and simply say, she grabs the TOD from thin air (not the actual place I was thinking of).
When examining the armored car, Espo (or Ryan) mentioned the vehicle having run-flat tires installed, in addition to Kevlar panels in the doors. It was Beckett who noticed the windows were all bulletproof/resistant. Run-flat tires are basically typical tires with the addition of a couple of modifications. Some run-flats are available for everyday passenger cars. These tires feature reinforced sidewalls that allow the driver to continue on for 50 miles or so, traveling on the beefy sidewalls even after a tire has deflated.
However, run-flats on armored vehicles usually feature a much sturdier solution—internal rollers. Such as…
Now for silly and unrealistic—Ryan shooting Esposito in that place where the sun doesn’t shine. Sure, accidents do, unfortunately, happen. But shooting someone’s sillouette as he passes by behind a backlit tarp is, well, totally unrealistic. And, speaking of unrealistic… No internal affairs investigation into the shooting? No suspension for discharging a weapon at a target Ryan could not see? No nothing for doing something so dumb?
Finally, the show ended with Beckett and Castle each having a good whiff of the other’s clothing. Fortunately, I suppose, they didn’t smell like Ryan and Esposito—like soiled baby diapers and satan’s butt sweat.
