Archive for the ‘Castle Reviews’ Category

Finally, the show that used to be so much fun was…BACK!

Yes, thanks to the partnering of Fillion and guest star and former Firefly bud Adam Baldwin, we were actually entertained for an entire episode. No angst. No pressure. No stupid goo-goo eyes. And no voodoo forensics! Just a fun, fun hour (42 minutes) of good TV-watching. Oh, did I mention this episode was fun? In fact, this episode was so good I didn’t pay a lot of attention to the case, even though I sort of guessed the killer (Michael McGrady, who also played Detective Sallinger on Southland) when I first saw him on screen.

Anyway, this is how it’s supposed to be, making fiction seem real instead of ridiculous. Good job.

What’s you think, Melanie?

Melanie Atkins

What a great episode! Finally, the writers returned to that fun mix of drama and comedy that got us hooked on this show in the first place. I’ve missed that lately. Rick continued to be borderline obnoxious with his search for new inspiration, however, and he’s also hiding college acceptance letters from Alexis. I wanted to pinch him for that alone.

He’s not getting any inspiration from Kate right now because he’s still too busy being an ass — in my opinion, anyway — so he decides to believe the old adage that the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence and bargains with a detective he sees on the news, a rogue cop dealing with a high profile case involving severed heads, until the man agrees to let him follow him.

The only problem? He’s never met Detective Ethan Slaughter. So he approaches Kate to get more info about the man. She’s startled and so very happy to see him when he appears beside her desk and greets her like he used to, with two coffees and a disarming smile. Then she learns the real reason for his charming presence, and her face falls. Not only is he giving her the cold shoulder, but now he wants to follow another detective. Stana Katic does a great job portraying Kate’s pain.

Detective Slaughter is played by Nathan Fillion’s old Firefly pal Adam Baldwyn, and although I’ve only seen a couple of episodes of that show, I got the symbolism of Rick giving Slaughter his brown leather coat. As in, the Browncoats… from Firefly. They probably wove in a few other references, but I didn’t catch those. I’m sure others did, however.

Slaughter is a rough hewn detective known as the Widowmaker because his last three partners were killed in the line of duty. His brusque, irreverent style, blatant disregard for any rules except his own, and fast car impress Rick. Then the detective asks him about Kate and wants to know if he’s tapping her, and Rick tells him no. He and Kate are just friends. Slaughter scoffs at him and says, “A man who needs a friend gets a dog. A woman like that… you storm the beaches or die trying.” Hmmm.

Slaughter gives Rick a gun and sends him in the front door of a club all by himself. I laughed out loud when Rick yells, “NPDY!” and gets in a crazy fight that ends with him getting with a bloody nose and then knocking the guy out with a beer bottle. So funny!

After the fight, Rick walks into the Twelfth with a swagger in his step and a gleam in his eye — and runs headlong into an angry Kate Beckett. Slaughter wastes no time checking out the way her jeans fit her backside, and I don’t think Rick even notices. Grrrr! She gives Rick hell for teaming up with Slaughter, and he’s a bit taken aback because… didn’t they get the guys they were after? He turns to Ryan and Esposito for help with the case when Kate turns away, and they milk it for all it’s worth.

Kate apparently still hasn’t figured out Rick overheard her in the interrogation room, and that bothers me. But at least she goes to see her therapist after her confrontation with Rick. The psychiatrist doesn’t give her any answers, but he does make her think about what she wants to do about her partner’s defection. Does she want to confront him about leaving her? To try to move on? To forget he ever existed? She has a lot to think about.

As they wait for a suspect to show up at another location, Slaughter tells Rick he’d “go all caveman on that partner of yours. Show her what time it is in real man land.” Then he says something about Alexis, who’s still interning in the morgue, and Rick punches him. I love that scene. He’s such a good dad, and he defends his daughter’s honor with clumsy grace. I believe that’s when he finally begins to realize Slaughter isn’t such a nice guy.

The boys end up saving Rick and Slaughter’s bacon when they go into yet another situation without backup — and once they return to the precinct, Rick learns Kate was in on it, too. That she was following the case and had looked up important information. “You did this for me?” he says, obviously shocked. “All this time, you had my back.” Yes, dummy… she does have your back. Open your eyes!

Kate jumps into the case with both feet, and Rick soon comes to the conclusion that Slaughter isn’t the kind of detective he wants to write about after all, that maybe the grass isn’t greener on his side of the fence. And Rick finds himself partnered again with Kate, where he should’ve been after all, and they find the real killer.

The last scene brings Rick yet another revelation, when Alexis opens all of her college letters and learns that Stanford — her first choice and the school that denied her early admission — has also accepted her. She has trouble getting over that rejection, and Rick says, “Do you want it badly enough… to get over being hurt?”

That question seems to open his eyes and make him think of Kate. So maybe, just maybe, he’s going to stop acting like such an ass and apologize to Kate. I hope so! Unfortunately, we won’t know for two weeks, because the next new Castle episode doesn’t air until April 30. Only two more episodes to go in season four. I have my shipper hat on and am ready and waiting for a little Caskett happiness.

Lee Lofland

As I said earlier, I didn’t pay a lot of attention to the police stuff because I was too busy enjoying the show. But I absolutely must mention the appearance of the new pathologist, who played her part quite well. She delivered brief, but believable lines, with authority, not as if she were reading a fairytale to the audience. And, she was actually doing stuff a real M.E. would do, complete with evidence (bullets) in a sealed evidence bag. Nope, not a pin-stuck doll or Ouija Board in the place. How refreshing!

The severed head/murder case took a back seat to the antics of Detective Slaughter and Castle, who, by the way, delivered some great one-liners throughout the show. Such as:

Slaughter on the victim’s cause of death – “Let me guess…lead poisoning.” (an old cop’s joke about being shot)

Castle naming his fists “Jake and the Fatman.”

Slaughter to Castle – “Do not use the word ‘awesome.’ You’re a grown man.”

Castle tells Slaughter that he and Beckett are just friends. Slaughter replies, “Man needs a friend he gets a dog.”

Slaughter to Castle – “I need a writer hanging around like I need a case of the crabs.” (a sentiment felt by many real-life cops).

Slaughter referring to guy in rear compartment of garbage truck – “Better stand back, this guy’s gonna pop like a grape.”

And that’s pretty much how the entire episode went, until Beckett and crew showed up. Then the show gradually oozed back into the darkness we’ve been watching for what seems like an eternity. For some reason, when those guys showed up they seemed to suck the life out of what had, up to that point, been a great deal of fun.

However, the good far outweighed the very little bad. What a great episode of Castle…the Castle we once knew. Even Nathan Fillion was back to his old self this week. There was a spring in his step and an edge on his dialog that we haven’t seen in quite a while. I wish we’d see that lightness continue, but I fear not because the characters have to somehow deal with the dark cloud of unrealistic, pre-teen romance the writers have hanging over their heads.

Actually, I’d rather see Castle and Beckett discover that they’re totally incompatible as romantic partners. Then they could go back to being friends and get this show back on track.

For now, though, I certainly hope to see more episodes like we saw last night. After all, Castle even briefly talked about writing a book, and isn’t that what the show is supposed to be about, a mystery writer tagging along with a detective as part of his research? That, not saving the world, is what made the show so much fun.

Overall, I gladly give this one a hearty thumbs-up.

Once again (as if I had any doubt), this show opened and headed straight for the land of all-too-familiar. The same-old same-old. The tired and old story we see week in and week out.

We get it, Marlowe. You’re milking your fans for every last drop of “I wanna watch” juice. The problem is, even the characters are beginning to look tired. Yes, even Castle seems to have lost some energy. I mean, how many times does it take to repeat the same thing over and over again before everyone loses interest?

My opinion of this episode is far less than favorable. Even the guest star annoyed me with that horrible mangled accent. In fact, I could only understand something like every third mumbled line. Anyway, let’s see what always-happy-about-the-show Melanie has to say. Maybe she found a bright spot somewhere is this mess.

Melanie Atkins

Welcome to the big black moment. Yes, that’s right. We’ve reached the darkest days for our two wanna-be lovebirds. The moment in any good romance when all is lost and the reader — or in this case, the viewer — decides the couple in question will never get together. Yet we shouldn’t lose hope. You know the saying: It’s always darkest before the dawn.

When The Limey begins, Kate is still reeling from Rick’s cold shoulder — the change of heart that resulted from her inadvertently revealing she remembers everything about her shooting, including his desperate I love you — and yet she has no idea he knows that she knows (does that make sense?). Or maybe she just doesn’t want to know.

Lanie finally talked some sense into Kate during a girl’s night in and convinced her to tell Rick how she feels. I really loved one of her lines: “How long can you circle before the fuel runs out?” Perfection. Still, even that sage advice did absolutely no good at all, because Rick picked up right where he left off last week — only this time, he showed up with a shapely blonde flight attendant in tow. A blonde he allowed to drive his red Ferrari. They went on date after date, and that hurt Kate. To top it off, she and Rick are out of sync at the precinct, too… no fun theory building or playful eye sex this week. Just pained looks and hurt expressions.

Kate even went undercover with the handsome, sexy Colin Hunt from Scotland Yard, turning Rick’s head when she appeared wearing a gorgeous black strapless dress, yet that still wasn’t enough to keep his attention. He’s hurting, and he’s showing out. To say he’s acting like a passive-aggressive middle schooler is putting it mildly. Come on, Rick. Grow up!

He’s not the only one at fault, however. Kate had the perfect opportunity at the end of the show to tell Rick how she really feels, but does she? Of course not. She clams up again and lets him walk away. Aarrgghh!

This is getting very, very old — and in the next episode, three weeks from now, Rick abandons Kate to work with Detective Ethan Slaughter. I do believe, though, that we have indeed reached the big black moment in their relationship. Stana Katic herself has said that happiness is just around the corner for our dynamic duo, and that Caskett shippers will be smiling by the end of the season. I certainly hope so. Because right now, I’m drowning in angst!

Lee Lofland

The case this week was a disaster. Seriously, think about it…a woman’s boyfriend, the only man she ever loved, was flying around in a helicopter that was shot down by a smuggled missile. So, like any normal girlfriend in the good old U.S. of A., she decides to take it upon herself to find the missile smugglers. Now that’s always an easy task, right? You know…work eight hours, eat dinner, do a little laundry, watch a little TV, and, oh, yeah, run out and catch me a couple of international smugglers who’re selling stinger missiles by the dozens. Doesn’t everyone do that sort of thing? Puleeze…

Lanie was the only bright spot in this episode. Yeah, you heard me right. That’s how bad it was for me. Yep, I was actually hoping to see and hear more of Lanie. Of course, she didn’t disappoint, starting with her comment, “She was strangled, but she didn’t go down without a fight.” How did she know the woman fought back? According to Lanie, the bruise near the eye was an indication that she’d defended herself. What’d she do, hit her attacker with her face? Now, that’s going down fighting, for sure.

And the fingerprint thing… So now Lanie is not only NYC’s chief medical examiner, firearms expert, toxicologist, and trace evidence expert, she’s also a certified fingerprint examiner. Just so you know, M.E.’s do not compare and match fingerprints.

- Beckett and crew heads to bad accent guy’s hotel room where a hotel employee uses his key to let them inside. Well, they’d need a warrant to make that entry. Hotel employees cannot allow access to someone’s room. When you stay at a hotel you’ve rented that place for the night. You’re basically a tenant, and landlords cannot give permission for a search of their renter’s property. On the other hand, if the police had a warrant the employee could open the door to prevent damage, and to make the entry safer for the police (he could also give them the key, if they have the warrant).

- Beckett steals the bad guy’s card case from his pocket while they’re dancing. And that’s exactly what she did, she stole it. Not legal. However, had he tossed the item in the trash, well, then it’s fair game.

- Castle’s family was missing from this episode. Good or bad? Actually, I was pleased that we weren’t subjected to Alexis’ morgue nonsense. And to miss Mama Castle’s out of place actor-type scenes was also quite pleasing. However, I like the mother and daughter/granddaughter in the show when they’re adding something useful to help the story along.

There really isn’t a lot to discuss about the criminal case, because it was weak…really weak. As usual, suspect number one was a wash. And, the choice of using the “cop-as-a-suspect” recurring theme is also getting really old. Hey Marlowe, it’s okay to use a new idea once in a while. I promise we won’t mind.

Watching this show is like listening to a metronome’s never-ending tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick…

I have a great idea! Since this show used to be about a mystery writer, why don’t we invite Mr. Marlowe and the entire cast to the Writers’ Police Academy for a chat session with some of the the top mystery writers in the country? Then the Castle folks could get an idea of what it’s like to write mysteries, learn about real cops, real procedures, and forensics, and maybe even get a few new ideas. What do you think?

Oh, one last thought. The Biggie Slim guy…another disappointing killer. Please come to the WPA, guys. We can help. Really, we can.

There were a couple of note-worthy lines in this episode:

“People change when you’re not looking.”  ~Beckett

“How long can you circle before the fuel runs out?” ~Lanie

*Remember, folks, I write the sections about the police stuff at the requests of writers who want to know if the procedure used on this show is realistic. Yes, I do realize the show is fiction and I do realize this isn’t a cop show. But please do keep those hate-mail cards and letters coming. It’s so nice to hear from you.