With the holidays behind us, we can all get back to our regularly scheduled programming. For me, that means the new year kicked off with the newest Castle, “Nikki Heat.” As nice as it was to have some semblance of order returned to the television schedule, it was even better to kick things off with a great episode. And the biggest reason for that was the masterful job that the Castle writers do in handling the professional life of Castle.
There have been plenty of examples of Castle’s life intruding on the precinct in the past, but the arrival of the tornado that was Natalie Rhodes (Laura Prepon) felt like the perfect culmination of all of that. It all finally came together in one big bomb and everybody got hit with it. It was great fun to watch it play out from both angles — Castle’s and Beckett’s — and the reversal half way through made it even better.
It started out just perfect. Castle, despite all of his good qualities, is a tremendously vain man. When Natalie didn’t acknowledge him, and then followed it up with, “I thought your name sounded familiar,” the stage was most definitely set. Add not reading the book, lots of changes in the screenplay, and the way she just generally ignored him and it made for that wonderfully comedic awkwardness that lives somewhere between cringing and laughing.
The switch, when Castle realized that she just really wanted to get it right, was great as well, but more because of the way it completely unnerved Beckett. It’s not a big leap to think that she agreed to Natalie coming in just to put the needles to Castle, so to see it all backfire with the arrival of ‘Creepy Beckett’ was all kinds of fun.They even managed to work in a few Castle/Beckett relationship bits. Although, if I think about that too much I’m going to start asking what’s going on with Davidson and Gina….
I even got a kick out of the running gag about the names of Natalie’s movies — Knife 2, Knife 3D, Hell’s Crawlspace, Mutilation High, Demon Patrol. Like Alexis, apparently, I would watch all of those movies. It all really left me thinking that Nikki Heat is actually a pretty solid idea for a TV movie. ABC already has a relationship with Laura Prepon. The basic story is already written. They’ve got sets. It would make great filler for those times when all the regular shows are on break. I mean, it has to do better than Skating With The Stars, right?
Natalie and all of her shenanigans were so good that they really did overshadow what was a pretty solid case. It suffered from a lack of attention as they got to all of the fun Natalie bits, but the basic premise of Stacie using Duke (David Parker) and Chloe/Greta (Kelly Thiebaud) to set up bad husbands was solid. I did pick Scott Donner (Thomas Calabro) as the baddie as soon as I saw him, but that had more to do with Michael Mancini being a bastard than anything else. All things considered, it all made for a great way to kick off the 2011 television year.
Clacked by Brett Love 
on Jan 03, 2011 @ 23:00 EST5EDT
Brilliant idea, to do a real Nikki Heat movie. Two movies. (Is anything more painful than Skating With The Stars?)
I really enjoyed this episode and it was the perfect one after the hiatus. The Natalie/Nikki plotline was great, moving logically and seamlessly from Castle being upset at both the actress and her lack of appreciation of him, to Prepon doing a wonderful job imitating Beckett, Castle’s appreciation and Beckett’s freak-out. The murder stuff was pretty good too.
I wish they had said something about whether he is still with Gina or not. This way, it looks like he turned down ‘Nikki’ because he’s still with Gina, not because he didn’t want to cheat on Beckett.
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<——- heard SWTS dissing
This way, it looks like he turned down ‘Nikki’ because he’s still with Gina, not because he didn’t want to cheat on Beckett.
Actually we thought the opposite — the fact that *no one* mentioned Gina made it look like he was being faithful to Beckett.
There really was no point in giving them SOs when they’re not even mentioned in places where it would be completely logical to do so. Otherwise though, thought the ep was fantastic, a return to the old crisp form.
Actually we thought the opposite — the fact that *no one* mentioned Gina made it look like he was being faithful to Beckett.
That’s what it looked like but Terri Miller tweeted that Castle is still dating Gina.
More evidence that whatever they intended with the Gina and Josh plots, all they have done is weaken the Castle/Beckett relationship.
And if you’ve got to tweet to make it make sense, something’s really missing, since the other 9 million viewers are not on twitter.
In their favour, this was supposed to air after Poof, You’re Dead, so perhaps there’s something in that ep which clarifies the Gina situation. Doesn’t change the fact that we can’t learn anything about Our Heroes from their relationships with these SO’s when we never actually see (or even hear about) them. Very odd, because they’ve done a reasonable job keeping Ashley in the picture without the actor being onscreen. Even Chet, who we never even met, had more of a presence than Josh or Gina!