Castle – Recovery, conspiracies, and a new captain. Oh my!

I’m not sure I can ever watch an episode of Castle without thinking of Nathan Fillion’s bit in the The Office tribute at Sunday night’s Emmy awards. I will always be thinking of him as “White Castle” forever more. That type of wisecracking, though, is what makes this show so great; and I, for one, am glad to see it back on the air.

I absolutely loved the teaser. The editing, especially as they rolled Beckett to the ER, was intense. The gold-standard for this type of scene will always be ER’s “All in the Family,” where Cook County has to pull together to try to save Carter and Lucy (The scene where Corday, Anspaugh, and Benton are all scrubbing in? Perfection on screen). I especially liked how Beckett’s dad had the sense of mind to calm everyone down. Though, that wouldn’t have been needed if Beckett’s douchebag boyfriend hadn’t gone off (As I start reviewing Castle, I can promise you that nickname would have stuck if she hadn’t already kicked Dr. Josh to the curb).

Often, when the networks send out screeners for us to preview, we’re given specific instructions about certain spoilers. In this case, we were directed to stay away from “Beckett’s final words” in any pre-air pieces that we posted. Now that everyone has seen the episode, I’ve got to ask: was anyone actually surprised when she admitted to her therapist that she remembered everything about the shooting (obviously including Castle’s admission of love)? Earlier in the episode, when she told her partner that she didn’t remember anything, it was transparent that she was lying to everyone, right?

As Brett (if he wasn’t too dedicated to opening a Dale Earnhardt memorial museum in the Pacific Northwest to continue to cover Castle) would mention at this point, this is just another manufactured obstacle for the inevitability of a Castle/Beckett relationship. In this case, I oddly don’t mind. While the writers have teased the relationship more than I would have preferred over the last season and a half, we are nowhere near the territory that Bones has been treading in in the same time period (though, that’s a topic for another day; I think that Carla and my disagreement of the similarities between Castle/Beckett and Booth/Brennan will eventually bubble up into a post in its own right). What it boils down to, though, is that these characters are not ready to be together, and as long as we are not constantly teased about.

Last year, when I predicted Montgomery’s death, I said the following: “Castle’s participation with the NYPD has gotten quite comfortable three years. A new captain, not impressed with Rick Castle’s political connections, could make things interesting.” I knew that someone like Captain Victoria Gates was in our future. However, where I was thinking “interesting,” what we’ve actually seen so far is far from confidence inspiring. Gates is a hard-ass in all of the wrong ways; the team could benefit from someone that they can learn to trust with the details of Montgomery’s involvement in the ongoing case, but she does not look like she can be that type of person.

Speaking of the case, I’m intrigued by the way showrunner Andrew Marlowe has found a way to let it continue to hound Beckett and Castle without it overtaking the focus of the show. The mysterious man that Montgomery sent his files to, the phone call to someone’s “Congressional office” … all of these clues hint to an even bigger conspiracy than we were first led to believe. Despite her decision to back off of the case, Beckett will remain in danger as long as whoever is pulling the strings is revealed. What she has now is just a reprieve until something else goes wrong. Considering Castle going all Charlie Crews with a virtual murder board in his office, I’m sure it will be all his fault.

Notes & Quotes

• Castle’s notes in his research “We created him” is very interesting.
• “Castle, if I don’t do this, I don’t know who I am.” – Beckett
  “You are who you always were. You’re the one who honors the victims. You’re the one who can bring Sonya’s family some peace.” – Castle
• I don’t think you bring in someone of the caliber of John Jackson as a fire chief we’ll never see again.
• The one thing that we can always rely on Castle for is some (purposely) bad puns that I will highlight each week; this episode it was, “Looks like he found a killer hiding place,” by Beckett.
• Proving how close Beckett and Castle really are was the way that Castle was able to talk her through the second time she pulled her weapon.
• I’m not sure I’d want a Klingon as a therapist, but that’s just me.

Clacked by Ivey West
on Sep 19, 2011 @ 22:58 EST5EDT