This week’s installment of Castle continued the upward trend, or at least maintained its level from last week. I find that I am allowing myself to be charmed by Castle’s antics and wise-cracks, and I can’t decide if this is based in familiarity or a genuine improvement in the scripts. Either way, I found myself laughing out loud in a few places, for the first time.
The murder under investigation was of a local politician in the midst of a reelection campaign. He is found in a dumpster, wrapped in a carpet that had come from one of the hotels of a real estate developer the politician had just erection-blocked. (He killed the man’s plans to build a new hotel, y’all, stop being dirty.) Castle and Beckett have an amusing exchange about red herrings–namely, that in the real world the police don’t stop investigating someone because he seems too guilty based on the evidence.
But Castle of course turns out to be right–the hotel magnate was not the killer. He tells them freely that he didn’t need to kill the councilman; he just had to wait because he’d been assured of the opposition’s victory.
They go to the opposition, who admits that he’d investigated the councilman and found at least one skeleton in his closet: the “family-values” man was having an affair with a buxom blonde half his age…who turns out to be a prostitute from a high-price call girl website. (Hm, NY politician and a hooker; semi-current events crack there?) Beckett and Castle have another funny argument over who can track down this Tiffany faster–the detective chasing down the physical location of the IP address or Castle simply calling the number as a prospective client.
Castle wins that argument, too, and when they meet Tiffany she gives them reason to believe the councilman was being blackmailed. The only question is, by whom? Who had the most to gain from tapping into his personal fortune, or by exposing his hypocrisy? And did this person kill him when he refused to be blackmailed…or was the one crime separate from the other?
The case stuck with the show’s now-usual pattern of multiple layers and suspects that slowly unravel.
It continued to develop the partnership between Castle and Beckett…and then it kicked up the sexual tension at the end. I am kind of afraid they’ve rushed the sexy factor. We’re only 4 episodes in. They’ve barely had time to get used to each other. I think it could have waited another 3-4 episodes, myself, but at least the foreshadowing of a possible romance between them started tonight. The coroner/medical examiner was teasing Beckett about not having any girl friends or ever having any fun, so why didn’t she see Castle outside of work since he’d at least be good for the latter? And Beckett decides to go to Castle’s reading for his new novel’s release to, as she put it, bother him in his place of work. She shows up in a skimpy cocktail dress, and he gets all goggle-eyed and tongue-tied about it. Not as funny as it could have been if she’d been in pants longer.
In all, another entertaining episode in a series that is designed to be entertaining, period–no strings attached and no deeper meanings ascribed.
