Castle – “Vampire Weekend” – review

After a brief layover last week, Castle is back on the train they call The City of New Awesome with a fabulous Halloween episode.  A young man is found dead in a graveyard with a wooden stake through his heart.  His exaggerated canine teeth and the bite marks in his thigh suggest that someone might have taken vampire role-playing fatally far. 

The clues lead them to a cosmetic dentist who specializes in creatures of the night and from there to a vampire society club where a blood-sucking vixen turns them onto the trail of his graphic novel partner…and when he turns up shot to death in werewolf costume, the crazed man the two friends were basing their book on.  Beckett’s team uncovers artwork that shows the face of a woman murdered nearly two decades before, and a forensic recreation of that face in the partner’s apartment that links the artist to a woman he had no apparent relationship with besides psychic visions and haunted dreams….

First of all, I thought this was one of the better (if not the best) mysteries Castle and Beckett have had to unravel.  All the twists and turns, dead ends, and reevaluations of circumstances fit together seamlessly here.  They had two fresh murders and a body from 18 years ago linked by ballistics and the boy’s art—it was both a cold-case and a set of inexplicable crimes, both of which were interesting cases by themselves.

Adding to the investigation were some ghoulish twists to keep things fun.  Aside from the vampire society people and the maybe-psychic, maybe-ghost-inspired artwork, the detectives run into a corpse in an elaborate werewolf costume and a man who is legally insane and who truly believes he is a vampire.  His home contains a coffin; he attacks Castle and manages to bite him before Castle rolls into a patch of sunlight…and the man promptly begins to scream and burn.  He had an allergy to the sun, which didn’t make him a vampire but did reinforce his psychosis-based belief that he was one.  I loved that they had these kinds of seemingly creepy, possibly supernatural elements, that all turned out to have a perfectly logical explanation but made you say “what if” right along with Castle.  (Beckett, of course, wasn’t fooled for a second.)

There was also the build-up the actual Halloween holiday threaded throughout as well.  The opening scene shows Castle trying out a “space cowboy” costume that is, of course, his everyday Cap’n Tightpants wear (AKA Mal Reynolds from Firefly/Serenity).  I loved that little montage of him playing with his gun and even pointing it with a dramatic Mal flourish, cape flying.  Alexis brings him back to earth with a “Didn’t you wear that like 5 years ago?” to remind us how far in the past the captain is.  But I think the writers must be reading my recaps, since this was an obvious throw-me to all the Browncoats out there like me who basically only watch the show for Nathan Fillion, because of his work on Firefly. 

Alexis had a nice part in this story, as well.  Castle has to face that she is may be outgrowing some of their Halloween traditions, and then has another test of his parenting when she asks to go to a senior party.  I will say that I thought the whole “the punch was spiked” was kind of a cop-out on the part of the writers—I think it would be more realistic to have Alexis admitting that she and her friend had knowingly been drinking and her friend just overdid it or had a bad reaction.  But all the same, I loved how quickly Castle dropped everything to go get her, and that he played the responsible adult by calling her friend’s parents regardless of the girls’ pleas.  I think it’s important for us to see that in some ways he really is a responsible and mature man.

We also learned some fun things about him along with Beckett—such as the fact that he jumps and screams like a girl quite easily.  And that as much as he likes and respects Beckett, he’s not willing to open up to her completely yet.  He wouldn’t tell her what tragic or curious event he saw or survived that made him want to be a mystery writer, that fueled his fascination with the myriad means of death.  I loved that Beckett made a point to get him back for toying with her emotions on that subject—and that she didn’t slut herself up for Halloween.  Beckett is a very sexy lady, but she is so dignified and reserved that it would seem out of character for her to show up in some vampy costume.  Well-played.

I enjoyed the writer exchanges that the graphic novel brought out.  Castle started reading it instead of poring over the evidence, which is, of course, what any bibliophile worth his salt would do.  And when Beckett asks him what he meant by “early Frank Miller” and names two of the artist’s periods, and Castle says that was the sexiest thing she’s ever said?  Hilarious.  Also true, because it’s another little piece of Beckett that shows she is perhaps not quite as up-tight, straight-through-the-pin-hole “normal” as she seems just by virtue of not wearing her hobbies and obsessions on her sleeve.  “What you don’t know about me could fill a book,” she teases him—tacit acknowledgment that she enjoys the fact that he’s working on more Nicki Heat?  And, of course, Castle chose another writer for his costume:  Edgar Allen Poe, complete with lace cuffs and a raven.  Per my inner English major:  Hot!

Also on the graphic novel aspect, I really just enjoyed the art they showed.  I’m not a big reader of graphic novels, so I can’t judge its quality against its peers, but it looked pretty damn cool to me.  Ooh, now THAT would be an awesome tie-in product, ABC.  Print THAT next.  (You’re quite welcome, and let me know if you need an address for the check.)

The episode left me feeling good about next week and in the mood for Halloween.  And, really, what more can you ask for from the requisite holiday episode?