Castle – “Love Me Dead” – review

When you watch enough episodes of a particular investigative show, you tend to get a feel for the timeline of each episode, and particularly when they will catch the perpetrator.  This time around on Castle, time played against the writers’ multi-layered mystery, because I knew when the team wrapped up the case with a good nine minutes left that things weren’t quite as wrapped up as they thought.

The murder Beckett was investigating was an assistant D.A., with pressure coming from the mayor down to solve it quickly and cleanly.  He had been thrown off a building, and the only potential witness was a criminal he helped (perhaps wrongfully) put away, who was stalking him after getting released on a technicality.  The trail leads to his ex-brother-in-law and from there to a dead end at a firewalled call girl service, and the only thing that seems certain is that Mr. D.A. wasn’t nearly as clean as he pretended….

Another good episode.  Up to par with the new (season 2) standard.

I thought the timing was very interesting, because even though this is probably completely coincidental, the episode aired the same week a neuroscientist admitted to the press that she had worked as a high class call girl to pay her way through to her Ph.D., and one of their breaks comes from a call girl cum law student. 

There was a lot of character humor in this one.  The guy who had been stalking the D.A. and ended up hitting Castle during the bar fight was hilarious.  I still have no idea if he was actually as green and dumb innocent as he was acting, or if he was trying to pull a fast one on Beckett.  Castle fell for it, since he got the puppy card this week.  (It’s interesting to me that he is written variably as being gullible or not, as being sharper some weeks than others.)  But that guy wanting to be a locksmith and showing Castle how to undo handcuffs was great.  Beckett putting Castle in the back with him like a naughty child was hilarious.  And he wasn’t just texture, but actually gave them a couple breaks in the case.

Then when they were interviewing John Knox and he just looked at Castle and asked, “Who IS this guy?” like Castle was the biggest idiot on the block.  Which, again, this week he wasn’t too far off from being…

I enjoyed watching Beckett tease Castle about whatever Alexis had wanted to talk to her about that she didn’t want to tell him.  That teasing struck me as being very much a friendship sort of thing as opposed to just a working together thing.  Their relationship continues to deepen as it goes on.

The guy from vice and his interaction with Ryan and Esposito was priceless.  Esposito introduces his (hesitation in which we read that he’s reconfirming the word has a professional meaning as well as domestic) “partner” very proudly.  Only…the vice detective gets the last word, “Yeah, I know him.  How’s it going, Honeymilk?”  HONEYMILK?!  Holy crap!  That’s awesome.  That’s a street name if I ever heard one.  Honeymilk?!  I am totally calling Ryan Honeymilk from now on.  And doesn’t this just support my A.G. Duo theory?

Castle’s big moment of infectious enthusiasm was to show he was in writer mode this week and not detective mode.  His string of speculations about the D.A. pimp gets capstoned, “It would make such a great story!  Who cares about evidence!”

I always like seeing Castle’s more serious side, and we got that in two ways this time.  First when he shows such sympathy for the beat-up call girl, and then at the end with Alexis was sweet, where Castle finally gets vindication for being such a “cool” dad, despite what it has cost him in nerves all episode.  I always enjoy seeing him act like a grown-up instead of the hyperactive Encyclopedia Brown he gets into around Beckett, and again this was an episode where she got to see that side of him, too.