Castle – “3XK” – review

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I think this episode did an excellent job of creating a mystery that neither overshadowed the characters nor got shown up by them, but instead intertwined with their psyches and kept us invested in both the case and the character developments. It also had a lot of really great, subtle moments that showed just how far the characters have come together in the last 2 years since Castle started working with Beckett.  

First thing I loved was the interplay of Alexis’s secret admirer against the threat of the Triple Killer.  It was half-funny, half utterly understandable to see Castle’s mind go from “don’t figure out who it is, that ruins the fun” to “figure out who it is because I have to know it’s not someone who can hurt you.”  Just that quickly wants-to-be-cool-but-just-doesn’t-get-teenage-girls dad becomes concerned dad.  One thing I will say, Alexis’s reaction to narrow down who could have passed her in the hall between 4th and 5th periods is exactly the kind of obsessive detailing of behavior teenage girls do.  Also, I don’t believe her when she said she decided not to find out.  Girls always want to know.  What if he’s hot?  What if it’s that dweeb who always stares at you in Chemistry?  Girls need to know these things. 

One other point on that–would Alexis’s boyfriend really have been okay with her meeting some secret admirer like that without telling him about it?  Maybe she suspected it was him by the handwriting or something, but I wish she had expressed to either Martha or Castle that she had told Ash about it, only to have him encourage her to go meet the guy…because her doing it under the table lays groundwork for him not to trust her later, in my opinion.  Even if it was really sweet of him to reiterate his affections (I know when I got “anonymous” notes on my car in college from a not-so-secret admirer, I loved it), the dishonesty of her not telling him about it bothers me.  If it never comes up again, can I just assume she and Ash had that conversation and she just didn’t mention it?

I liked that the killer got away this time. In real life sometimes they do.  Plus now he can come back later and actually go after Castle’s family instead of the show just insinuating he might be with the previews of threats and the secret admirer angle.

And how hilarious was it that Martha knew Castle ending a phone call with “I love you” was “something is terribly wrong”?  She’s a smart lady. This was a good episode for her, taking up Castle’s worries for Alexis and saying she’d be at the park to make sure the secret admirer was on the up and up even if she personally thought he was being paranoid. 

One of the running themese of my commentary is curiosity over why Castle writes murder mysteries, so of course I loved the killer’s insight into Castle as they are exchanging profiles. Is Castle drawn to death because he perhaps has the urges of a sociopath, just not the trigger in his background to become a killer? I mean, supposedly the best profilers are the ones who could have become serial killers themselves, if something in their early life had triggered it…is the same true of mystery writers?  Or was the killer just way off in his guess and not, in fact, recognizing the gleam of an almost-fellow in Castle’s eyes?

The moment at the end where Castle and Beckett hold hands and just sort of sit there, calmly but somehow clinging to one another as well, was beautifully drawn.  It reveals without saying a word that they have formed a bond deeper than any casual romance, even if it’s not necessarily a romantic bond…as I said waaaaay back when, if Castle and Beckett ever do get romantically involved, it will not be on the relatively superficial level that both of them normally let other people into their lives on, but a very deep one.  It seems as though they’ve already formed an emotional bond on that deep level, even if they haven’t come around to the romantic side of things yet.

On that point, there was one last piece of follow-up from two weeks back that I have thought of–remember in season 1 how Beckett was teased about being such a huge fan of Castle, how Lainey reminded her that his books kept her sane after her mother’s murder? It’s an interesting parallel to her being in love with her training officer who told her she wasn’t crazy for becoming a detective for her mother’s memory/murder, to have her crushing on Castle back then (or now, or both).

So in all a great episode.  Probably one of my favorites so far this season…but the season is still young….

3 Comments

1. 

   MigMit

   October 28, 2010 at 6:40 pm

   AFAIK it was FBI agent Graham, oops, Sorenson who reminded Beckett about how Castle’s books helped her, not Lanie.

   Reply
2. 

   Elena Nola

   October 29, 2010 at 9:26 am

   MigMit, I am going to trust you on this one. I remembered it being someone who was close to Beckett and assumed Lanie…I’ve forgotten all about her FBI ex. So thank you for pointing out the error of my assumption!

   Reply
3. 

   waylateinposting

   February 10, 2012 at 7:34 am

   I was glad that someone else commented on the interesting question raised when Jerry profiled Castle, particularly when he mentioned Castle’s “own suppressed impulses”. You brought up the possibility that Castle has the urges of a sociopath, which is why he started writing murder mysteries. (Interestingly, Castle never confirms or disproves Jerry’s analysis.) That sounds plausible. Lets say hypothetically, Jerry is right, having sociopathic urges makes Castle a sociopath, and that being a sociopath would give him the predisposition towards killing if coupled with a trigger.

   I don’t think that it would necessarily have to occur during his childhood like it did with with Jerry.

   In the first episode, Castle was at a low point–he hadn’t written for several months and his publisher was demanding results. Plus, he was already getting bored with it all–he had already killed off Derrick Storm, leaving him with no new material. No more outlet, there’s the hypothetical trigger.

   Along came Beckett–he got his outlet back and could write again. He found a challenge in Beckett–first by annoying her and testing her patience, casually flirting with, and eventually caring for her and protecting her. At that point it was no longer about the books. He became her loyal partner, even felt some thing for some of the victims of the murders they solved. Gaining more human empathy, maybe it helped to stabilize him. So now he has Beckett, who he wants to protect (regardless of the ongoing romantic love thing they have/don’t have going on). Castle is Beckett’s rook. Her quirky, bizarre rook, but tirelessly dependable. His family serves as a stabilizing force as well, since he’s Alexis dad and parents her as much as she parents him. And when it really counts, his mother helps him through the rocky emotional times.

   Bottom line, Castle is safe from becoming a killer, as long as he has people to care about and vice-versa. Hypothetically, though, if he were to start to lose people he cared about, that might trigger him.

   Reply