Castle Recaps

05 12 2015

Last Week in Recaps (Castle & iZombie x2); plus a look at Netflix's Sense8

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It’s almost the end of the TV season, and thus the end of my mad dash for recap updates here on the blog. Here are the recaps I did last week, for Castle and iZombie. Still working on that Arrow recap and this week’s Castle season finale. Also, I took a look at the trailer for Sense8, the new Netflix series coming to Netflix this June directed by the Wachowski siblings (you know, The Matrix). Click on through!

Castle 7.22 Review: Dead From New York

The penultimate Castle of the season dealt with the death of late night comedy mogul Sid Ross, a Lorne Michaels proxy. With all the shots taken at SNL in the episode, it makes me wonder if there’s a writer who was jilted by the show at some time in their career. While it starts off as a fun episode, it takes a few kind of unnecessary turns before turning into a minute long Carly Rae Jepsen show (a desperate attempt for younger viewers?). Still a fun episode.

NOC Recaps iZombie: Baby Mama Brain Drama

iZombie is continuing to win me over. Though the cases are fairly uninteresting, I love the characters and the way they weave Liv’s lessons with the power of the week, even if she usually regresses afterwards.

NOC Recaps iZombie: Shock Jock

RAVI NOOO! That was my main concern as I ended this week’s iZombie. That and: hey if Ravi becomes a zombie, maybe we’ll find out if zombies of color turn pale and have to do some absurdly unreal tanning in order to remain their beautiful brown selves.

Netflix’s Sense8 Trailer

I wrote about the trailer for Netflix’s Sense8, from the producers of the Matrix and Babylon 5 for HelloGiggles. They sent me the trailer and it looks really cool! Hopefully it pulls its mystery threads together in a way that a lot of shows post-Lost (and including Lost) never did.

02 18 2015

Castle 7.15 Review: "Reckoning"

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This week’s Castle explores the lengths Castle will go to in order to get Beckett back. We’ve gotten glimpses of Castle’s darkness and desperation before, but this is the furthest he’s ever gone. I think that if the show had to change its premise to Castle becoming a killer in order to save Kate, it could have been believable. But we’ll get there later.
Following the cliffhanger from last week, Castle, Ryan, Esposito, and the police head to Beckett’s last known location before she went missing. It’s the street where Amy Barrett called her; her car is still there and a note’s been written in the car dust: “Help Her.” With ‘Michael Boudreaux’/Jerry Tyson and Dr. Kelly Nieman at the precinct, the cops can’t pin Beckett’s disappearance on them in any kind of tangible way. Ryan has to prevent Castle from jumping on Boudreaux in his apartment, knowing that Castle’s anger isn’t helpful to them finding any answers.

Read the straight up recap here: Castle Season 7 Episode 15 Review: “Reckoning”.

This was a fantastic two-parter, and I loved the tension from Nieman’s ability to make anyone look like anyone else, how convincing Tyson was as Boudreaux, and Nathan Fillion’s anger, deadly nature, and grief when he thought it was Kate who was shot. Usually at least one episode of a two-parter is a bit of a let-down compared to the other, but this is my favorite two-parter since Season 3. With the end of the 3XK arc, as I’ve said before, it seems like the show is tying up loose ends. Will we get more mysteries to go along with the disappearance arc or are they preparing to wrap things up for good? We’ll know by May, I suppose.

Also:

– So now we officially know that 3XK had nothing to do with Castle’s disappearance. I suppose that leaves his father as our number 1 already established suspect.

– Castle’s back at the 12th! Will he continue his private investigation business or will he drop it to work with Kate again? I could see another couple of stories pulled from the PI storyline, but I’m glad Castle will be able to sit in his chair at Kate’s desk again.

– What would have happened to Castle if he’d gone through with killing Boudreaux? His confidence in it being Tyson doesn’t take away from our tension that it might not be and our concern of what would happen had things gone another way. What would Beckett think about all of this? Him killing a possibly innocent man for her.

– The Harry Potter nerd in me yelled for Castle to not “split his soul,” but then I immediately wondered what he’d choose as a horcrux.

– What if the show had decided to change its premise from a typical police procedural to a revenge show where Castle went around killing people responsible for Kate’s death (Taken-style probably), while Ryan and Esposito “looked for him” while covering up his crimes? This episode could have been the start of that very AMC/FX turn.

– I wondered why Castle pulled the same gun move on Jerry when we know Tyson would anticipate something like that, but knowing Esposito was listening and that they needed enough evidence to prove he was really Tyson before killing him explains the repeat move and the slow reaction time.

– I’m glad it was Tyson in the end and not Boudreaux, because typing Boudreaux repeated is like a typing-tongue-twister. I spelled it wrong on the first try every time. I started to copy it to my clipboard just so I wouldn’t have to type it anymore. You’d have gotten a lot of accidental ‘Boudreauz.”

– There’s a Nieman/Marcus joke to be made somewhere…

01 21 2015

Castle 7.12 Review: "Private Eye Caramba!"

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This week’s Castle takes a telenovela twist (just minutes after I watched Jane the Virgin, no less!). A telenovela star is murdered and it’s up to Kate to find the killer and Castle to find… the purse?
Click through for the full recap, but here are some things I loved from the episode:
– Another nice moment between Kate and Martha, but once again no Alexis in sight…
– Castle’s pencil dropping from the ceiling at just the right time.
– “I thought you were a writer. What happened?” “Nothing happened. I’m just expanding my brand if that’s alright with you.”
– Castle learns that the number one skill a private investigator has is dropping $20s for information.
– Esposito’s frustration and Beckett’s amusement with Ryan’s “Castling” makes me laugh every time. Oh Baby Castle.
– I loved the detail of Castle being unable to get Beckett’s top button undone.
– I figured I’d be the only review to not mention the “private dick” line, since it was all over the commercials anyway, but here’s an obligatory mention.
– I loved Castle using Ryan’s badge number to get info from the DMV. Ryan’s the least likely to kick Castle’s butt if he finds out.
– I was glad for Kate’s concern when they find Castle with Mathis: “We would have had no way of finding you.” Obviously, it’s because they’re married, but also his disappearance is still weighing on her mind, and it shows here right beneath the surface. I hope that storyline is returning soon.
– “So you’re saying I solved my case, and your case, and I apprehended the killer… Hm.” “Yeah. You disarmed a 110lb woman. Must’ve been a tense moment.”
– Javier speaking Spanish. ::heart eyes emoji::
Full recap here: Castle Season 7 Episode 12 Review: “Private Eye Carumba!”

01 14 2015

Castle 2-for-1: "Bad Santa" and "Castle P.I"

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Castle TV Show Private Investigator — These are the Castle reviews you were looking for.

The winter TV hiatus is slowly ending and one of the first shows back is Castle. I’ve realized, however, that I never posted the link to mid-season finale recap here, so you get two for one: review what happened in the finale and get into your funny feels over the midseason return.
From my “Bad Santa” Review:

It will definitely be an interesting run of episodes for however long Castle is banned from the force. Seems like he’ll have to do something major to get back in,which we know will probably happen since the precinct and the Castle/Beckett partnership is the bread and butter of the show. But I appreciate the writers injecting new life into a season that has already resolved so many longstanding things. It’s hard for a procedural do that without killing off their existing cast and hiring new blood. Without a constant revolving door of new cast members, it’s important for the show to find other ways to change things up. I’m excited to see what they do with this twist.

From “Castle P.I.”:

This episode was such a fun return from the midseason finale and a fresh new direction for the show. I worry it can’t last too long — how many episodes can we have of them running parallel or opposing cases? But I doubt it is meant to. It’s something fun and new for the show to try and I can’t wait for the conflict it provides between Castle and Beckett in the future — it can’t all be friendly competition and case put together foreplay. The episode left me with a smile on my face — partially because I really like saxophones and all the noir background music included a lot of it. I can’t wait to see what else Castle, Private Investigator, has in store for us.

Clearly the midseason premiere didn’t disappoint. It was a fun episode with some potential stories down the road. We’ll see where the rest of the season takes us. Want to recap the first part of the season? Just check the Castle Recaps under the ConStar Recaps menu up at the top!

11 26 2014

Castle 7.08 Review: "Kill Switch"

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After a bit of a broken TV, breaking news, work all day delay, my Castle review is up over on TV Overmind! Click through to check it out!

This episode was a great return to a standard episode, an episode that could be placed in any season. Though it was Espostio-centric, we also got to see a lot more Gates and Lanie (who we got to see in more than one scene over a dead body), more Tori–who some fans suspect could have had a thing with Espo had he not been so hung up over Lanie) and even Marissa, a new cop. It was a great episode to shine some light on lesser seen characters, while remaining true to the Castle formula. The mythology episodes and the romantic episodes are great, but it’s also nice when we can return to a typical case of the week and not slow things down.

I love that this episode had so many people of color as the focus, Esposito, Lanie, more Gates, and even Marissa the uniformed cop. It was great to see. More at: Castle Season 7 Episode 8 Review: “Kill Switch”.

11 19 2014

Castle 7.07 Review: "Once Upon a Time in the West"

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This week’s Castle post!

This episode was so much fun and it’s great to see that the banter, the eye rolling, the magic of Castle and Beckett has remained even in what could have been an overly schmoopy, post-wedding bliss episode. But that’s not their style. This show really knows how to give character development while realizing that there are core truths to the characters that wouldn’t change, which gives the series both development and consistency; many other shows don’t know how to strike that balance. It gives me hope that now that they’re married, the show will still have somewhere to go. But as I’ve stated before, I wouldn’t be surprised if an end game was near. I didn’t think they could pull of this Old West honeymoon, but they wove it into the plot nicely and gave us many fun lines and moments.

10 29 2014

Castle 7.05 Review: "Meme is Murder"

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On this week’s Castle, the team investigates the death of a viral meme star and Castle himself is a victim of the dark side of memes.
[…]
This case was a really interesting one. Aside from a few weak links in why Adam chose these particular stars (I’m curious if it was too much for these stars to have been bullies at Adam’s school–he’d already axed his high school bully before this–making his Snappamatic choices a bit weak), it’s a scary thought that this could happen somewhere. We already know of crimes committed via introductions on the internet, but if someone were to post awful things like Netslayer did (and they do, somewhere), would the number people outraged and reporting the account be greater than or less than people following the account to… enjoy… the show? It’s been a while since we’ve had a serial killer episode (especially one not in some way connected to 3XK) and I think they did a good job of his choices in teasing the cops (if not in the choosing of his victims). There was equal parts suspense and humor, rare in serial killer themed episodes.
Read more Castle Season 7 Episode 5 Review: “Meme is Murder”.
Watch Castle’s viral video here: http://abc.go.com/shows/castle/news/castle-news/141027-official-raging-heat-webmercial

10 21 2014

Castle 7.04 Review: "Child's Play"

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In this week’s episode of Castle, Castle accesses his not so inner child to find out who murdered an ice cream truck driver.

Some of my TV Overmind review focuses on what little Castle reveals about the mind of a child, giving us insight into what may have made little Ricky Rodgers become a writer…

“An experience that powerful is going to find a way to express itself and end up on the page. Even the wildest fantasies have a kernel of truth. As a master storyteller, I am able to separate the makeshift from the tell-tale details of thinly veiled facts.”

I am really loving the ways the cases of the week have been, even in small ways, tying into the larger mystery of Castle’s disappearance and his mysterious childhood encounter. I think more than any other season, it will lead to a large fluidity and connectedness between each episode, even the filler episodes. Castle hints here at whatever he experienced as a child that made him want to become a mystery writer. What powerful experience did he have as young Ricky that changed him so powerfully? What kernels of truth exist among his dozens of novels that hearken back to that night in the woods?

Read the rest of my review here: Castle Season 7 Episode 4 Review: “Child’s Play”.

10 14 2014

Castle 7.03 Review: "Clear and Present Danger"

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In this week’s Castle, Castle and Beckett get their groove back in more ways than one. In what is a fluffy, flirty, and fun episode, a pool shark (but maybe not just that) gets murdered by an invisible assailant, while our dynamic duo try to ignite the fireworks between them.
Just as Castle and Beckett decide they’ve been ready to do the horizontal mambo since Rick’s two month disappearance, a phone call interrupts their run to the bedroom. The victim, William Fairwick, was stabbed in the chest with a pool stick. It seems to be a locked room mystery, with one slamming of the door and locked windows in a high-rise building. The victim seemed to work for Greenblatt Insurance, but made his real money hustling Wall Street-ers. But recently, he’d been scared that he’d “sold his soul to the devil” and his time was up. Castle hops right on to this theory, which is solidified by the mysterious surveillance tape Tory shows them. In it, the victim, once in his apartment, appears to be alone, with the door mysteriously shutting after the murder is over. “The devil came and got his due.” Kate remains the rational detective, ready to look at the facts, but Castle is overjoyed to think it might be the devil taking Will’s soul. “You live by the cue, you die by the cue.”
This episode was rife with great Castle/Beckett sexual tension, literally because every time they try to have sexy times, the phone rings and Kate’s professional nature won’t let her ignore it. There were so many great moments of banter and case foreplay, like what we used to see before they got together. The scenes are especially ripe with tension as it’s been over two months since they were together and also because they have opposite opinions on what happened to the victim. All very classic Caskett interactions, which was great after the tension between the two in the last few episodes. Both sides of the show are great and I’m glad we’re on the comedy side of the dramedy genre this week (but I can’t wait until we catch more clues into Castle’s disappearance).
Read more at Castle 7.03 Review: “Clear and Present Danger” on TVOvermind!

10 07 2014

Castle 7.02 Review: "Montreal"

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This week’s Castle toys with our emotions and gives us another save the date card for a wedding–where will you be in a month?

I don’t think I was expecting the show to delve back into Castle’s mysterious disappearance so soon. In terms of this “replacing” the Johanna Beckett story, it seemed like we’d get bits and pieces and then every few episodes would be a story dedicated to it—which may well be the case now that we’ve gotten a few more answers (and questions)—but I wasn’t expecting it to go hand-in-hand with a typical procedural episode. In this episode what we learn about Castle’s disappearance is more important than the case of the week, so I’m going to focus more on that.

A rowing team finds a body in the East River just as Castle sits through what is likely the most awkward interview he’s ever done. The interviewer pretends to be interested in Raging Heat (which I read and is great) and Wild Storm, but really wants to know what everyone’s curious about: what happened to Castle for all those months? Castle certainly wasn’t prepared for the interview to become as combative as it did, as the host insinuates a publicity stunt and pre-wedding jitters are the reasons for Castle’s disappearance. Castle barely holds in his outrage that people would think he could do that to his family. Tired of the host dominating the conversation, he takes over and offers $250k to whoever knows where he was during the summer. Kate immediately points out it’s foolish and will just get them a bunch of crazies, but Castle remains ever hopeful.