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05 14 2015

Recap Finale Fever (Castle & Arrow)

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While I’ve been a bit behind, here are the recaps for the Castle season 7 finale and the last two episodes of Arrow Season 3!

Castle 7.23 Review: “Hollander’s Woods”

Castle ends an imbalanced season with a decent episode that could have served as the series finale had the stars not signed their contracts and the network had decided to cancel the series.

NOC Recaps Arrow 3.22: Don’t Stab Yourself In the Foot

This episode is a bit of a mess and introduces a ridiculous plot twist that doesn’t serve the rest of the story.

NOC Recaps Arrow 3.23: The City’s Under Attack, Must Be May

The Arrow season 3 finale finally gets us out of the Ra’s al Ghul arc that has been killing the shows cred with fans. Now that we’re moving on, hopefully season 4 will be better. That said, this episode splinters our main characters that could lead to interesting places come season 4. I’m also proud of an Aladdin joke and a Captain Planet joke that you should click-through to enjoy in its full glory.

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.

04 28 2015

Castle 7.21 Review: "In Plane Sight"

ConStar Andrew Marlowe, Castle, Castle Recaps, ConStar Watches, Featured TV Recaps abc, alexis castle, andrew marlowe, angela lansbury, castle, castle season 7, dana creasey, dana creasy, in plane sight, jessica fletcher, Kate Beckett, Lost, molly quinn, murder she wrote, Nathan Fillion, oceanic air, oceanic flight 815, Richard Castle, sherlock holmes, stana katic 0

This week’s Castle had all eyes in the sky as Castle solved a mystery on his way to London. After last week’s jumble of an episode, it was refreshing to get a solid plot with great suspense and well used supporting characters. Though I will add in that Castle’s seeming hesitance about solving the crime in the air and possibly preventing a terrorist attack would be easier if he KNEW WHAT HE DID FOR TWO MONTHS. Still not over the ridiculousness that if Castle saved the world, that he would choose to forget. But anyway, check the recap:

As if we didn’t already know, Castle has the Angela Lansbury curse, where murder follows him everywhere he goes. On this week’s episode of Castle, he cashed in his frequent murder miles and solved a case in the sky.
Castle and Alexis are on a trip to London (on a known to be deadly Oceanic Air… no wonder they come across trouble), where Castle will be speaking at the Sherlock Holmes Society. He’s a bit upset that Alexis won’t come with him, but soon they have other concerns as the air marshal is found dead in the cargo hold. The pilot thinks Castle’s assistance is necessary: “You’re the closest thing to law enforcement we have on this plane.” “Which itself is cause for concern.”

04 26 2015

Castle 7.20 Review: "Sleeper": A Disappointing Reveal

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Castle Season 7 Disappearance Thailand
I must say: I’ve never been so disappointed with a plot resolution as I was with the reveal of (parts) of the Castle Disappearance arc. There was so much lead up, and so little focus on a mystery for Castle’s personal life, that the reveal had to be a good one. What could possibly have led Castle to disappear on his wedding day for two months and choose to not remember it? It seems we got an answer for why he was gone for about the span of a week, maybe? And it was not a satisfying answer. It was rushed, jumbled, confused, and had weak links stretching one plot introduced a few months earlier to the hastily added bits of story introduced in this episode.
Typically, Castle is great at reveals. The Johanna Beckett mystery had a lot of twists and turns and while some felt weaker than others or caused more stretches of the imagination, it still made a satisfying ride. So far, this disappearance story makes very little sense. Click through to my TVOvermind review to see what drove me to be so disappointed.
Hint: it has a lot to do with Castle’s ability to keep a secret.

This week’s episode of Castle finally wraps up the Castle disappearance arc, which has been in play since he missed his wedding ceremony in the season six finale. Going into the episode, I felt trepidation; the conclusion to this story must be compelling to be drawn out an entire season but only a handful of episodes. Even the characters seemed determine to put it behind them, decreasing my interest in the mystery. All-in-all, this season has been one of tying up loose ends (due to the show’s fate for season eight still up in the air), so it’s hard to think the show will need another season after this one; with this story, the Caskett romance settled, and Beckett’s mother’s killer caught, there’s not much left to explore. If the show does go on for one more season, I forsee it being its last. But let’s jump into this week’s episode.
As I said, the explanation behind Castle’s disappearance had a lot riding on it and I’m not sure I bought the execution.

02 26 2015

Castle 7.16 Review: "The Wrong Stuff"

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This week’s episode of Castle is a bit Alien, a bit Asimov, and a bit Agatha Christie. The theme? Enclosed spaces. While Castle and Beckett struggle with a crowded apartment, their latest case drags them into the deadly dynamics of a crowded space mission.
More of the recap here: Castle Season 7 Episode 16 Review: “The Wrong Stuff”

Also:

– “There goes my rise of the machines theory.” Looks like you were almost right, Castle! MIRA DID do it, though under heavy influence from each member of the team.

– One of the coolest Castle title cards ever!

– “Hey, Castles.” Oh Ryan, I love for you for that.

– When Rick and Kate fight, they dream of being literally as far away from each other as possible…

– “If you think that’s how I’d get pregnant, we need to talk.”

– I know some science fiction, but definitely didn’t catch all of the references made here. Anyone got a list of science fiction tropes and reference in the episode? List them below in the comments!

02 18 2015

Castle 7.15 Review: "Reckoning"

ConStar Andrew Marlowe, Castle, ConStar Watches, Featured TV Recaps 3xk, caskett, castle, castle disappearance, Castle Recaps, dark!castle, Kate Beckett, michael mosley, Nathan Fillion, reckoning, Richard Castle, stana katic 1

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…

02 12 2015

Castle 7.14 Review: "Resurrection"

ConStar Andrew Marlowe, Castle, Castle Recaps, ConStar Watches 3xk, andrew marlowe, caskett, castle, david amann, jerry tyson, Kate Beckett, michael mosley, Nathan Fillion, resurrection, Richard Castle, stana katic 0

This week’s Castle post over at TV Overmind discusses the first part of the 3XK two-part saga. Is the man before them really Jerry Tyson? That question causes great suspense in a good but flashback heavy episode.

This week’s Castle is mostly exposition/flashback. I think what was a one and a half episode story needed a few extra minutes so they dumped in a lot of flashbacks to extend the story time. Aside from being a little too flashback heavy for my taste, I really enjoyed this episode and the tension that was spun from the 5th installation of the 3XK storyline.

Click through for more Castle Season 7 Episode 14 Review: “Resurrection”.

02 05 2015

Castle 7.13 Review: "I, Witness"

ConStar Andrew Marlowe, Castle, Castle Recaps, ConStar Watches, Featured TV Recaps "i, caskett, castle, castle pi, castle/beckett, Nathan Fillion, stana katic, witness" 0

This week’s Castle was a bit of a miss for me. Not because of the PI storyline, but maybe it relied too heavily on a sort of Lifetime movie meets Hitchcock kind of thing. Too many twists and back and forths.
Check out the straight up recap here: Castle Season 7 Episode 13 Review: “I, Witness”, but here are some of my thoughts as usual:

Little Things

– The scene with Castle at Whitfield’s house doesn’t make sense considering the end. Cole says “You’ll never prove a thing” but it turns out he wasn’t involved at all. What was his reasoning for saying such a thing, then? He was truly innocent and had no reason to further antagonize Castle in such a way. This is one reason why I felt there were too many twists and turns that even the writing couldn’t keep up with.

– In the side story, Ryan, Jenny and Espo were supposed to go on a trip together, but since Espo isn’t with Lanie anymore, they now need a 4th person to go with Espo. Ryan and Jenny set Espo up with someone on match.com, creating a profile for him, which upsets Espo who says he can find his own dates.

– I did enjoy the amount of time spent in the kitchenette. Since they weren’t working on an official case, they kept a lot of their investigations before it was an official murder to the more social areas of the precinct, even in Gates’ absence.

– Kate was very wonderfully affectionate towards Castle this episode, lots of snuggling. He was going through a lot so it was nice to see her be so supportive. Not that she isn’t typically, but it was more noticeable here.

– The actress who plays the lawyer, Haskins, also plays a recurring character on the show Arrow. Her character on that show works with a special division called the Suicide Squad. Looks like her character on Castle was also looking for suicide squad recruits.

Read more at http://www.tvovermind.com/reviews/castle-season-7-episode-13-review-witness/#pzhdXh2CXU2D52Sd.99

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!