Castle – The one that got away

My apologies for the tardiness of the Castle post. Hopefully, you’ll find some solace in the fact that somewhere out there in the big crazy world, a server is now performing its regular backups without errors. Anyway … our friends over at Castle kicked off 2010 with something a little different. Well … maybe it wasn’t so much different as it was amped up. We got a much deeper look into just who Castle is, and just where he stands with Beckett. All while rambling through another very crazy caper that featured Alyssa Milano. It’s a good way to start the new year.

I really liked the case, because it was very much in the Castle style. They do love to throw everything out there to keep you guessing. This week, a shady bridesmaid, buying roofies from a drug dealer, as part of a scheme to seduce the groom, to help cover an embezzlement scam…. It’s just like every wedding I’ve ever been to! As fun as all of that was though, it was completely overshadowed once we learned that Castle and Kyra had a history.

It wasn’t so much their story that made it so interesting as the look into Castle’s past. It’s something they’ve done a pretty good job selling  before, but never to this degree. Castle is, on the surface, the playboy, or the cad. Of course, we all know there’s much more to him than that roguish first impression. Through his interactions with Alexis, or the way we saw how he reacted after learning about Beckett’s mother, it’s clear that at his core Castle is a good guy. But we’ve never had such a deep look at it as we got as he relived those old memories with Kyra. It was great for the bigger picture of the series, and makes you pull for Castle that much more.

And on the other side of that coin, we have Beckett. Truth be told, I’m not buying what she’s selling. Everybody knows Beckett is sweet on Castle, as we saw with Lanie calling Beckett out on it, and Kyra’s parting, “He’s all yours.” Yet, despite that, she continues to deny, deny, deny. Poppycock. Beckett knows exactly what’s going on in her head, but she’s got her own issues. And I suspect we’ll get a peek at her backstory as well before too awfully long. Not that I’m in any sort of hurry for a resolution. To this point, it’s been great fun watching it all play out.

Finally, in other non-official-but-very-encouraging news…. Reports out of the TCA presentation indicate that the next Castle book will be released in September. And wouldn’t that seem to be a curious move if the show wasn’t coming back? The recent steady, if not spectacular, ratings also point to another season being a real possibility.

Clacked by Brett Love
on Jan 13, 2010 @ 23:30 EST5EDT