Castle: "Kick The Ballistics"

I could get used to writing something about "Castle" each week.

I enjoyed this week's episode. Of course. I liked that this show built upon a previous one, and that the story arc is still not finished, one would assume. I'm not saying a show should be a complete serial, like "Twin Peaks" or "Lost." But having one or two continuing threads keeps the viewer on his toes.

It was nice to see the focus on Ryan. Too many shows devolve into The Star(s), and the spare parts.

At one point, Ryan tells Beckett about the dumbest thing he ever had done as a cop: he had called out the name of a narc informant in the middle of the squad room, which at the time was full of busted drug dealers. Five minutes later, Beckett reveals the name of the undercover cop (he went by "Seth;" I forget the detective's real name) to Mr. Lee, head of a crime family. What's up with that? Careless mistake? Or was she setting him up?

On the downside, they did something that I had seen on several episodes of "Law & Order," which always made me shake my head way back when. In the L&O episode I'm thinking of, the police find a woman who has been tortured to within an inch of death. She's alive, but she's not yet able to talk to them. So they question her ex-husband. His alibi is that he was with a buddy at some high-society fundraiser. The next scene shows (we assume, then learn) the buddy walking out of his swank tennis club, talking back over his shoulder to the police officers. "Yeah, he was with me that night until around 2:00 a.m. Blah, blah, blah." As he gets into his car, one of the officers asks, "Do you know who could have done this?" "No," he says. "And I hope I never meet him. He sounds like one sick bastard." And then he drives off. And I remember thinking, "Well, I see you have decided that the police are done. I hope they feel the same way." The same thing happened on "Castle." At some point, the bar owner says, "You can wait for Seth. I've got to get to work." And then he walks away.

Finally, I liked the surprise ending. If I can some day convince someone that it's worth it to publish "Tarantulas On Leashes," "Swarm Summer Nights," Udopia,"and especially No Strings Attached, you'll see what I mean.