Castle: "Til Death Do Us Part"

Monday's show (which we actually watched within one day) was a good, keep-you-guessing episode.

They even pulled a little "fast one" right at the beginning. Knowing the episode was about a lothario, I assumed that the "pineapple guy" chatting up the girl in the first scene was soon to be the victim. But then a body falls out of the sky. Surprise!

The plot reminded me of a previous episode, "A Deadly Game." Castle starts speculating that the victim was a spy. Beckett doesn't buy it. But as the evidence mounts, she is forced to admit that it's a possibility. Then, we learn he's a pick-up artist, rather than an international man of mystery. But by the end -- whoops! -- he is a spy, of sorts.

In many episodes, the murderer turns about to be someone who had been called in for questioning, dismissed, and then later nabbed after a critical piece of information comes to light. But in this case, the killer wasn't even a suspect until the very end. (Which also is what happened in "A Deadly Game.") And, they managed to hook me by having Whatever-Her-First-Name-Was Franklin (the red-haired lawyer) look really worried as they walked in to bust the blonde.

Also, though they didn't really build up a lot of tension about Ryan finding out about Jenny's past, you knew it would somehow come out. But rather than having it blow up (as Beckett, Castle, and Esposito thought it would) Ryan de-fused that bomb. Interesting.

I loved the scene where the victim's two womanizing buddies were brought in for questioning. The split conversation -- in which they seemed to finish each other's answers -- was terrific. And I couldn't help but smile at the terms they tossed out from their pick-up dictionary. "Slip her the butter" and "Wax her car" (Or whatever.)

And of course, there were lots of "looks." Especially notable were the looks all around the table when Ryan announced that Lanie would be bringing a date and, later, the look on Ryan's face the first time Esposito was talking to him and waving a doughnut.

Feel free to share your thoughts on this episode.