by Michael Seese
I enjoyed this episode.
NOTE... LOTS OF SPOILERS! PROCEED WITH CAUTION!
Watching "Meme Is Murder," I noticed two twists which, while perhaps not unique, are uncommon in CastleLand.
1. Usually, the killer is someone interviewed early on, though not even remotely considered a suspect.
2. The non-suspect is revealed to be the killer in the last five minutes.
But in this case...
LAST WARNING!
1. The first time we saw the killer, Beckett was pretty sure she had her man.
2. He was arrested at the 40-minute mark. (I checked.) For the remainder of the show, the team raced to rescue his next two would-be victims.
Brilliant!
Boasting aside: As soon as Adam (in custody) said "tiled walls and stale air," I knew where the next victims were being held.
Oh, and I appreciated a device the writers have used in the past, shifting from the victim's scream to Castle's warm-up scream.
As always, funny dialog left and right from (most often) Castle's mouth.
Castle: "I'm tapping into the whole 360-degree media environment."
Beckett: "You nailed playing yourself. That's impressive."
Funny aside: I suppose I could go back and re-watch, but I could swear I heard a "ding" when Castle and Beckett tapped their paper coffee cups. Of course, perhaps that was Adam's camera shutter...
Castle: "And who better than an acupuncturist to kill with accurate punctures?"
Castle: "Human sausages... In November! I'm not getting anywhere with this."
And I may be wrong, but I don't think Lanie has said "lividity" once this season. (In case you'd forgotten, for a while it seemed like she said the word every show.)
A few picky things:
- Maybe I missed a folding screen in Abby's apartment, but exactly how did Adam manage to snap a photo of her face without being seen?
- How did Adam even know who Beckett was when he snapped the photo of her and Castle? (I suppose you could argue that it was widely known that famous author Richard Castle aided the NYPD, so he assumed she was a homicide detective.)
- I can appreciate that Ryan and Esposito needed to be cautious when exploring the high school locker room. But there was no evidence that Adam had an accomplice. So their guns-drawn maneuvering seemed a little odd.
What did you like / hate most about "Meme Is Murder?"
By Michael Seese
Um...
OK, "The Greater Good" was not my favorite installment in the Castle firmament. I have said in the past that I appreciate episodes which expand the lives of the other characters, which "The Greater Good" did. Unfortunately, I thought "The Greater Good" ultimately was unraveled by a completely implausible motive for murder.
Did I need to write "The Greater Good" three times in the preceding paragraph? No. Did the writers need to have someone say it three times in the show? No. But they did.
Anyway, I thought that Penny Johnson Jerald -- Captain Gates -- did a really nice job, both in the scenes with her sister, as well as those in which she talked to Beckett about her sister. The ending, naturally, was touchy-feely. But that's OK.
Quick aside #1: Lanie was back this week, and as such, so was "lividity."
Quick aside #2: True to form, everything had been hunky-dory for the victim, until he started seeming "stressed" because "something happened at work."
Quick aside #3: Even the victim's boss got in on the act. "Pete was a rising star. His clients loved him. But..."
Quick aside #4: From what I read online, the receptionist at JP Harding is the real-life sister of Penny Johnson Jerald.
Picky aside: A six-digit numeric password? Come on. Banks force you to use letters, numbers, special characters, and hieroglyphics.
There were a lot of good lines and looks.
Castle: "Talk about an appropriate, if not slightly on the nose, metaphor."
Beckett: "Castle. I love you. But I will not marry you on a ride, or up in space, or on slide." (Especially funny since Castle also did suggest outer space.)
Castle: "I'll bet Dr. Seuss got married somewhere fun."
Beckett: "Wait. He has an island? We should invite him to the wedding."
Castle: "Hairy's my middle name. That sounded a lot better in my head."
Nunez: "Who did this?"
Castle: "We were thinking you... might... be able to... help us."
And the two best looks:
Beckett and Castle when Elizabeth stormed past. "Let's not put her on the list."
Beckett's and Castle's despair when Martha said she needed to fetch her guest list.
Oh well. Until next week.
By Michael Seese
This was a pretty decent episode. Though Castle's typical outlandish theory was not as implausible as those in "The Fast And The Furriest" or "Undead Again," his insistence that the murderer followed "The Way of the Ninja" drew plenty of scoffs and eye rolls from Beckett.
Many episodes do not start with the murder; this one led off with a wicked kill, a knife sailing through the air (replete with a whish-whish-whish sound) and impaling a young woman's chest. Otherwise, the only other standout scene (IMHO) was the ninja fight at the end.
But overall, I thought it was a very lighthearted and humorous offering.
We were treated to the recurring change-up, the presence of Medical Examiner Perlmutter. As I've said before, I think he offers a nice contrast to Lanie. And I always enjoy his barely-contained disdain of Castle.
"What you don't know about post-mortem analysis could fill a book, Mr. Castle. In fact, it has. Numerous times."
Quick aside: since Lanie wasn't in the show, neither was "lividity."
We also had the obligatory reference to the victim's mental state of late; in this case, her dance partner noted that she had been "showing up distracted."
There were not a whole lot of great lines.
#1. Castle: "Not that any self-respecting ninja would be caught on camera."
#2. Not so much the line itself, but I laughed out loud when Castle raised his hand, and Ryan "called on" him: "Yes, Castle."
#2.5. Castle's reference to the "flying dagger of doom."
And the look was Castle's "what just happened" when the ninja slipped in, and stole the knife out of his hands. They kept the mood going when he sheepishly told Beckett, "A ninja stole the murder weapon." Then they capped it with Castle's appreciative, "Yeah!"
That's about it. Even though this review didn't gush, as I stated, I did enjoy it.
Feel free to share your thoughts on "The Way Of The Ninja."
By Michael Seese
This was a gripping episode. (I decided to come up with a synonym for "intense.") To give you an idea, I stopped taking notes about halfway through, and just watched.
As I've said in other reviews, you knew that Beckett would get out of it. But how? And I must say, her salvation came from a completely unexpected (to me, at least) source, which made it all the more satisfying.
Something else that helped flavor "In The Belly Of The Beast." A year or so ago, "Hunt" put Castle out there, on his own. (OK, he eventually had help from his dad...work with me.) "In The Belly Of The Beast" had Beckett alone, and often unarmed. (Aside from her wits and charms.)
Because of the separation, the episode featured fewer lines and fewer looks than normal. But there were a lot of standout scenes. That is, "gripping" scenes.
(Though I did make note Esposito's, "There's more brass in here than a marching band.")
I enjoyed Beckett's giddiness at the prospect of a day off, culminating in my favorite line.
Beckett: "No goals, other than to waste hours on end."
Castle: "Stop describing my day."
The scene where Mr. Harden scanned Beckett for a wire oozed tension. Then, they set up some confusion when Beckett said, "I'm not a threat to anyone," and he replied, "You can just drop the act."
I also loved Beckett's several furtive attempts to phone / text her whereabouts to her colleagues.
Finally, her letter to Castle was both touching and exciting.
One nit-pick: the baddies all knew that Elena Markov was a slash-assassin. So why did Mr. Harden give Beckett a gun for her first assignment?
Finally, no Lanie, no "lividity" this week.
Next week's show (well, two weeks) looks to be back to the fun.
Feel free to share your thoughts on "In The Belly Of The Beast."
By Michael Seese
I liked "Room 147" ... up until the last five minutes. For most of the show, it played out like "typical" Castle. A murder whose obvious explanation seems completely implausible though, in this case, implausibly easy.
SPOILERS!
As Castle and Beckett start to peel back the layers, the implausible suddenly makes sense. But then they veer off into a motive which, IMHO, felt contrived.
Really, now, SPOILERS.
My main beef with the explanation was that it seemed too convoluted.
- If Pam wanted revenge, why didn't she join Eternal Horizons Inc. as an employee, and look for dirt to expose Bauers?
- Why didn't she join and shoot him? After all, he said he makes a point of meeting each member. Yes, she goes to jail. But she could plead that she was brainwashed.
- Though, I will give kudos for her rant at the end.
OK, so let's ignore that last five minutes.
Quick aside #1: As a nice twist on the ever-present reference to the victim behaving strangely of late, it was fun to hear the "murderers" say things had been fuzzy in the past two weeks.
Quick aside #2: I thought it was a very good touch when Ryan and Esposito looked at Anita Miller's computer, found that the previous two weeks had been deleted, and that those two weeks were indeed those beginning February 3 and February 10. In other words, good attention to detail.
On to the lines...
Beckett: "I think we all just kick-started our day."
Beckett: "A single shot to the chest?"
Lanie: "One is all it took."
Quick aside #3: After missing it last week, Lanie used the term "lividity" once again.
Castle: "I'm man enough to admit I'm completely theory-less."
Castle: "This is now officially outstanding."
Quick aside #4: I liked the psychologist. It's nice to know the UBS guy was able to calm down and find another job.
Carruthers: "I need to confess."
Beckett: "Yeah, take a number."
Carruthers: "Seriously? I killed someone and all you care about is a van?"
Castle: "You didn't even have to drug me."
Beckett: "How do you know what I do when you're sleeping?"
Not much in the way of looks, other than Beckett's discomfort when Castle said there must be another reason Alexis isn't coming home.
So on to next week. My wife opined that it has a La Femme Nikita look to it.
Feel free to share your thoughts on "Room 147."
