Castle Season 5, Episode 3: Secret’s Safe with Me

When a woman is found brutally murdered with a mysterious message written in her own blood, the team searches for what she could have meant by “LIE”. And as they try to find her next of kin, only to find that he too is recently deceased. And when they come across a storage unit up for auction that belonged to the deceased brother, Castle will have to pony up the cash to keep their evidence from slipping through their fingers.

When they find that the deceased brother’s employer was recently burgled, it seems that somewhere in the storage unit Castle just purchased there’s a four million dollar bracelet hidden away. With their mounds of loot back at the precinct, Castle stumbles on the way to befriend Captain Gates, giving her a small doll – a collectable she’s been in search of for years. But when their search comes up empty, Castle will have to sacrifice his new found friendship with the icy Captain in order to solve the case.

My Thoughts:

The second Castle gave her the doll, I knew whatever they were looking for was inside it. There was no way the writers were going to let him off that easy, Gate’s hating Castle is a road bump in every episode. It would make things a little too easy for them to be on the same side.

Castle’s relationship with Alexis is one of my most favorite things about the series, so every glimpse we get of them makes me happy. In this episode, with her leaving for college, I think you do get a bit of a look at the codependent nature of their relationship. I’m not saying it isn’t normal to miss your parents, but I do feel the relationship they have is a bit more connected than most.  And checking under her dorm bed for monsters is just too adorable.

I find it interesting that there’s not even a sliver of weirdness between Javier and Ryan… after all, they should have some brief moments of awkwardness as they just got back together. I would have liked to see a little bit of that in the episode.

I appreciate how this episode didn’t have any moments with Caskett alone. There’s something very real about the relationship and how they’re hiding it and they aren’t going to always have moments alone, they aren’t always going to get to spend the evenings together, and until they come out, they won’t be able to. And so I enjoy that the way they’re hiding their relationship comes over very real.

Castle Season 5, Episode 2: Cloudy with a Chance of Murder

When a local weather girl is murdered, the first thought is her competition, but when that falls through, the gang will have to follow a tangled thread to find the killer. Espo and Ryan find themselves in the spotlight as they try to bring in a basketball player for questioning, while Castle and Beckett learn there might have been more to the busty weather girl than everyone thought.

As Castle and Beckett try to keep their relationship a secret, they decide to be single in public. This leads to Castle accepting a date with a reporter, much to Kate’s annoyance, and when things go wrong and Kate finds Castle with the reporter’s boobs in his face, their burgeoning romance might be torn apart before it has a chance.

My Thoughts:

I do love how casket is holding on to the thread of their deception with all for fists, and still things seem to be slipping through their fingers. It should be really interesting to see how they hold up when Alexis and Martha come back into Castle’s everyday life. On a related note: it’s always sad when there’s no Alexis or Martha in an episode.

The fact that Castle has a date with Nash Bridges Daughter is remarkably funny to me. I have a feeling Nash wouldn’t approve. Maybe that’s what it is. Either way, I’ve never found her particularly hot, so I was never particularly worried about her being a temptation for Castle to cheat.

I’m happy the writes found a manly way for Espo and Honeymilk to rekindle their bromance. It was really depressing to see them fight. And though John Huertas does the “I’m so pissed off I can’t even look at you” face remarkably well, and Seamus Deaver has the sad puppy dog down pat. I’ll be really happy to see them back into their normal routine after this little spat.

Castle Season 5, Episode 1: After the Storm

Castle and Becket decide to hide their budding romantic relationship from both his family and the precinct, which is a difficult thing to do when Martha and Alexis come home early, and Ryan comes to them for help on the case.

But when they figure out who the man that’s been protecting Beckett is, they get to him too late, with Mr. Smith on his way to the hospital, and the file smoldering in the fireplace, all they have to go on is the clue of “86.” When Maddox follows them to the building Mr. Smith was trying to direct them to, he gets the file, but is blown up in the process, and when the team digs through the scraps of paper, they discover who’s behind it all. And Espo, Ryan and Castle will have to hurry if they want to stop Kate from turning into a murderer.

My Thoughts:

I love how high school they’re treating the relationship, It’ll be interesting to see who figures it out first, and how the secret spreads through the group… if it latches on like a rumor, or if they’re caught making out in the records room by the whole precinct.

I was not surprised to see Hilo go so quickly. The character wasn’t like lockwood, I didn’t see him as being viable over the long course of the season, he was single-minded in his pursuit of getting the file and killing her, and let’s face it… there can’t be an infinite number of copies. Though I really hope they do wind up with a real copy sometime in the near-ish future.

The lack of Alexis and Martha screen time was unfortunate. I love their interaction with Castle and it’s always sad when there isn’t much of it, though I am amazed they weren’t suspicious of him. I mean, Alexis has a pass, since she’s hung over, but Martha should have caught on a little bit.

It should be interesting to see if they go back to a semi normal routine after all that, or if the over arcing plot of the Senator’s involvement is more prevalent in these episodes than the other “big scheme” plots have been.