"Castle" season 4 begins tonight

I thought AB played Slaughter more to contrast with John Casey than with Jayne. Firefly/Serenity is old enough now so that Jayne isn't as fresh to the casual viewer.

I caught that Wash reference right off, too.

 

Verisimilitude doesn't require that something be actually real, just that it feel real -- that it makes it easy for the audience to be willing to suspend disbelief. I've told you over and over that the show's first two seasons had a much more believable approach, which set my expectations for the show, and that it disappoints me that subsequent seasons have taken a cartoonier approach. If you disagree, fine, but we're here to review the show, not each other.

And like I said, the Nikki Heat books -- the ones that Castle's supposedly writing within the show's universe -- have a lot more verisimilitude and believability than the cartoony world of the show these days. And I think that's getting it wrong because it doesn't fit the character. Castle is someone whose books should be broader and less believable than the world he inhabits. That's in keeping with his character, and character is the most important thing. If the approach to the show undermines the integrity of the characters, then the approach is flawed.

 

I think you look too much into that stuff to be honest (regarding the books) as we've discussed before in the thread and already disagreed about. We've had this conversation before. This series doesn't take it's self serious, and has a lot of satirical nuance as I've pointed out before. It is supposed to be cartoony and goofy while dealing with very real life situations and cases. I believe in one of the commentaries, Marlowe indicated that they researched all of their cases that they explore and most of them are based on real life cases.

Is there a case that the show has jumped the shark and become a parody of it's self in the past two seasons? Perhaps. I'll grant, especially since we have focused more and more on the relationship between Castle and Beckett. I'll even go so far as to agree with you that the quality of this season has been off considerably compared to the previous three seasons. Aside from last night's episode and perhaps a couple of others I really don't have a top five yet. Perhaps this will change when we enter May. The second half of last season for example with the Captain Montgomery arc. I'm really shocked that we're 21 episodes into season four and not really have dealt with the JB case yet or had a JB centric case. I'm guessing they're saving that plot for May sweeps next month. I know we both are interested in different aspects of the series, you the mystery plot, me the shipper aspect but they're also very much intertwined and I guess we're going to have to disagree about that. I just don't think "Castle" was meant to have an all out realistic approach. There are nuances and other things that I pointed out that contradict that IMO, this is why it is so FUN compared to other more "serious" and reality routed procedural shows.

 

Just watched the recent ep and that was a lot of fun to view, Adam Baldwin was great he so needs a new show since Chuck finished.

 

Wow, the topic dropped way back to page four from inactivity!

Two nice things about last night's ep: Castle admitted that he doesn't really believe in any of the supernatural stuff, he just does it to tease Beckett. And that lovely last scene where he backhandedly let her know he'd heard her admission to remembering everything, and she followed up by flat-out admitted that she still needed some time, but the wall was coming down soon.

In other news, Castle's apartment is big enough for a teenage girl to be inconspicuous while hanging from the ceiling, and said ceiling is high enough to rappel from!

Where's Lainie?

 

Well, that was a fun episode. I'm sure that in next week's season finale all Hell is going to break loose so a last little bit of fun is welcome.

 

Yeah, I did like Castle admitting that he doesn't really believe in the inane supernatural theories he expounds but is just messing with Beckett. I just wish they'd established that two years ago so I wouldn't have been annoyed so often at Castle being written like a gullible imbecile.

But how many more times are they going to go to the "murder involving a fringe subculture based on something from fantasy/sci-fi/folklore" well? What's next, a mummy's-curse murder involving mummification fetishists? A club of people who dress up in animatronic dinosaur suits, making Castle think a murderous velociraptor has come through a time rift? Electrocution by Zeus's lightning bolt revealing a cult of Hellenistic neo-pagans? It's like they write themselves!

I'm not surprised that Alexis decided to stay in NYC for college; I've been expecting for years that they'd take that route, for which there's plenty of precedent (like, say, Smallville's Clark and Lana deciding to attend the state university that conveniently got retconned into existence right outside town, or Wesley Crusher missing multiple chances to get into Starfleet Academy so that he had to study aboard ship). But now that it's happened, I'm not sure how authentic it feels from a character standpoint, given how much time they've spent establishing her eagerness to move on and challenge herself. I mean, it kinda works that it's her devotion to her family that keeps her around, but I wish they'd done more in earlier episodes to lay the groundwork for that, so that it didn't feel so much like a copout when it was sprung on us here.

 

I never really looked at it that way.. for me it was always clear that Castle was pretty much rooted in reality but he really liked the supernatural and mysteries (and made a well paying career out of it). Just think back this season to the haunted house case where he watches a Zombie movie with Alexis and is both scared/gleeful at being scared by the horror movie.. he likes it but he is not gullible.

With Beckett he got the perfect foil.. a person who's so rooted in reality that she's the perfect foil and target for his antics and jokes (and i believe it's also one of the main reasons why Kate fell in love with him because he put some spice into her life).

It's like how Esposito put in in the pilot episode "A control freak like you with somethin' you can't control? No, no. That's gonna be better than shark week!"

In reality it's one thing to talk endlessly about plans but when the time comes to put these plans in motion to the point of no return many have second thoughts and change plans. She's still a teenager to a degree (albeit a very adult teenager.. i've never met a teenager with these thought patterns but that's TV) so she was likely to change her opinion several times until settling with a decision. Experienced show viewers knew that there was no way she would be written out of the show (unless she wanted to go and there was no indication in any interview or piece i've seen). So i don't feel like it was a cop out.. as i understand it the colleges/universities in New York have a high academic regard so it's not like she preferred some community college in Hicksville to an Ivy League school just to stay around her dad.

As to the episode:

One of the best.. a Castle episode how i like 'em. Fun, engaging and a bit of Caskett moving forward. I really don't like the entire Zombie genre but here it was used well.. Castle's reactions were hilarious as were those of the other ones and season 4 really needed more of that vibe but the cream came near the end after the case.

I actually spazzed out for a time (good thing i was alone and nobody was watching me ) when they had their heart to heart. Her admitting she is in therapy is a huge personal revelation.. something she wouldn't have done to him in previous years. But the kicker was not only her pouring her heart out and sending him a message but that she didn't know she was telling more than she intended as Castle knew the whole truth about the shooting now (which out him in Jackass mode for a while) and it laid all his fears to rest forever. He now knows it wasn't malicious or non-reciprocated love on her part but "just" her inner trouble which she needed to deal with but since the swing scene in the season opener has never mentioned again so he was in the dark the whole time waiting for her to make a move.

Now she said to him that she's close to making that move and that means it's all good, she's nearly there and it's only a short wait now.

It's the closest they can get to actually spelling it all out and that makes me happy.

Now, weakling that i am, i couldn't resist and saw the preview for next weeks episode and goddamn, that will be one hell of a finale!

 

Hey - Firefly reference in the episode: When they jabbed the guy they thought was dead and he sprang up and screamed. Right out of "The Message."

Unless it was a biiiig coincidence.

 

^That beat has been done on quite a few shows over the years. So I doubt it's a reference to Firefly specifically.

 

ZOMBIES are all ways so fun even if they are not really real. fantastic episode 5 stars.

 

Heh, I took the whole "Come at him sideways" thing as a Firefly/Serenity moment.

 

I think people are trying too hard to read Firefly connections into every single sentence and action that the two franchises happen to have in common. Sometimes a similarity is just coincidental.

 

Not EVERY sentence. Just one every episode.

Hey, could be... might not be... whatever. Fun to think so - you KNOW they're not above doing it on this show.

 

I really enjoyed last night's episode. It's great to see Perlmutter again, such a surly, sarcastic guy.
I'm looking forward to see what they do with Caskett during the finale next week.

 

I'm counting down the days

You know.. i came onboad Castle pretty late last season and used every spare minute to catch up on the show but i never expected such a brilliant season finale as the one for season 3.

It took me totally by surprise and it was the best finale of that TV season i saw.

However with the season 4 finale i just KNOW it will be brilliant and grand and that i will kill anyone who'll interrupt my initial viewing I've read so much by official staff and saw the promo and everything i knew has been confirmed and i just can't wait.

Maybe i should get a life and not get so excited but who cares.. i got all summer to pick up my real life

 

Presumably

Spoiler: Always

from the surface of the rifle they recovered

.

Meanwhile, I'm so glad

Spoiler: Always

Kate and Rick have finally hooked up. Though it's weird they're still on a last-name basis.

 

Great episode, not as good as last year's finale, but it's still going to be a long summer.
At least Ryan did the right thing.