We're at the annual two parter and boy was "Pandora" pretty freaking awesome. The cliffhanger ending was predictable, and obviously they will escape somehow but damn the build up to it!!! Alexis getting an internship with Lainey was an interesting plot development, as was Rick's response to it. Typical Castle really. Sophie Turner was fascinating. I laughed at Rick's facial expression when Beckett mentioned 'lapping him' lol. Yeah not too many things I didn't like about this episode. One additional thing I will add, the score is fantastic for this show. They need to release a sound track soon.
I thought it was a swell episode. I thought the jealously that Beckett had with the previous muse was hilarious. It's kind of hard for Beckett to argue against it because she did deny the memory of Castle stating his feelings for her.
Yeah and Sophie is clearly meant to serve as a kind of fodder for their relationship. Kate revealed to Michael Dorn's character early on in the season that she was lying about not remembering "everything" about the shooting incident. So she is quite aware of Castle's feelings for her. The thing is that Rick doesn't know still that she was lying about that. So there is this one sided tension thing going on this year. No that's not right. I can't explain what I mean right now. I can't help but wonder now if the CIA is somehow involved in the conspiracy of Joanna Beckett's murder. I'm coming out of left field here (wow I sound like Rick now lol) but bear with me. We know that someone "higher" than the mayor is involved has been at least involved with this case. I think someone earlier in the thread tossed out "State Department". I have no clue what connection the CIA would have with the JB case but it's just something I thought I'd toss out there. This is a mystery show . It is dealing with a conspiracy murder case connected to one of our lead characters. I also like to think Marlowe and the writers aren't just introducing aspects just to be one off concepts, connections and threads are characteristics of the show. Castle uses them all the time in his theories. I'm really just rambling right now.
I don't care for sweeps-gimmick episodes. Seriously, the NYPD detective and her book-writing consultant are now responsible for saving the entire country, perhaps even the world, from imminent doom? That's just too much. It's too far outside the purview of a mystery/procedural series and too implausibly over-the-top, and it feels like a desperate grab for attention. That said, Jennifer Beals looks great. I've been aware of her name since she hit it big in Flashdance, but I never actually saw that movie (I wasn't old enough to see R-rated movies at the time, though I remember the clips I saw on TV leaving an impression in my adolescent mind), and I haven't followed her career much since, so I didn't realize (or remember?) what a beauty she is. And I like her as a performer so far as well. The idea of Castle turning out to have had another character inspiration/muse before Beckett felt like a questionable retcon to me at first, but they found a valid way to justify why he'd never revealed it before -- he couldn't, because of official secrets and so forth. And it's kind of cute to see Beckett being jealous. I figure she likes being the inspiration for Nikki Heat more than she lets on. Speaking of which, we haven't seen or heard much about Castle's writing this season, have we? We saw the release of the third Nikki Heat book at the start of the season, and I think we got like ten seconds of Castle writing a scene a week or two ago, and here he had a throwaway line about how cool this case would be as inspiration for his next book. But other than that it feels like the writing side of his life is being neglected. (Although if there is a fourth book in the pipeline in real life, I'm sure the show will mention/promote it when the time comes.) By the way, the real-world Nikki Heat books must be very popular. I reserved a copy of Heat Rises at the library months ago, before it came out, and I still haven't reached the top of the waiting list. (In fact, I think my hold may have expired or something, since I couldn't find a listing for it on my library account just now and had to re-request the book.) Alexis getting an internship with the ME is an interesting twist. I've been hoping and almost expecting that they'd find a way to get Alexis more involved in the police/precinct side of things, though I wouldn't have thought it would be anything so gruesome as working with corpses. I wonder if this will become a lasting thing.
Christopher, have you read any of the "Castle" novels? My wife's reaction was "Yep, that's exactly the way I'd expect castle to write." And yeah, Beals is still a knockout! I also hadn't been keeping track of her career.
I've read the first two, which is why I have the third one on hold at the library. My review is here: http://christopherlbennett.wordpress.com/2011/05/26/review-the-richard-castle-novels/ To sum up, they work reasonably well as TV-show tie-in novels, since they basically are Castle stories with the character names changed and with the two main characters actually consummating their romance (and with no Alexis counterpart). But they aren't really convincing as the novels Castle is "actually" writing in-universe, because it isn't plausible that he would just copy all these real people so slavishly, thereby invading their privacy and risking potential defamation suits, not to mention inviting deserved charges of being overly derivative and of Mary-Suing himself into the stories.
But is the tone and style the sort you would expect Rick Castle to use, even if its exact plots and casts aren't?
Overall, the story seemed like a redo of the Adrian Pasdar episodes last year. On top of that, they hit just about every secret agent trope in the book. Sort of Castle meets 24-lite. Taken as one of their parody episodes, it works. If they were going for real drama, not so much. One more thing. Why, after all the times they've gone off chasing some lead only to find themselves in mortal peril, do Caskett never tell anyone where they are going?
Well, you could read my review and find out. But actually I found their style more intelligent, less lurid and potboilery, than I would've expected from Castle's books about a character named "Nikki Heat." Also, there are some word usages that sound to me like the ghostwriter is British, like "lav" for bathroom, "liner" for garbage bag, etc. Castle wouldn't use those. It was justified here that they didn't tell the other detectives, but yeah, Castle not telling Jennifer Beals where they were going because he would've been embarrassed to be wrong was just silly.
Speaking of 24... when Kate and Castle first got to the CIA facility and Kate asked what it was, I was really hoping Castle would say "CTU".
Castle hasn't really been writing this season it's true. As Christopher mentioned, the start of the season dealt with the release of the latest book, and they plugged the released of the graphic novel but that's it. He's been pretty distracted with real life stuff this season for really the first time on the series. They're still dealing with the aftermath of Kate's shooting, the Mayor stuff, the JB case. I'd be surprised if Rick had any time to write, and if he has started a new book, I don't think he's talked about it yet. I see no one wanted to take a crack at my admittedly, outlandish CIA-Joanna Becket murder case theory. I've seen more outlandish theories online by the way.
I forgot that "Castle" was on tonight and only caught the last minute or two...more teasing for Caskett fans, I really liked Kate's friendly side bump of Rick as they were walking, and interesting that Rick's father was brought up again. I am going to have to watch the repeat on Bravo Sunday night.
As much as I enjoyed the 2 parter, I really hope this is the last 24 esq story they do because its getting a little too silly even for Castle. A NY Detective and writer have stopped an Nuclear attack on NY and now world war 3 or at the least the USA from being crippled. However we now have a mystery for Rick to explore to go along side Beckett's. The show really has issues with cliffhangers, the opening act was akward with so many things seemingly going wrong (Chair, Belt, Gun) and shouldn't her gun not work under water?
Boston???? The show is set in New York City. They even did some location filming in NYC for this one (though the production is based in LA). If I recall the lessons of Mythbusters correctly, it could probably get one shot off, but would be likely to jam thereafter. What I found silly was that Beckett's car wasn't equipped with the kind of emergency hammer that's in increasingly common use these days, a simple tool you keep in your glove compartment which can be used to break open a car window if you crash in the water. Heck, I have one of those in my own glove compartment -- and it includes a blade for cutting the strap of a jammed seatbelt, as well as a built-in flashlight (and a tire gauge, but that's not relevant here). I'd think police vehicles would be equipped with such emergency tools as a matter of course. Not to mention, how exactly does one shoot a seatbelt off? I assume she meant shooting the latch to break it open, but that's an iffy proposition and could send dangerous shrapnel flying into them. I guess I'm not surprised by who the traitor turned out to be. They telegraphed the red-herring suspect a bit too obviously, if only because he and Sophia were the only significant guest characters who hadn't been eliminated yet. I found the portrayal of the CIA too cartoony here, with the fancy underground command center and the instant magic hacking powers. I guess I've gotten used to (what I assume is) the more realistic portrayal of the agency in Covert Affairs.
Yeah, we knew it had to be her. And I have one of those hammers in a bracket right on my car door in easy reach. I remember too clearly a story my father heard when he was on the ambulance corps, about someone who burned to death in their car because the seatbelt was stuck, and the rescuers succumbed to a stupid reflex that you shouldn't break someone's car window. Shooting underwater: The few times I've seen it tested with a semi-auto pistol, it fires fine, once, then the density and drag of the water prevents the slide from cycling reliably, and the shell from ejecting all the way. You could probably rack the slide for follow-up shots, IF a shell hasn't jammed, and IF you're not drowning.
Anyone know what kind of pistol Beckett uses? I'm reading Heat Rises now and it says Nikki Heat uses a type of gun called a Sig-Sauer (which is a name I remember because for a while I thought people were saying "Six-Hour" when they mentioned it on cop shows), and I'd tend to expect that Beckett would use the same since the character's based on her, but I can't tell by looking.
I found this Christopher which outlines the types of guns used in the series. As the link says Kate has switched pistols since the start of the series. http://www.imfdb.org/wiki/Castle#Pistols