If you haven’t started watching ABC’s Castle, what have you been doing with your life? Arguably the best show in ABC’s arsenal, Castle is still rocking after four seasons. If you are not familiar with the show, it follows Richard Castle (Nathan Fillion), a James Patterson-esque author who is writing a new series of crime thriller novels based off of the life of NYPD detective Kate Beckett (Stana Katic). Castle pulls strings in the Mayor’s office and gets himself added to Beckett’s team as a “writer-consultant.” I’ll leave my plot summary there because if you haven’t experienced the first three seasons of Castle you should really drop whatever you are doing and get to that right now.
Season 4 starts with a bang. Episode 1 “Rise” picks up right about where Season 3’s “Knockout” ended. Beckett is in surgery, fighting for her life. When she finally stabilizes Castle is horrified to discover that she remembers nothing of his confession of love to her. It seems that we’ve once more dodged the bullet of them actually having a relationship. Beckett dealing with the fact that she was shot starts to establish itself as a season-wide story arc. She struggles to find her would-be killer and more importantly she struggles with the reality that it is not likely he will be found; at least not this season.
We’ve also got a new Captain. Victoria Gates (Penny Johnson) is almost everything that Captain Montgomery was not. She doesn’t like Castle and she’s playing the role of the hard-ass. After Montgomery’s “Get it done however you like, as long as you get it done, and don’t make me look bad” attitude the team really butt heads with her. Initially I didn’t like her character at all. I felt like the hard-assed captain character was a little over done and she was rather flat. As the season has progressed though it has become apparent that her no-nonsense tactics are actually successfully bringing out the best in the team. She even lets her hair down a few times and shows some real character. While she’s no Roy Montgomery I can see how she was probably the best replacement we could have gotten.
So far season highlights have include Episode 2 “Heroes & Villains” which is too great an episode to miss. Castle’s already wild theories only get crazier when a real life vigilante super heroes gets thrown into the mix. Episode 3 “Head Case” is a nice twist on the police procedural model because the episode starts with a murder, but no actual body. Because it has got so much character, I find that it is easy to forget Castle basically boils down to a police procedural. Twisting that model, even when they don’t have to in order to stay interesting, is a reminder that the show runners really do know what they are doing. Episode 3 also adds in the side story arc of Castle’s daughter Alexis dealing with the fact that she didn’t get into Stanford and that her boyfriend is very far away. Other great must see episodes include Episode 6 “Demons” which features a group of ghost hunters who have their leader killed by a ghost and Episode 8 “Heartbreak Hotel” which kicks off with Castle in full Elvis impersonator costume being dragged down a hallway by two bouncers. Honestly picking out any episodes as the best is difficult. The whole season has been gold so far.
In the last episode that has aired, as of the writing of this article (Episode 9 “Kill Shot”) we return to the plot of Beckett dealing with her sniper trauma. I really liked the way they dealt with this in terms of film style. Chaotic shots of the funeral and sniper shooting really had me feeling like I had PTSD along with her. Most importantly I hope this means that we will finally see Beckett dealing with her shooting fully. By that of course I mean that hopefully we will stop ignoring the fact that she did not forget everything around her shooting and is fully aware that Castle professed his love to her. I know that the chemistry of the series is entirely built in the fact that they can never break the tension and actually get together but that doesn’t mean I’m not rooting for it to happen anyway.
Bottom line is that after three and a half seasons the show is still going strong. The episodes still feel fresh and original. I actually enjoyed the Esposito/Parish love interest story line because it got Esposito and Ryan into the spotlight. I think that I would really like to see an episode where Beckett was completely out of the picture and they had to solve a crime on their own - with the help of Castle of course. Also I enjoyed getting to see Lanie out of her medical lab and brought forward with some better character development. I think as long as they keep doing what they’ve been doing we’ll see Castle sticking around for a few more seasons; no easy feat in this one-season-flop television environment.
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