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Recap / Castle S 1 E 4 Hell Hath No Fury

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The body of a local politician, Jeff Horn, who is running for re-election, is found wrapped in a rug.

Castle sends photos of the rug to his interior designer (earning him Beckett's wrath), who identifies it as coming from one a chain of hotels. The hotels are owned by a developer with a grudge against the victim. Horn prevented a rezoning that would have let him build a club. Our team speculates that the developer had him killed for revenge.

Unfortunately, this lead is a bust. The developer knew the politician wouldn't win the election, because the politician's opponent for office has photo evidence of an affair with a prostitute, snapped by an ex-police officer private investigator... who was apparently blackmailing the vic. Our intrepid detectives think the victim must have refused to pay, and the investigator killed him.

But no. The victim had agreed to pay, but never showed up. The investigator's alibi for the murder is that he was waiting for the victim to meet him with the payment.

The killer turns out, as Genre Savvy viewers might have guessed from the title, to be the wife, assisted by the victim's campaign manager, because the victim was using her money to pay off the blackmailer, and the campaign manager was worried about his future employability if the scandal broke.

Non-murder-related subplots include:

  • Castle hating the station's coffee.
  • The release of Castle's final Derrick Storm book, and his next character.

Tropes

  • And There Was Much Rejoicing: An opponent of Horn's celebrates with champagne.
  • Bad to the Last Drop: Castle says the police station's coffee is possibly the worst he's ever tasted. This sets up a subplot where he buys the station a fancy espresso maker.
    Castle: It's actually kind of fascinating. It tastes like a... [takes another sip] It tastes like a monkey peed in battery acid.
  • Bait-and-Switch: The opening scene features various close-ups of a dead body on a carpet, and we hear Castle say, "Oh my god..." But this is really just audio from the next scene playing early—Castle is actually reacting to the bad coffee at the police station.
  • Bait-and-Switch Comment: "Nice work. Very impressive. Oh, and you too Beckett." The captain is just messing with Beckett, but she is not amused.
  • Blackmail: The victim's opponent in the election had a PI follow him and find that he's cheating on his wife. The opponent decided not to use the evidence but the PI decided to try his hand at blackmail anyway.
  • Bond One-Liner: Non-lethal version. When the culprit attempts to flee Beckett and Esposito, Ryan and Castle intercept him as he tries the back exit. Ryan's quip leaves Castle fairly impressed, and the culprit is cuffed.
    Ryan: [flashes his badge] Stop runnin', bro. Campaign's over.
    Castle: Ooh...!
  • Chekhovs Gun: The victim's campaign manager going on about how they were going to "change the world", which the victim's wife also says. This clues Beckett and Castle that the campaign manager is the killer.
  • Caustic Critic: The reviewer of Castle's latest novel.
  • Cut His Heart Out with a Spoon: Castle's publicist threatens that if Castle doesn't go to his book signing, she will drip honey on his eyeballs and let loose a hundred fire ants.
  • Everyone Has Standards: Castle takes an immediate dislike to the club/hotel owner whose property deal Horn scotched. He doesn't think the guy actually killed Horn, but Castle is still willing to get him arrested because he thinks the guy's a douche.
  • Foreshadowing: Private Investigator and ex-cop Bruce Kirby offers Beckett a drink, and when she says that she's on duty, he replies that it never stopped him. With this attitude toward Drinking on Duty, it isn't too surprising when it later transpires that Kirby was thrown off the force for various bad conduct.
  • Instantly Proven Wrong: Lanie tells Beckett she needs some fun and should hook up with Castle.
    Lanie: Come on, how bad could he be?
    Beckett's phone rings
    Castle: Guess who's got a date with a prostitute?
  • Irony:
    • Castle says the reason why "family-oriented" politicians get caught in scandals is because "the universe loves irony, and because most people are hypocrites".
    • The murderer's motive? He was the victim's campaign manager and didn't want the scandal to ruin his own career, and so killed him. This eventually leads him to get arrested on murder charges, which he confesses to, which will undoubtedly ruin his career.
  • Lampshade Hanging: Genre Savvy Castle identifying the first suspect as a Red Herring.
  • Ms. Fanservice: Beckett shows up to Castle's book-signing looking absolutely stunning in a cocktail dress. Castle, doing a reading, is stunned and loses his place.
  • The Nicknamer: Castle calls the victim "Councilman Horny" after he and Beckett see the blackmail photos.
  • Pun: When Beckett says she didn't find the victim attractive, Rick asks if it's because he was wearing a rug. (his body was wrapped in a rug and left in a dumpster)
    Castle: Too soon?
  • Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: Castle took a couple of pictures of the rug that Jeff Horn's body was found in and sent them to his interior decorator, hoping she'd be able to tell him where it came from. As it turns out, it's from the hotel of the man they'd just interviewed, giving them enough cause to bring him in for an interrogation.
  • Self-Deprecation: When he hears about the good review he got from a newspaper, Castle remarks on how far the quality of the paper has fallen.
  • Shout-Out: Derrick Storm gets compared to Harry Potter in this episode.
  • Spoiler Title: The title is the first half of an aphorism, "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned", giving away that a spurned woman was responsible for Horn's death. And since only two women appear in the investigation, it's not hard to figure out which of them the title is referring to.
  • A Taste of Their Own Medicine: Beckett shows up to Castle's book signing and distracts him as he's reading by showing off her legs in a slinky cocktail dress. And she makes fun of the book's Purple Prose. Then she admits she's just doing this to show Castle how it feels to have an outsider interrupt you while you're doing your job.
  • Tear Jerker: In-Universe. The audience cries as Castle reads from his new novel—and Beckett smirks at his use of Purple Prose.
    Beckett: How does wind gather up hair? I'm just curious.
  • They Call Me MISTER Tibbs!: "Call me Jason."
  • Uncle Pennybags: Castle sets up a date with Horn's call girl to question her and also buys the precinct an espresso machine because their coffee is crap.
  • Unusual Euphemism: Kirby the P.I. calls Horn's nights with the prostitute "polling his constituency".
  • Vicariously Ambitious: Inverted. Martha spends time at a bookstore so she can complain to Castle that no one is buying his books. Then she scours the internet to find a bad review from an obscure newspaper.
    Alexis: The Syracuse Times Review?

 
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"Monkey Peed in Battery Acid"

"Hell Hath No Fury". Castle says the precinct break room's coffee "tastes like a monkey peed in battery acid."

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