History Castle / TropesAToD

** Jackson Hunt [[spoiler:Castle's father]] in "Hunt", saving Castle from the men who [[spoiler:kidnapped Alexis]].

* TheBigDamnKiss: "Always".

* BitterAlmonds: In "[[ShoutOut Law]] [[Series/LawAndOrder and Murder]]", a juror in a high-profile trial is killed by cyanide slipped in to one of his medications.

* BlackDudeDiesFirst: [[DiscussedTrope discussed]] in "Under The Gun," where Ryan jokes that Esposito would be the first to die in a horror movie as he was cocky ''and'' Hispanic. However, in "Knockout", [[spoiler:this trope is played straight when Montgomery is the first (and so far only) member of the main cast to die.]]

* AnchoredShip: [[spoiler:Castle]] and [[spoiler:Beckett]], due to [[spoiler:Beckett not being able to have the kind of relationship she wants until she catches her mother's killer]]. Firmly cemented by the episode "Eye of the Beholder". As of "Always", however, TheyDo get in relationship:

* BittersweetEnding: Season 4's finale. [[spoiler: Beckett resigns from the force, Esposito is forced to take administrative leave, Ryan feels miserable because, even though his actions saved Beckett's life, he got his friends suspended. On the other side, Beckett finally realises that the only thing she wants is to be with Castle, and goes to his house, where TheyDo. Then the man that shot Beckett is still free and still plans to kill her for real and he just found Smith, the guy that had the info that was keeping her safe...]]

* BreakingTheFellowship: [[spoiler: At the end of "Always", Esposito is on administrative leave and not talking to Ryan anymore since he went to Gates over his objections; Beckett resigns rather than join Esposito; leaving Ryan as the only member of the core cast still on the force; and Castle is ready to move on with his life without Beckett... until she shows up at his door and TheyDo.]]

** In the pilot, when Castle quips about how good they could be together, Beckett teases him with a whispered, "You have no idea." At the beginning of "After the Storm" (Season 5, episode 1), the morning after TheyDo, Castle tells Beckett, "You're right. I had no idea."

* DistressedDamsel: Both Beckett and Castle seem to have a knack of getting into distressing situations requiring the other to rescue them. In "Cops and Robbers" we learn that Castle has apparently been keeping score and that by his count he's saved Beckett's life nine times while she's only saved his eight in return. Beckett is less than impressed by either revelation.
** Averted and played straight in "Target"[=/=]"Hunt": Alexis manages to keep calm after being kidnapped and is able to unlock the door to the cell that holds her and her friend with an improvised lockpick, but ends up being caught. Also, Castle ends up being caught twice by the kidnapper's men, but the first he was saved by Jackson Hunt [[spoiler:(his spy father)]] and the second was AllAccordingToPlan.

** Inverted in "The Mistress Always Spanks Twice" when, over the body of a young woman found in her underwear covered in caramel sauce, Lanie matter-of-factly discusses her own [[IncrediblyLamePun tastes]] in this area, much to Castle and Ryan's interest:

* DeathByOriginStory: Beckett's mother.
* DeathBySex: {{Conversed}} trope between Castle and Beckett in "Scared to Death."

** Once more in "Law and Murder" when Alexis was being evasive about her trip to Brooklyn.

*** In "Law & Murder" the DA offered Montgomery a red bottle of 1875 scotch. Those could only have come from the old cache that was found under the Old Haunt.

** In 3x10 ("Last Call"), they find a cache of Prohibition era liquor which they turn over to the city. Nine episodes later ("Law and Murder"), the DA asks someone to celebrate with him, because he just got a bottle of it.

** In "Dead Pool" Ryan and Esposito tell a young writer Castle is mentoring about a previous case, which was "Knockdown".

** In "Home Is Where The Heart Stops" Castle reconnects with Powell, a retired cat-burglar who was forced to retire because Castle, using him as a source for a book, ended up blowing his cover. Powell gets his revenge... by crashing a high-society benefit which Castle and Beckett have infiltrated. And bringing Martha along. Castle suddenly finds himself the subject of an impromptu one-man bachelor auction.

* CorruptPolitician: A mild example in [[spoiler:a DA in the episode "Law and Murder" willing to subvert the justice system and convict an innocent man to make sure he has funding for re-election]]. Okay, not that mild.

* ArmedFemalesUnarmedMales: NYPD Detective Kate Beckett is armed with a gun, the law, and her experiences as an experienced police officer. Richard Castle, a novelist, is armed with a considerable knowledge of criminal behavior due to his research for his books, a quick wit, and a sly sense of humor. And together [[TheyFightCrime they catch killers.]] Usually played very straight, such as in one episode where Castle encounters a hired gun trying to snipe Beckett, and proceeds to beat the guy unconscious with his bare hands. Zig-zagged, as in a few episodes, notably "Boom" and "A Deadly Affair" where Castle does get his hands on a gun...and shows that he's well-versed in them, as well.

** In "Anatomy of a Murder", in a conversation with Castle about the case of the week Martha cites a willingness to break your significant other out of jail as a sign of true love, which prompts a heartwarming moment when Beckett, unaware of the conversation, makes an offhand comment about how she'd be willing to bust Castle out of jail. In "Probable Cause", when Castle's under arrest under compelling evidence of murder and the possibility of him being murdered in Central Holding arises, Beckett in a moment of desperation floats the possibility of a break-out to Esposito and has to be talked down from it.

* CrammingTheCoffin: "Anatomy of a Murder" has the {{Body of the Week}} disposed of this way, but the ruse is discovered at the funeral when the pallbearers drop the coffin open.

** Detective Ethan Slaughter is an inversion. There is nothing at all "affable" about him, and despite his deplorable methods and crass personality, his goals and intentions are not the least bit evil. It's outright stated that his reason for wanting to get Vales framed for Glitch's murder, is to prevent Vales from wreaking havoc on the city. He's more a case of GoodIsNotNice, taken UpToEleven.

* TheCheerleader: Played with in "The Mistress Always Spanks Twice" where Alexis considers trying out for the team but decides she doesn't want to devote the time and effort it would take away from her other activities.
-->'''Castle:''' [[AnAesop Well, we both learned a valuable lesson today]]. You learned you can expand your horizons and grow. ''I'' learned that [[OverprotectiveDad if that involves short skirts and boys]] ''[[SpoofAesop I'm not gonna like it]]''.

* BreakingSpeech: Castle and the killer exchange these on "3XK", with Castle starting his in reaction to the killer's "Then you don't know me at all."
** In "Probable Cause", [[spoiler: 3XK gives yet another one as he reveals himself to be the one who set everything up to frame Castle for murder]].

* [[spoiler:BreakingTheFellowship: At the end of "Always", Esposito is on administrative leave and not talking to Ryan anymore since he went to Gates over his objections; Beckett resigns rather than join Esposito; leaving Ryan as the only member of the core cast still on the force; and Castle is ready to move on with his life without Beckett... until she shows up at his door and TheyDo.]]

* AwesomeMcCoolname:
** Richard Castle. Justified, since he had it legally changed. Detective Ethan ''Slaughter'' on the other hand, makes you wonder why the writers even bothered to give him his RedBaron nickname -- The ''Widowmaker''.
** From the episode "Hunt", Jackson Hunt, [[spoiler: Castle's father]].
--->'''Castle:''' [[LampshadeHanging Sounds made-up.]]\\

** [[BaldBlackLeaderGuy Captain Montgomery]] is made of awesome. One of his many highlights is a [[OneSceneWonder one-scene wonder]] in season premiere "A Deadly Affair". [[spoiler: He offers to keep Castle locked up for not calling Beckett after the summer break. This isn't him offering a favor or because he dislikes Castle or anything like that. He's just that nice (well, okay so locking someone up isn't nice but you know what we mean) of a guy who truly worries about his officers.]]

* CookedToDeath: Referenced in the episode "Slice of Death". A body is found in a pizza oven at a pizzeria. The investigators naturally ask if he was alive when he went in, but Lanie, the M.E., says that, thankfully, he was dead before he was immolated.

%%* ActionGirl: Kate Beckett.
* AdultFear: In the season 5 episode "Target", a college student at Columbia is kidnapped and her parents are frantic to have her returned. [[spoiler: The situation becomes personal for Castle when it turns out that Alexis was with her and was taken as well]].

* AbsenteeActor:
** Lanie (Creator/TamalaJones) is absent in a few episodes, replaced by the grumpy male ME Pearlmutter.
** Notably, neither Lanie nor Perlmutter appear in the episode "Headhunters". Instead, there's a different coroner in the morgue, whom Detective Slaughter (played by Creator/AdamBaldwin) hits on.
** Both Lanie and Captain Montgomery (Ruben Santiago-Hudson) were missing in "Nikki Heat", presumably to make way for the big guest star (Laura Prepon).
** Captain Gates has been missing for swaths of episodes at a time in the 4th season. There's [[TyrantTakesTheHelm hating your boss]] so much you avoid her at every opportunity, and then there's ''this''. This also applies to a few episodes in season 5 as well.
** Interestingly, Lanie is nowhere to be seen in the season 5 premiere, the episode after [[spoiler:Beckett and Castle finally get together]]. Justified, though, as no homicide really occurs in the episode to necessitate her presence.
** Neither Alexis nor Martha appear in "Swan Song". Justified, in that the documentary crew get permission to follow the detectives at work as far as it pertains to the investigation of James Swan's murder, but presumably their home lives were out-of-bounds.
*** Alexis and Martha (and of course, their portrayers Creator/MollyQuinn and Creator/SusanSullivan) have had several absences throughout the series (and probably have more non-appearances of any of the series' regulars, with Penny Johnson-Jerald's Captain Gates coming quite close); both actresses appeared in almost all of the episodes during the first season, with an increasing number of absences during the later seasons. Incidentally, this coincided with the beginning of the shift in storylines from a primary focus on Castle and Beckett's investigations and a secondary focus on Castle's family life to more of a focus on the former and less on the latter, a situation that became more prevalent from season five onward as Sullivan and Quinn mainly appear in only one or two brief scenes in the episodes they ''do'' appear. And even then, the two of them rarely appear together in the same episode, let alone the same scene, compared to earlier seasons.
*** The first half of season six was a little bit better about this in regards to Alexis. That part of the season featured a storyline in which Alexis began dating a guy named Pi,[[note]]Spelled like the number, not the dessert as Castle had surmised in one episode.[[/note]] whom Castle did not approve of and whom Alexis would briefly live with (first moving him into Castle's apartment and then moving in with Pi into their own apartment). This sparked a bit of a rift between the two, which would be resolved after the two teamed up to prove that a death row inmate charged in a murder did not commit said crime in "Like Father, Like Daughter", and later culminated in Alexis deciding to break up with Pi in "Limelight" and ultimately move back in with Castle and Martha.[[note]] The two aforementioned episodes were among the few, along with the season five two-parter "Target"/"Hunt", to involve Alexis as part of the main plotline and heavily feature her in the episode. [[/note]] Though the resolution of this storyline led to the return of the previous status quo regarding Alexis' appearances in subsequent episodes.
** "Cool Boys" (the second Slaughter episode) is the first episode in the series where Beckett doesn't appear.

* CosmicLotteryWinner: "Dead Again" features a fellow who manages to survive three murder attempts, including being shot point blank in the head. Unlike the Bride, he's perfectly fine pretty much right afterwards except for having a few drops of blood there.

* DeweyDefeatsTruman: A minor example, but in "Pandora" a former CIA mathematician, who specializes in finding refers to his work helping jump start the Arab Spring as a positive thing. Given that these events led to ISIS and the FullCircleRevolution in Egypt, this is somewhat debatable. Made worse by the fact that he was [[spoiler: supposedly able to predict the long term outcome of events like this. So he should have seen the rise of ISIS and the reaction of the Egyptian military and Muslim Brotherhood coming.]]

** Surprisingly averted with [[spoiler: Captain Montgomery.]] After explaining how and why he did what he did, and that his entire career has been an attempt to atone for his actions, he performs a HeroicSacrifice in order to TakeAThirdOption, and the only people who know his past decide to keep it quiet in honor of the man he became. [[spoiler:Even after Gates learns about this secret, she agrees with Ryan and Esposito's decision to protect Montgomery's reputation]].

** Richard Castle. Justified, since that's only his writing pseudonym. Detective Ethan ''Slaughter'' on the other hand, makes you wonder why the writers even bothered to give him his RedBaron nickname -- The ''Widowmaker''.