History Castle / TropesEToL

** In "An Embarrassment of Bitches", the seemingly vapid "celebrity bimbo" Kay Cappuccio turns out to be more intelligent (if still somewhat ditzy), sensitive and lonely than expected. This is probably an ActorAllusion to one of Hilarie Burton's previous roles as the smart, brooding artist Peyton Sawyer from the show Series/OneTreeHill.

** Similar to the "Embarassment of Bitches" example above, in "Reality Star Struck" the victim is initially presented as the typical scheming backstabber on the reality show she's a part of. It soon becomes apparent, however, that she was ultimately more naive than anything else, increasingly uncomfortable with the sordid world she'd found herself part of, and was desperately trying to find a way out.

** Notable, in "Pandora/Linchpin," [[spoiler: Sophie Turner]] turns out to be part of the terrorist group. When Castle claims "you could never turn on your country," [[spoiler: Sophie smiles and ''in Russian'' says this was never her country. It turns out she was a KGB agent who infiltrated the CIA only to have the USSR collapse and had been waiting for a chance to strike at the country she always considered the enemy.]]

* HitThemInThePocketbook: "Ghosts" has Lee Wax, and unscrupulous true-crime writer who inadvertantly got a woman killed by revealing to her enemies that she was alive and well (even if she was an AssholeVictim). She points out to Castle that nothing she did was illegal. Castle agrees, but then makes a move to keep her from profiting by writing about the story; since he is a much more famous author with direct ties to the investigation, he states, "One day, and one day soon, I'm going to write a book about this." This effectively prevents Lee Wax from being able to profit off of her role in the woman's death.

** In "Law & Murder," after [[spoiler:a DA is found to have covered up a crime committed by the son of his biggest campaign contributors]], the following exchange occurs between Castle and [[spoiler:Captain Montgomery]]. Notably, Castle's reply makes [[spoiler:Montgomery]] pause for a second:

** In "Death Gone Crazy", Castle is worried about anyone being able to see Alexis's vlog, and tells her that maybe she shouldn't post so much on it. In "Target" [[spoiler: the vlog is how the kidnappers know that she and Sara will be at Dr. Posner's speech at the Beaumont Hotel]].
*** In a two-fer Castle comments at the end that a father will do anything for his daughter which he effectively demonstrates in [[spoiler:"Target" and "Hunt"]]

*** ''Frozen Heat'' (released before Season 5) has Nikki starting to look into her mother's murder, and her investigation eventually takes her to Paris. Mid-season, [[spoiler: Alexis ends up being kidnapped and taken to Paris, and Castle heads there as well determined to get her back]].

** In "The Final Frontier" aired in November 2012, in a [[FreezeFrameBonus blink and you'll miss it moment]] at a comic convention after Beckett mentions a murder Castle drops the ending to a Creator/MarvelComics storyline playing out in the comic book [[spoiler: guessing that Doctor Octopus finally killed [[Comicbook/{{SpiderMan}} Spider-Man]] which was the end of the ''Dying Wish'' storyline]] that didn't wrap up until December 2012.

* EvenEvilHasStandards: In "Sucker Punch" Finn Rourke is an unrepentant Irish mobster who has done plenty of evil things, but, as he notes to Beckett, the Westies as he runs them will not tolerate ''any'' drug dealing on their turf. If a person gets caught dealing in their area, this person will likely be dead.
* EvenTheGuysWantHim: Ryan, in the first episode of season 3, comments on a cardboard cutout of Castle [[ContinuityNod "He really is ruggedly handsome"]].

* EveryManHasHisPrice: A comically harmless version. The few cops that find Castle annoying for hanging around the bullpen change their tune when Castle buys [[MustHaveCaffeine a quality espresso machine]], no less than a [[http://www.chriscoffee.com/La-Spaziale-S5-Compact-2-Group-Semi-Automatic-p/s5-2g-c-ee.htm La Spaziale S5 Compact]]-a ''six thousand dollar'' machine. Castle has good taste in machines. Even Beckett (eventually) partakes.

--->'''Lanie:''' (''while Beckett is walking away'') Honey, just because you can't see it doesn't mean everyone else doesn't see what's going on!\\

'''Lanie:''' Mm-hmm. (''Talking to the corpse'') Cause I see it. You may not, but I do.
** Castle's NewOldFlame, after deciding that she's going to marry her fiancee, kisses Castle on the cheek, walks up to Detective Beckett, and says, "He's all yours."

-->''From the first season episode "Little Girl Lost", when Beckett reveals her past involvement with a detective on the case:''

-->''From the second season episode "A Rose for Everafter", where Beckett meets a former flame of Castle's (both these scenes take place in the precinct elevator):''

** In the first episode of the second season, Castle has gotten himself involved in an illegal high-stakes 'no limits' poker game with a group of [[TheMafiya Russian mobsters]]. During the climactic hand, the lead mobster goes all in and taunts Castle by saying 'what's money to a millionaire, huh?'. Unfortunately for him, Castle wins the hand; as he collects his winnings he cheerfully comments 'what's money to a mobster, huh?' Not surprisingly, the mobster is less amused when his words are thrown back in his face.

* IWantYouToMeetAnOldFriendOfMine: Some of the people that help Castle and the 12th also happen to be people Creator/NathanFillion has worked with in the past, most notably Creator/DanaDelany in "Tick Tick Tick"/"Boom!" and [[Series/Drive2007 Kristen Lehman]] in "Eye of the Beholder." Castle's first wife, Meredith, is played by Darby Stanchfield, who also played his wife in Film/{{Waitress}}. Alyssa Milano is also apparently a friend of Nathan's, but the two haven't worked together except for "A Rose for Everafter". "Headhunters" finally brought a Series/{{Firefly}} alumnus to the table in the form of Creator/AdamBaldwin. GinaTorres gets in the game in "Reality Star-Struck". Creator/SummerGlau is added to the list in "The G.D.S." And Creator/JewelStaite entered in "Much Ado About Murder". A minor one in "Reality Star Struck" (aka the one with [[Series/{{Firefly}} Zoe]]), but notable as being between two guest stars, rather than a guest star and a main cast member: Patrick Fabian plays the reality show director, and Lachlan Buchanan plays the son of one of the show's stars. They previously worked together on the CMT sitcom ''Series/WorkingClass''.
* ItWasWithYouAllAlong: [[spoiler:The key to solving her mother's murder was with Beckett for years. It was hidden inside the elephants that had been on her desk, which were her mother's]].

* HeroesWantRedheads:
** Played with in that quite a few of the women in Castle's lives are redheads (including his first ex-wife), but a succession of love interests shown since are not (Kyra Blaine, Ellie Monroe and of course Beckett are all brunettes (although Beckett was sort of auburn in the first season), while his second ex-wife Gina is a blonde).
** Subverted in "Significant Others" where Castle doesn't want to deal with the problem he caused by allowing his ex-wife Meredith to stay at his place, and wants Beckett to help him "get away from the redheads."

* ForWantOfANail: Basically what Martin Blakely did for the CIA, as told in "Pandora"[=/=]"Linchpin": he looked at the current situation, he looked at the desired result, and he determined a small event that would eventually cause the desired result. [[spoiler:It turns out that Blakely determined that the assassination of a Chinese businessman's daughter at the hands of rogue CIA agents would eventually cause World War III, which the United States would lose after 27 million Americans die.]] Castle and Beckett discuss the plausibility of the scenario after the case is solved:
--> '''Castle:''' Do you think we actually saved the world?\\
'''Beckett:''' I think that... [[spoiler:we saved a little girl's life]]. And that's enough for me.
** Castle experiences this in "The Time Of Your Life", when [[ItsAWonderfulPlot he sees what life would have been like if he never met Beckett.]] [[spoiler:Without Beckett to inspire "Nikki Heat", Castle's career goes into a tailspin and Alexis loses her respect for her father. Meanwhile, Beckett is now a police captain, but has no life outside of the precinct, and had to compromise a lot to become a captain in the first place.]]

* ItsAWonderfulPlot: "Times of Our Lives": Castle is knocked into a world where he'd never met Beckett.

--->'''Castle''': We should have a signature line. She's armed, he's dangerous! Or how about 'A new chapter in crime solving'.

* LighterAndSofter: The show is something of a throwback to the romantic comedy detective genre ala ''Series/{{Moonlighting}}''. For that matter, the first season is considerably darker than the second and third season; several of the perpetrators in the first season had understandable motives, mental and emotional breakdowns, or sympathetic backgrounds.

* LongDistanceRelationship: The prospect of one (he wants to go to Stanford, leaving her behind in New York for her senior year) causes Alexis and Ashley to have many a crisis. [[spoiler: First, she breaks up with him. Then, they get back together with Alexis deciding to graduate early so she can go to Stanford with him. However, when her application to Stanford is rejected, although they try the LongDistanceRelationship route, the time differences and lack of time together ultimately ends with Alexis breaking up with him for good at the end of "Cops and Robbers"]].

* LoopholeAbuse: When Castle got himself banned from the precinct due to [[spoiler:his relationship with the mob]], he tried (unsuccessfully) to bypass the ban by getting his PI license so he could pretend to conduct his own investigation on behalf of a client.
** Then Beckett forwarded a relative of the victim of the week, who had her own interest in the case (finding her missing expensive purse), to Castle as a client so he could indirectly work with her on the case.

* LoveDodecahedron: It starts with unrequited love all around in "Den of Thieves," [[spoiler:then Beckett and Demming begin dating with Castle pining away at the end of "Overkill"]], and by the end of the seaon 2 finale [[spoiler:Gina joins the mix, further complicating the romantic situation.