Headscratchers / Castle (2009)

Pilot Episode: They Got The Wrong Guy

The pilot episode was wrapped up with a nice little bow; the initial suspect was framed, and they caught the real killer, culminating in an epic standoff with Castle being held hostage. Castle is being snarky as he's being held at gunpoint, and the killer says, "Who are you?" That's the point where I'm filled with doubt. One of the main points of this episode was that the killer had framed Castle's obsessive fan for the murders of three people in order to cover up the motive-filled murder of his sister. Obviously, the killer had to have known a bit about Castle and his books in order to pull it off. So how, then, does he not know who Castle is? I mean, his patsy has a literal shrine to the guy in his apartment. That one line, "Who are you?", has convinced me that they got the wrong guy, and the real killer, (probably another obsessive psychopath), is still out there.

• Considering a key plot point was that he got several key details of the crime scenes he was faking up wrong, he clearly didn't know that much Castle or his books. All he really needed to do to get the basic details he was using was google the Wikipedia pages of the books in the question or grab a book from a shelf in a book store or library and quickly flip through it until he came across a description of a crime scene (dead body, surrounded by flowers — got it!). As for recognising Castle, he could have picked editions of Castle's books which didn't have his photo on the cover; not every book does (paperbacks, for example).
• Or he could have simply not committed Castle's face to memory. I'm a big fan of the books of Robert B. Parker, I've probably seen his face a couple of times, but if you'd put him in a lineup and demanded that I pick him out, I'd probably struggle. How many people remember what famous novelists look like?

Season 1 episode 8: A whole bathtub of motor oil?

In Ghosts, a woman was drowned in a bathtub filled with motor oil. At the ending, it was established that this was actually done by the victim and that her intended target ended up drowning her in the oil. Here's the problem with this. It was stated earlier in the episode that the victim was living on a low income with her husband. Motor oil is expensive. Probably at least fifteen to twenty dollars a gallon on the low end. If the bathtub was 40 gallons, that still adds up to about $600 in motor oil. How would she have been able to afford this on $400 a week?

• It was stated that she got some cash from "Real Life crime Writer" Lee Wax. Realizing that her former partner was going to expose her, using some of that money to set her scene probably seemed reasonable.
• Was it ever specifically stated that it was new motor oil? If it was used oil drained from cars during oil changes, she might've gotten it a whole lot cheaper, or even for free if she swiped a barrelful before it could be shipped to a re-refining facility and recycled.

So when're they changing the name of the show from "Castle" to "Beckett"?

Is it just me, or are they focusing waaaay more on Beckett than the titular character? I mean, Kate is a great character, but so far every major storyline has revolved around her - the serial killer stalking her, the case to solve her mother's murder - and now season four's plotline is going to be all about her too. Personally, I'd find it more interesting if we got a personalized Castle storyline, like something from his past or someone targeting his family.

• I'd say that the reason they concentrate so much in Beckett's past is because most of the time the two of them are at Beckett's work, which is very closely related to her past. I think that, maybe, this season, with the potential start of their relationship and the problems that can carry from there. Maybe something like what you suggest could happen. For example, some girl could get obsessed with Castle and attempt to kill his family and Beckett, or something like that.
• Part of it too is that while the show uses an omnipresent camera, for the most part, it tends more to show things from Castle's perspective. Even though Beckett is the main character, we are seeing police work and Beckett through Castle's eyes. It's the story of Castle as he talks about the story of Kate.
  • On that note, the camera follows Castle home and the B-story is often about what's going on in the Castle household. We see Kate at work, but we see Castle everywhere. We don't really see Beckett's home life unless they're working her mother's case, she's having a breakdown or someone's trying to blow her up. Or when Castle stops by, which is usually due to the first three. Although, we may see more of Kate's home life now that she and Castle are intimately involved.
• Well, with "Pandora"/"Linchpin", we have found out a bit more about Castle's past, including that his father may have been a CIA agent.
• And it's a bit about how they sort of crashed into each other. The two of them have phenomenally changed each other's lives. Without Castle, nothing in Beckett's mother's case would have changed because he brought fresh eyes to it. Kate does get more back story, but she's a bit more complicated than Castle. He actually gets more character development. We're actually sort of in the process of watching Castle's back story form - how his life was epically changed by meeting this cop. He's become a completely different person from when the show began. Like he says himself in Pandora/Linchpin, everyone changes and both stays the same. The best example can be seen when he first met Kate and found out there was someone killing people based on his stories - he wanted to get pictures so he could impress his friends. After watching the actual effects of murder over the years, he then becomes devastated when he's put in the same situation. Now he's still a carefree, silly, childish guy, but he's become much, much more as a man. As a character, Kate has become a bit more relaxed over the years, but you get the idea that that was a part of her personality that she had lost before she met Castle that she was getting in touch with again, AND with Castle's help she finally is able to find her mother's killer and cope with the fact that she can't get him yet instead of being dangerously (almost suicidally) obsessed with the case and putting the mastermind away, but overall when you look at it - Castle's the one who has really changed and grown as a person.

Castle is the title of the show. But I can't seem to figure out where the name actually comes from.

Martha is a Rodgers, so the natural assumption is that it came from a Castle in her past. In 'Suicide Squeeze', though, that explanation seems thoroughly nixed when we learn that Rick is "famously fatherless". So why the surname switcharoo?

• He's a writer, he likes cool names. Would it not be easy for him to pick his own name?
• Also, "famously" fatherless does not imply "actually" fatherless. Didn't he say once that he had tons of father figures (re: Martha's, um, Man-izing?
• Given what we know about Richard Castle, I'm guessing he'd think that "Richard Rodgers" wouldn't be a suitable name for a mystery writer and simply gave himself a nom-de-plume (possibly, as mentioned above, from one of the men in Martha's life that he actually liked), adopting it for day-to-day business. Alternatively, 'Castle' could be Meredith's last name, and Richard could have adopted it and kept it for the sake of Alexis when they divorced.
• There is also the possibility that Rick didn't want to be mistaken for Richard Rodgers, famous (though deceased) writer of musicals.
• Or Martha could originally be a Castle. Rodgers is from a marriage and she kept the name or it is simply her screenname.
• Martha strikes me as someone who would have been pretty flaky when she was younger. And, unless I'm mistaken, your last name doesn't have to be the same as your parents'. If she didn't know who the father was (or did, hated his guts, but wanted little Ricky to have a cool name) it's entirely possible that she named him "Richard Castle" right off the hop.

• He says in "He's Dead, She's Dead" that he chose it and gives no explanation as to why. He does say his middle name is now Edgar after Poe. His birth name was apparently Richard Alexander Rogers.
• Richard Castle? Mystery/suspense writer? You mean like Richard Bachmann, alternate ego of Stephen King, who writes a lot of stuff that takes place in Castle Rock, Maine?

So Castle believes in zombies, vampires, and psychics, but he doesn't believe in curses?

• To me the whole not believing in curses thing came off more as him trying to convince himself that he didn't believe in curses. He did get rather nervous whenever the curse was mentioned and asked the guy how to cure himself.
• Probably the idea that if he doesn't believe in it, it can't hurt him/he shouldn't fear it. He has an active imagination. Even if he doesn't truly believe that such things exist, he probably still can freak himself out over them.
• I'm not sure he believes in any of it and is more interested in "Wouldn't it be cool if it did?"
• He doesn't really believe in any of it. He's a story teller and at first, the boring reasons for people killing each other weren't entertaining enough for him, but the main reason for all of his continually crazy theories he says himself in the zombie episode.
  Ryan: Castle, do you really believe in all this zombie stuff? Because I would swear on my Nana's grave that Kyle Jennings was dead.
  Castle: *whispers* No. You know what I do believe in? Driving Beckett crazy.
• He's very open-minded to begin with (albeit more in a "wouldn't it be cool if [X] existed?" sense more than a hardened belief that it does) and he was experiencing a rather odd run of bad luck in that episode. It was probably just playing at him; even fairly rational, skeptical people can convince themselves of some irrational things if they worry at it long enough or if the 'evidence' seems to be piling up (heck, from time to time even Beckett's clearly been on the verge of believing some of Castle's more out-there suggestions until she was able to rationalise it with something else).

Why is a fiction writer allowed to be a part of police investigations?

• I know this show is excused by Rule of Cool / Rule of Funny, but couldn't they have thrown in a mention of Castle being a former detective or something?
  • At first, he got to stay because of Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!.
    Castle: (Intro speech) ...and thanks to my friendship with the mayor, I get to be on her case.
  • After about half a season, Beckett simply likes having him around, not to mention he's a pretty useful consultant. Despite lacking training in criminal profiling or detective work he's decent at both because he thinks like a murderer for a living and has an eye for "plot holes".
    • Pretty much - its not like it's really out of the question for police departments to have outside consultants helping out. Sure, maybe some of them are questionable (psychics), but hey, ultimately, they want to solve murders and such and if someone is helping them out and has a really really good success rate at it, why -wouldn't- they keep them around? Not to mention, as a professional writer writing about their very own police department, it's good PR.
    • Not to mention that he's proven a pretty good consultant, a source of good connections in various cases, and willing to spend his own dime to help the department, whether it is to solve a crime or get them a new espresso machine - and he does all this free of charge. The department has a pretty good deal, all things considered. Usually consultants expect to be paid.
  • As a troper in the WMG section pointed out, the premise of Castle isn't that different from the real-life TV show COPS.
    • Or embedded reporters for the military. Even, to an extent, any and all movies described by the Backed by the Pentagon trope.
  • Beckett's pretty clearly a special detective. She's been mentored by Montgomery for most of her career and is in charge of two other detectives, leading serious investigations. Her strength is in dogged pursuit. Castle? He's an outside the box thinker. As Verbal Kint put it, "To a cop the explanation is never that complicated. It's always simple. There's no mystery to the street, no arch criminal behind it all. If you got a dead body and you think his brother did it, you're gonna find out you're right." Castle's all about mystery and arch criminals. Thus he's the perfect foil for a dogged, by the book cop. She thinks literally, he laterally. Plus, they're totally hot for each other.
  • FWIW later seasons have Hand Waved this by having Castle be introduced to people by Beckett and the other police detectives as a 'consultant', the implication that he's now not just a writer doing research but is being retained by the department in a semi-official capacity to consult on the cases.
  • Also, Beckett notes to Gates at one point that she (Kate) has the highest closure rate in the district. That alone is strong evidence that her team (Castle included) works well and is talented. Breaking that up would do little other that leave cases unsolved or what have you.
• The Season 5 "Castle and Beckett keeping their relationship secret" subplot also suggests that Castle now has a more official relationship with the police department than just being a writer doing research, since if he was just doing research then no one would probably care too much if they were also sleeping together in their private time.
• "Final Frontier" suggests much the same, at least from Castle's perspective. He's doing a book signing at a convention and promptly stops to help out on a case!

Where is Kate Beckett living?

• We know that she stayed for a night at Castle's house when hers blew up in "Boom!" But that was only temporary. In a later episode, "Almost Famous", she mentions that she's still looking for her house. Is she living with Jesse, her new boyfriend-guy? Her father? Or her car?
  • I remember some interview in which they said she was subletting an apartment while looking for a new place.
  • Well as of "Knockdown", we know she's has an apartment. It's unclear whether it's shared with Josh, though.

Beckett's Shoes

Normally I'm fine with Beckett wearing heels even though it's wildly impractical for her job. My brain can still willingly suspend disbelief. What killed me was that in the episode "Setup" she was sneaking into an empty building containing terrorists and bomb with highly radioactive parts and the shoes she's wearing are making a sound so loud and distinctive she might as well announced her presence with a bloody bullhorn.

• To be fair, they did as the bad guys got the jump on them. They surrounded the two of them before attacking.
• In purely practical terms, Stana Katic is at least 6 inches shorter than Nathan Fillion, and the characters they play would not be well served if she were always looking up at him. That's not the kind of relationship they have. She needs to be able to look him in the eye. Better for on-camera kissing too.
• Lampshaded in season 3 "Under the Gun" and season 7 "Dead From New York".

Radiation Does Not Work That Way.

• Writers, if Castle and Beckett are exposed to enough residual radiation to max out a dosimeter in the space of about five seconds (TWICE!!!), they are not gonna just walk away from the experience with no exposure symptoms whatsoever. The haz mat guy is not gonna just walk in and say 'nope, the source of the radiation wasn't there so even though your dosimeter was tripped out, you're clean'. Why not write about the characters having mild radiation sickness as a result of exposure? It would be a relatively unique plot idea for a TV show and it would be interesting! And more believable!
  • To be entirely fair, even mild radiation sickness would still see Castle and Beckett laid up in a quarantined hospital for a good long while, which would thus take them out of the action. Since they're the main characters, this is a bit impractical. Still annoying, though.
  • We actually have a few tropes for this (the maxed out meter thing). Suffice to say, it doesn't mean what people think it means.
    • Maxing out the dose rate on an active dosimeter and walking away from it is perfectly believable: they tend to go up to maybe a couple of Sv/h at best (acute radiation sickness sets in at around 1 Sv). However, IIRC she maxes out the dose. In which case, she's toast. The specific dosimeter used seemed to be custom for the show (I can't recall a model with an LED bar graph), but the normal active models from the same company max out at 10 Gy. Which in layman's terms means "dead, dead, dead".
    • There's also the question of why she had it in the first place? Do NYPD detectives carry them all the time, just in case? There was no reason to suspect anything nuclear up to that point.
    • I dunno if they're standard issue for the NYPD — although post-9/11 and given the increased concerns about dirty-bombs, I wouldn't be entirely surprised to learn that the NYPD was willing to issue them to their officers — but you can get a pocket geiger counter around the place if you really want one (apparently they go for about $300.00 for the lower-end models), and I wouldn't put it past Beckett to be Crazy-Prepared to such a degree.
    • Alternatively, hers, which IIRC was given to her by the NYPD as a part of her equipment and could be calibrated at a lower setting to get police out of the way when there's even a chance of radiation poisoning. It could be a less accurate model used only as a warning device.
    • Since something as 'simple' as a dirty bomb could be quite small, that could be true - it'd be used to let the officer know there may be something suspicious going on.

Castle shooting the perp in the Season 3 premier.

• A civilian with a gun he doesn't own, shooting and taking down a suspect? I'm okay with Castle being badass, but it's never brought up again.
• It was established in Season 1 Episode 7 "Home is Where the Heart Stops" that Castle is very capable of handling a weapon at the shooting range with Beckett.
• That as it may be, you'd think there would be legal ramifications involved.
  • There would be... but it'd more than likely be ruled self-defense and/or a justified shooting since the person he shot had 1) shot first with intent to kill and 2) was at the time ready to shoot a police officer. Though he's not a police officer and doesn't have the same sort of legal protections against shooting people, let's face it... there aren't a lot of people in the legal system (much less the police department)that would hassle someone for protecting a police officer. And, being that he shoot someone while on a case, I'd hazard a guess that, if trouble did happen, the police department would simply drop the criminal charges (criminal charges are basically the State versus someone, thus it would be the city and by proxy the police department pressing charges). The other potential bit of trouble would be a civil suit from the person that got shot (one person pressing charges against another)... but again, that being said, said person was getting ready to shoot a police officer and had already established intent to kill. Thus by the time of the shooting, said person was a criminal (and everyone involved knew as such and thus was acting with full knowledge) who, by definition, had given up some of their legal rights.
  • Montgomery actually asks how Castle got Beckett's gun in a tone which clearly implies someone should be in trouble but then shrugs it off and covers for the pair.
• Very few district attorneys would be willing to press charges against a person who uses a cop's gun to save that cop's life. Even if the DA was really hard-nosed and humorless, the negative publicity would end the DA's career. Most likely the shooting did go through channels and the DA declined. We don't see it on screen because bureaucrats shuffling papers aren't fun to watch.

Why does Alexis have so many horrible friends?

As someone who's tired of seeing bratty kids in shows like CSI and Law and Order, Alexis Castle is pretty much a breath of fresh air and the best thing ever. Yet, she seems to have an incredibly horrible taste in friends. To list...

• In "Vampire Weekend", she (quite rightly) calls her dad when her friend gets drunk at a party. Her friend's reaction? Destroy Feggin.
  • Well, in that particular case it wasn't so much that Alexis called her dad, it was that Alexis gave her dad the phone number of Paige's parents, and Paige (presumably) got in trouble. Granted, it still doesn't make it okay to murder Feggin.
    • A better question would be why Paige got in trouble. When Alexis called her Dad, she states that someone spiked the punch, which Paige was presumably unaware of until she was hammered. Unless she'd been told not to go to the party in the first place, grounding her for unknowingly consuming spiked punch would be a little like ticketing someone for their car being stolen. Although Alexis did seem to be concerned about Paige getting in trouble to begin with.
• In "Law and Murder", her friends go shoplifting, and her sense of responsibility forces her to go and secretly pay for it. I agreed fullheartedly with Castle when he asked her why she was friends with those kind of people.
• In "Slice of Death", her friend pretty much gives her so much crap with the excuse being that Alexis was spending too much time with Ashley. The obviously logical conclusion is to try and steal Ashely away and treat Alexis like crap because... that'll make them friends again?
  Does Alexis have some kind of problem when making friends? Is she a Horrible Judge of Character? Is this what high school was like for other people? Or is it simply that Alexis has a lot of friends and there are a few bad apples among them?
  • She's a teenager.
    • Plus, she's probably been friends with most of these girls all her life, or at least for a fairly long time — they've probably gone through the various levels of school together. However, they're all reaching that age where not only are hormones starting to go wild (and almost anyone who's been a teenager would probably admit to eventually, hormones don't always lead to the best decisions you'll ever make), but teenage politics are starting to become a factor. People change around about this time, and not always for the better, unfortunately.
  • In answer to the original post: because they're teenagers. That's how teenagers act. If anything, Alexis is unrealistic - sure, there're a lot of teens who're mature and responsible, but they tend to slip up and screw up more often than not. Kids who get drunk, shoplift and steal boyfriends are a more realistic portrayal of teenagers than kids who pay for shoplifted items and instantly forgive the girls who steal their boyfriends.
    • I would not say Alexis' maturity and responsibility is unrealistic. She implies that there is a very good reason in her rant at her father in Episode 4, Season 2 Fool Me Once...: teenage rebellion. She is working inhumanly hard at being mature and responsible, because at least sometimes her family members' immaturity irritates the hell out of her.
  • also we need to remember Alexis is 2nd Generation child of Fame — Richard is a Main Stream Author and Martha has/had a respectable acting career on film and stage — it is no stretch to assume her social circle is just as rich — I'm sure that IRL Paris, Lindsay and Kim and their ilk have some 'innocents' who travel in the same circles, and its just that Castle shows them from the Innocent's perspective
  • Given the personalities of her father, mother and grandmother, she's probably just more familiar with and comfortable with people with extreme personality types. It's what she knows. Cleaning up other peoples' messes is probably a learned trait that follows from that.
  • Becomes kinda funny when we find out who her grandfather is. I guess her general capability of cleaning up after people is something she takes from her grandfather.
• Alexis may also have plenty of perfectly nice friends, but unproblematic relationships generally don't make for interesting plots.

Amnesia

Why didnt they just look at the name on the prescription on the inhaler to find out his name....

• I don't know much about asthma, but do they put names on the individual inhalers / cartridges? In any case, it could have been a generic / brand asthma or allergy medication, not one that was specifically prepared for him.
• Inhalers do not have the prescription on them, the box does. Unless he carries the box around, the inhaler wouldn't have helped identify him.
• It's also possible (or was, at the time the episode aired) to get an over-the-counter inhaler.

The Superhero Episode

• A few problems with the scene where Castle is assembling bits and pieces of famous costumes. One, why does he automatically assume a high collar means Black Panther? Two, many of those heroes aren't mild-mannered. Stark's a playboy, T'challa's a head of state, and Deadpool doesn't even have a secret identity, or a mild one. Three, why does he automatically associate Deadpool with swords? Four, not all of those heroes are driven by the loss of a family member, especially not Deadpool. And finally, five, why does a yellow belt make him think Iron Man instead of, say, Batman or Deadpool?
  • One, Three and Five: He's using them partly because Disney owns Marvel Comics and ABC and is probably more interested in cross-promoting their own product rather than the Distinguished Competition's, and because they're all perfectly acceptable and valid illustrations for the points he's trying to make — Black Panther does have a high collar, Deadpool does frequently use swords, Classic Iron Man did have that kind of belt. They're also examples that a comic book collector is likely to have heard of and follow, whereas a layperson — although they may have heard of them — is probably not going to be that familiar with (while still being fairly reasonably well known characters for the benefit of the audience, both the detectives in-universe and the TV viewers). Lots of superheroes have yellow belts and costumes, but let's face it, only a dedicated comic book fan is going to fashion a belt on a superhero costume after a type of costume that Iron Man hasn't worn in forty-odd years or so, or base his costume's collar on Black Panther; your average layperson will more likely go for the classic 'cape-and-domino-mask' style thing. Castle also may only collect Marvel Comics personally and find it easier to draw on examples from his collection (or just geekily decided on a Marvel Comics 'theme' for his presentation — let's face it, this is Richard Castle we're talking about). And ultimately, they do accurately demonstrate the point he's trying to make at that moment — that the real superhero is probably an avid superhero comic reader — so while he probably could have chosen equally valid alternative examples, does it really matter that he chose these ones?
  • Two: the mild-mannered thing doesn't refer solely to the costume or the heroes who inspired said costume; Castle's clearly riffing on the classic Clark Kent-style 'bold superhero = mild-mannered secret identity' archetype (as much for the purposes of humour as serious profiling). It's also worth noting he's arguably wrong anyway, since the cop who is the actual superhero doesn't seem that mild-mannered. Plus, let's face it, law of averages comes into play here; it's psychologically a bit more likely that the superhero actually is a quiet everyday person living out a power fantasy behind a mask and doing things they wouldn't have to courage to do in their 'normal' lives rather than, say, a flamboyant arms dealer, a world leader or a mutant genetically disfigured by his own healing power; the first two generally don't need superheroic secret identities to live out their power fantasies and the third is, well, let's say short on the ground.
  • Four: Similarly to two, Castle's just generalising and riffing on the classic archetype to construct a workable theory — not all superheroes are driven by the death of a father figure or loved one, true, but a fairly high percentage are (certainly, enough to make it a fairly common theme in superhero works), and it's a lot more likely as a 'real life' inspiration for a superhero who actually does go around kicking the crap out of criminals in real life than, say, being grossly mutated by a super-healing ability that rapidly accelerated cancerous growths in his body or getting shrapnel embedded in his heart and having a life-crisis after building a suit of armour to house his replacement artificial heart.
    • Actually, it would be perfectly acceptable to say that the driving force behind Deadpool is being taken from his one true love: Death.
• Why no mention of The Punisher in this episode? Castle could've gotten a fair bit of mileage out of jokes about his crazy "Cousin Frank".

Season 4, Episode 3 (Head Case)

• Two things...
  • The car that carried off the victim is described as an unmarked white van. When they track it down, Esposito says that the license plates match. That sounds pretty much like it's a marked white van to me.distinct
    • I could be wrong, but I always assumed that when the police describe a vehicle as 'unmarked' they usually mean it's a plain colour and doesn't have any distinctive decals or markings on the sides (as in, it's an 'unmarked white van' as opposed to a white van with blue lettering or a black lightning bolt or an orange fireball painted on the side), not that it doesn't have a license plate.
    • That's exactly what unmmarked means.
    • And why was there blood on the higher parts of front right fender of the van? Wouldn't it have to hit the victim while he was standing for that to happen?
  • Under what possible law could the company say that they are within the law to steal people's bodies and freeze them until they figure out how to revive their brains? Not even going into how the science is improbable, I don't think the law would be "murky" about it, much less murky enough that these people will claim that they still NEED to keep the body, or part of it, when Beckett acquires a warrant.
    • I don't fully understand the law in this issue but as I understood it, their argument was that they weren't stealing the victim's body in the first place; they had a legal contract with the victim to claim and collect his body immediately at the point of heart-failure and freeze it as part of the service they were providing for him after his death and, I'd imagine, that failure to act on this contract would open them up to legal repercussions (such as lawsuits for breach of contract from the victim's family). And cryogenics is inherently in a murky area, since it hinges on a point of science which, while I agree it's certainly improbable, remains neither conclusively proven nor disproven; the fact that it's merely 'improbable' and not actually 'definitely impossible' means it's inherently unclear waters for the legal system, since the idea challenges the very nature of what it means to be 'dead'. This opens up all sorts of murky legal issues about the nature and point of death, the right of an individual to determine what happens to their body after they die versus the state's interest in solving a crime, whether a homicide investigation can be considered as such or even proceed in a system where a victim may possibly be brought back to life at a later date, the legal validity of cryogenics — and while I think it's unlikely as well, the fact remains that the possibility or improbability of it is hotly and passionately debated, which is going to carry over in any legal proceeding. In short, while I'd imagine they'd ultimately lose, the cryogenics company has the ability to really stall things on this particular homicide investigation while the courts try and sort it all out if they wanted to challenge them, which is something that the cops want to avoid if possible.
    • For what it's worth, this article agrees that the case law is pretty clear and falls on the NYPD's side (in New York at least), although it does also point out that the episode did address the more likely issues that would arise in such a situation even if they weren't resolved as quickly and straightforwardly as they would be in real life. I'm guessing they probably went with Rule of Drama over the reality (coupled with a bit of possible California Doubling, since it's also noted in the comments that the issue is a bit less clear-cut in California), since just having the police easily steamroll the cryonics company to get what they want probably wouldn't have been as interesting to watch.
    • Also, important to note, is that the law does not protect you against yourself. Cryogenics may not be viable at the moment (or in the foreseeable future) but that doesn't mean you don't have the right to attempt it.
• Why wasn't the killing a murder-suicide? That would've served the killer's purposes without any need for the in-depth investigation that ultimately jeopardized those plans. And it being a plain ol' murder caused some other issues. For example... was she planning on growing old by herself? What's the point of that whole mutual cryo-freeze thing if she was planning to be frozen as like an 80-year-old when her husband was apparently somewhere in his 40s?
  • I presume her logic assumes that if the future people operating the cryo-freeze have the ability to cure terminal illnesses and regrow people's bodies from their heads, then they presumably also have the ability to reverse the ageing process. With that in mind, as for why not a murder-suicide she wanted to be reunited with her husband in the future, but that doesn't mean she wanted to die with him at that particular point in time if she could help it. In any case, she doesn't seem to be a particularly rational person in many ways.

T-shirt in "Heroes & Villains"

• The guy at the comic shop wears a blue t-shirt with an asymmetrical, circle-based design on it. I think it has something to do with Marvel, possibly the Avengers, but I'm not sure. What is it?
  • It looks like the Avengers logo.

Safe deposit box in "Cops & Robbers"

• The use of the safe deposit box in Cops and Robbers really bugged me. Using the priest as a Secret-Keeper and intermediary makes sense, he's trustworthy and the grandmother already went to the church. Given that though why bother with the safe deposit box at all? It would seem much simpler just to have him pass the letters to the grandmother after ceremonies and then destroy them once she has read them (the grandmother could even become a volunteer helper, giving her an excuse to stay after the service).
  • The letters and photos are pretty much the last links the grandmother has with her daughter and grandson, and vice versa; she probably doesn't want to destroy them, they have strong sentimental value for her. Since it's too dangerous to keep them around her apartment since that's the first place her son-in-law would look, and since she already has access to the safe-deposit box beforehand, why not use it as a storage place? It's reasonably easy for both to access, and let's be honest; they probably weren't expecting the son-in-law to go to the lengths he did to access them.
• I have one from the same episode: how exactly did the villain come to the conclusion that the letters are in the deposit box? It doesn't seem like he knew about the priest, since it would have been infinitely easier to jump him and take the letters from him when he'd go to deposit them. It seems kind of random for him to go "Of course, she must be receiving letters from my wife, which is delivered to the deposit box by some third party, which she picks up later".
  • He tracked where the grandmother was going.
    • And he had bugged the lady's apartment.
• The priest seemed to give up the address pretty easily. Basically, Beckett just said "The old lady's been murdered" and the priest told her what she needed to know. He didn't try to confirm if what she said was true. For all he knew, they could just have been impersonating cops and came up with a story to get the address out of him.
  • We don't see it (the scene is briefly blocked by an establishing shot of the priest's office door), but presumably Beckett displayed her badge and credentials when identifying herself as a police officer, and they both seem very sincere about the danger the mother and son are in; he doesn't really have any reason to doubt they are who they say they are, and the nature of the job means that priests in general don't tend to be the most untrusting of people. In any case, if they're telling the truth the mother and son are in immediate danger, if not they're still several hours away so he assumes he has a bit of time to confirm the story he's been told and Beckett's credentials and warn them if necessary; under the circumstances he probably thought it was a risk worth taking.

Agent Gray

• Why didn't Castle make use of his CIA contact more often? In "A Deadly Game," since everyone first thought they were dealing with foreign spies, I'm surprised Agent Gray wasn't the first guy he called. And then in "Setup/Countdown," dirty bomb + shady Syrian secret service man + suspected Syrian terrorists = should have had Castle calling him up sharpish.
  • Agent Gray is probably a busy man with all his shadowy CIA activities; he's probably not available for Castle to call just whenever.
  • Also, the CIA is extranational. It'd be the FBI to handle any domestic activities of that nature. If nothing else, Castle would call in an FBI contact.
    • And, as of the Pandora/Linchpin two-part episode, Agent Gray turns out to be completely wasted potential. Despite being a two-parter that dealt heavily with the CIA, he is not even mentioned a single time.
    • To be fair, they probably thought — not entirely unreasonably, it must be said — that 'Castle's ex-muse with whom he had a complicated semi-romantic relationship with until things got ugly reenters Castle's life' probably had more dramatic potential than 'someone who Castle knew from the CIA who we saw once several seasons ago for maybe a couple of minutes and a one-off gag reenters Castle's life'. Okay, it would have been a cool little Call-Back to see him again, but it's hardly the worse betrayal of plot potential that we didn't.
    • He may also be trying to prevent the same mistake he made with his thief contact. Could also be that he knows he can't abuse his contacts with the CIA because he might compromise them or become a nuisance.
    • Possible Fridge Brilliance: Agent Gray would probably not have been Castle's first choice of a contact at the CIA anyway, given how close he got to Sophia. But then things got ugly between them, and Castle lost his primary contact. He only contacted Agent Gray that time anyway because he needed to (and to show off to Beckett — this was still fairly early in their working relationship after all), and he probably doesn't want to think about or call back to that time of his life if he doesn't need to, since it just brings up painful memories.

Nikki Heat being based on Beckett, and her personal life

• I may've missed dialogue addressing this (I'm only a casual watcher), but the Nikki Heat books (which I've flipped through in the bookstore) make it clear that Nikki, like her basis Kate, is trying to solve her mother's murder and penetrate the shadowy conspiracy behind it. Isn't that a bit... insensitive, to expose her personal traumas like that in front of the world, especially since everyone knows who Nikki is based on? Even before he fell in love with Kate, he was at least in lust with her, and it doesn't strike me as something he'd do. For that matter, why did she allow it?
  • At the time, he didn't know there was a shadowy conspiracy and neither did Beckett. When they met, they really only knew about the murder. The conspiracy just something he made up. Turns out, it was true and likely at that point, there wasn't much he could do to change it. And probably for her sake and his, he changes a lot of the details.
    • Granted, but why give Nikki a murdered mother in the first place? THAT is the part that seems insensitive to me, like he's exploiting someone else's pain for a good story.
    • Valid point. Probably comes down to the fact that Season 1 Castle was kind of an immature person who didn't really understand what such an event means for someone (remember, this is the same Castle that got excited that a killer was mimicking his books). Probably if Season 5 Castle had started the series, he probably would not have done that sort of back story - this is the Castle that is appalled that someone might be mimicking his books.
    • I'm surprised, then, that Beckett didn't make him change it, and/or give him major silent treatment. I'd certainly carefully consider getting into a relationship with someone who did something like that to me. Then again, maybe that's why it took them five years to get together.
    • At the end of the first season episode 'A chill goes through her veins' Beckett tells him the story of how her mother died. She then says: "so I guess your Nikki Heat's got a backstory now, Castle". From the context it's clear she wouldn't really mind, she implicitly giving him permission to use this in his book.
    • Ooo, good recall. Mystery solved.
• Exactly how much money has Castle made from the Nikki Heat books? Shouldn't his "muse" be getting some of that, or at least a consulting fee? Especially since he really can't say that "any resemblance to any person living or dead is purely coincidental".
  • Maybe she does? We don't see every detail of their lives (in fact we don't even see Castle getting paid for them, it's just given he makes a lot considering how much he regularly spends and that they said to be best sellers), so any payment/royalties/consulting fee/etc that she gets will be paid off screen and Becket doesn't seem the type to make a big fuss. Alternatively, maybe Castle/his publisher doesn't pay her but the NYPD does in the form of extra pay for having to put up with him (or considering Castle himself is probably classed as a consultant for the NYPD, maybe he waives his consulting fee and has them pay it to Beckect, Ryan and Espo (who should probably also get some sort of payment as they also work with Castle and iirc it's mentioned have minor characters based on them.)). Besides, considering they get married in season six, it becomes a moot point as unless they decide to keep their finances strictly seperate (although considering Castle's spending habits that might not be entirely a bad idea) she'll be getting a share of the profits anyway.

How did Castle manage to (spoiler) in Probable Cause?

In the episode called Probable Cause, Castle is in prison because 3XK framed him. Later on, afraid that he might not survive in jail, he manages to get two people to free him, by dressing up as cops and showing up right when they were expected.What I don't understand is... how did Castle manage to contact them, from inside the jail? Beckett & Co. just mumbled that "he has the resources". And, in fact, he has the money to orchestrate the whole thing. He just can't phisically contact them from there...

• He mentions his lawyer and that someone 'owed him one'. That someone was probably one of Castle's mob contacts which he established as having in a previous season. So what probably happened is that he talked to his lawyer and instructed his lawyer to talk to his friend. Since it's also established that he tends to form strong bonds with people, certainly said friend would be willing to help him out.
• Also, let's bear in mind that Castle's being held in the precinct where he works. He knows everybody, they pretty much all like him, it's unlikely that any of them really consider him a likely suspect for the crime of which he's accused. He's likely to get less scrutiny than an unknown, untrusted suspect and could possibly charm someone into allowing an unmonitored communication.

Why didn't they use the emergency call function in "After Hours"?

So, they break a car window to steal an iPhone that's in the front seat, and Castle spends a fair bit of time trying to hack the security code to use the phone's functions. But the emergency call function can be used even if the phone is security-locked, and being chased by a gang of mobsters you suspect want to kill you in a very bad neighbourhood in the middle of the night probably counts as an emergency, especially if one of you is a police officer. So why didn't they just use that straight away?

• For the same reason that The Bronx somehow becomes a ghost town after midnight: Rule of Drama.

So why hasn't Castle bought Gates replacements for the dolls he broke?

He's rich and he's spent his money on more frivolous things. Why not this?

• Who's to say he hasn't? It just hasn't been important enough to really mention again; the team (and the writers) have moved on to different cases and different stories. Besides which, the dolls he broke had sentimental value to her anyway, so even if he did replace them she'd still probably hold a grudge.
  • Not to mention, statuettes/figurines like that, that are part of a collection, are most likely rare to find (IIRC gates did mention something about looking for ages for the matching set of the one she owned), and even with Castle's connections and money, it's likely very difficult for him to find exact replacements for the ones he had broken.
• A better question would be why he thought it was necessary to break the doll in the first place. If the victim did hide something inside of it without breaking it, then clearly it's possible to access the inside of the doll without having to smash it in the first place.
  • Because he's Castle, and he just got excited and barrelled in without fully thinking about the consequences until it was too late like we've seen him do millions of times before. The man spends 90% of his time on the show desperately trying to live out his cop show and mystery story fantasies, and how many times on cop shows and mystery stories have you seen the detectives make a dramatic reveal by smashing something to reveal the vital evidence within?

Did I seriously just see someone get sliced clean in half from skull to crotch by a single swing of a sword?

Why are they so dismissive of the superhero when the culprit clearly has super human strength?

• Because given a well-executed swing and a sharp sword, this is not a superhuman feat. We have paintings, and battlefield casualties to match, that show this to be not an uncommon feat.
  • You're gonna need to provide some evidence for that. Outside of fiction I have never heard of a sword strong or sharp enough to slice clean through a human skull, spine, rib cage, and pelvis in a single swing. I've seen evidence of people being bisected, but that was with a horizontal swing through the midsection, severing the spine. Hell, I've never heard of a Diagonal Cut going all the way through someone, from what I've seen the sword gets stuck somewhere midchest, losing it's momentum on the rib cage and spine.
    • Rule of Eww?

A Marine not knowing the proper caliber

In the episode Kill Shot, it's pointed out that the shooter doesn't seem to know the correct caliber of bullet to use for his sniper rifle. The culprit is later revealed to be an discharged Marine. But wouldn't a Marine know the correct caliber for his weapon? The caliber issue is never brought up once it's revealed to be him. It's like they forgot it.

• It depends, one supposes. He might not have been trained on the weapon. And since the US military tries very hard to keep logistics simple, many weapons use the same type of bullet.
• IIRC it wasn't about the caliber of the bullet (which would have been awkward, as firing a bullet with the wrong caliber doesn't really work), but the type. All other victims were shot directly. Only the latest victim was shot through a window. Espesito notes that the military uses special bullets that don't get deflected as much by glass to do that, but the killer used a regular bullet and thus the shot wasn't as precise as the other shots. They later find out that the killer did start sniper training, but dropped out before he learned much.
  • Also, it's not unreasonable to assume that even if he did know about the special bullets he didn't have access to them. Specialized ammunition designed for military use is not always available to the public.
• Bullets get deflected if shot through glass? Huh, I had figured they were strong enough to just keep going straight. Guess I learn something new everyday.
  • If you want to learn more, IIRC it's not necessarily a matter of strength more of physics; the forward motion of the bullet is usually powerful enough to shatter the glass, but the glass nevertheless acts as a form of resistance, which in turn affects how fast the bullet moves and the direction it moves in.
  • Law enforcement sharpshooters usually work in teams of two for precisely this reason. When whoever's in charge gives the order they fire at the same time. The first bullet to arrive shatters the glass, the second bullet has an unobstructed path to the target. Also reduces the chance of missing for other reasons.

Why was there a keylock on the inside of that door?

In Target, Alexis and Sara were able to escape confinement by picking the lock on the door...with a keyhole on the inside of the door. A smart kidnapper would put the key side on the outside of the door, and disable whatever would be able to unlock the door on the other side. There shouldn't have been anything that resembled something that Alexis could pick from the inside of the door.

• The building was an old office building not a dedicated prison. They simply converted a room to be a jail (you can see mattresses tied to the ceiling to block vents or something). So it was probably just a re-enforced door rather than an actual prison door. Though to be fair, they could have done something like bolt a panel over it or something. Ultimately though it may have just been (over) confidence - after all, do you really expect a 18 year old rich kid to know how to pick a lock? Much less to be able to do so with a hair pin?

Why is the DC job such a big issue?

In Watershed, Beckett gets a job offer as a super special district attorney investigator, a dreamy career for someone like her. This is played as some huge issue that is driving a wedge between Beckett and Castle. Now, sure, Castle has a point when he says that Beckett shouldn't have hidden this from him, but otherwise...
Why is this treated like such a conflict between the two? I understand that this would be a big change for normal people, but Castle isn't the average guy, he's obscenely rich and successful. He could easily move to DC and buy/rent a place for himself(or for both of them together). He's also a writer - he can literally work from anywhere, it's not like he has to be in New York to write books. Plus, it's not like it's that far from Washington DC to New York, especially when you an airplane ticket is pocket change for you(and it is, for someone like Castle). He could visit whenever he liked.

• He could also afford another apartment, especially if Beckett chips in on the rent at the DC place, and his mother and Alexis already moved out so it's not like it's be much less convenient for them to see each other if he moved to the DC area.
• Castle is allowed to spends his days at Beckett's precinct because he is the NYPD's propagandist, writing novels inspired by what he sees which portray New York's police in a positive light. There's no certainty that Castle would get the same sweet deal in Beckett's new job: if Kate moves to Washington, he probably won't see her as much as he's grown used to.
• The least-bad reason I can think of for the job to drive a wedge between them is that it requires a lot of travel. In Season One or Two, we met an ex of Beckett's who she had met through the FBI, and IIRC their relationship didn't last partly because of how much he traveled. The conflict and cliffhanger seems contrived and badly-handled to me overall, but I'll admit that getting a job that requires a lot of travel can strain relationships.
• To be fair, wealthy or not, Castle's a life-long New Yorker who has lived in the city his whole life and has all his family and roots there; he can certainly afford to move, but moving away from everything you know and love and are familiar with is still not necessarily the easiest decision to make emotionally just because you can afford to live somewhere else. Particularly since the prospect of possibly having to do so was kind of sprung on him; at least part of the tension comes from Beckett essentially keeping what could potentially be a major life-and-relationship-changing situation for both of them secret from him with what appears to have been little intent to actually tell him about it until it was pretty much a done deal — the problem seems to have been not so much the job or the potential move itself, but more the fact that she was keeping it secret from him (after a previous season where keeping secrets on both sides led to nothing but misery and pain for both of them, let's not forget) and wasn't entirely honest with him about it until she was forced to be, and at least part of his poor reaction was an emotional (over)reaction because he was hurt. Had she approached him from the start about it, chances are he would have been a lot more amenable to the idea.
  • FWIW, this would seem to be supported by the fact that he's eventually willing to buy them both a place in Washington D.C for them to live together while she works down there after the long-distance thing doesn't work out. It's not the possibility of moving so much that's the problem for Castle, but the fact that she wasn't honest and up-front with him about it.
• Castle had every right to be pissed. Imagine that you happen to accidentally discover a plane ticket for another city among the belongings of the person you're in a very emotionally significant romantic relationship with, and when you ask them what it's about they inform you that they've been secretly interviewing for a major position in that city which will by necessity monopolise a great deal of their time, most likely involve uprooting their life and probably yours to that city, will probably involve you having to give up work that you care for as well (it's not just the writing — will he still be able to consult with the NYPD if Beckett's not there?), and that it's pretty much a done deal. And they haven't told you any of this until the last minute. You literally had to find out by accident. Wealthy or not, how's Castle supposed to react? The man's neither a saint or a doormat. It wouldn't be hard to feel slighted and disrespected at the very least, and it kind of undermines the foundations of the relationship a bit — exactly how important are you to this person if they aren't upfront with you about a situation like this? True, this is a great opportunity for Beckett, but that doesn't make it okay for her to conceal this from him; fact is, she should have been honest and told him about it.

Why did the criminals in "Cuffed" even bother going through New York?

Is there any reason why it would be easier to drive their goods halfway across the country and ship them from New York rather than to try to find a partner in Texas?

• The goods do have to come into the country at some point, although this does give rise to the question of why not California or something, as it's closer.

Season 5, Episode 9 (Secret Santa)

Early in this episode, Beckett's murder-board has a picture of the victim, alive. But at that point, the identity of the victim was not yet known. If they don't know who the victim is, how do they have a live portrait of him?

• It's a blow-up of the photo from his Kris Kringle ID card, seen when Castle and Beckett first view the body.

Time Will Tell: shark jumping or brilliance?

Ok, something is seriously off about the latest episode. Let's start with the big one and work our way down:

• The coffee stain. So far, everything paranormal was either debunked at the end of the episode or ended up as Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane. Simon's disappearance at the end would have fitted the bill for the latter perfectly. Whereas the coffee stain pretty much cemented the time travel story, at least from where I'm standing. Now, it could be that we have just witnessed the show jump the shark (again), but I'm not quite buying that, for reasons explained below.
• Numerous small things that don't quite fit which individually would be dismissable, but keep piling up to a suspicious degree. To wit:
  • The absence of Sully, Gates and Martha. The first one is the most suspicious, as we have had plenty of Bottle Shows where either of the latter two is nowhere to be seen. In fact a prior episode even set up an excuse for Gates, who was at a conference. But a character who was working with the group and sitting at Beckett's desk in the prior episodes? One would have at least expected a Hand Wave, such as 'He was transferred back to his old unit.' or something.
    • Martha doesn't work at the precinct; why would we see her? Gates is the boss, and is presumably off doing boss things — there were plenty of times we never saw Montgomery either, and that's just because neither of them were micromanaging their detectives. As for Sully... yeah, an explanation would have been nice, but it can be safely assumed he's been transferred somewhere else.
  • The cast keep changing clothes. Beckett changes at least twice, first from a tan suit to a black one, and then to a different black suit with a new blouse. And her hair switches from a bun to loose hair with the last change. Castle also has at least two changes, and Espo and Ryan have at least one, when they go to visit Tuvok's wife.
    • This can surely be explained by the simple fact that the episode is clearly taking place over several days. Plenty of time to change clothes, or for Beckett to decide to wear her hair up one day and down the next.
  • Espo and Ryan get to the planetarium in time to stop the killer. Yet before either Castle or Beckett state that there's no time for them (Caskett) to reach it. Which was played as drama. Yet it's never said or shown why Espo and Ryan get there so quickly. Again, a Hand Wave would have been nice, such as 'Good thing Tuvok's house is so close to the planetarium!' or somesuch.
    • Castle and Beckett couldn't get there quickly because they were at the precinct at the time, which is presumably far from the planetarium. Ryan and Esposito presumably were closer. Yeah, a Hand Wave would have been nice, but it doesn't seem to be an insurmountably large Plot Hole without it; since it's clearly established that Ryan and Esposito were not at the precinct at the time, the writers presumably decided that the audience would be able to make the leap that they were somewhere close enough to get to the planetarium in time.
  • I'm sure that there's even more stuff that I missed, but I'm too tired to rewatch the episode right now. Feel free to add more items to this list.
• The time travel plot is exactly the stuff a hack science fiction writer would come up with. Tachyon Generator? Self correcting time stream? Energy wars? Puhleeeeze, they weren't even trying. Then there's the actors and the allusions. Morgan, Tuvok, Espo being a Doctor Who fan... Again, I bet there's even more to be found.
  • But that's the point isn't it? It's Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane. Simon is SUPPOSED to sound as crazy as possible to make Beckett doubt him. Hell, if it was real then maybe some scientists or politician decided to call the device a Tachyon generator in honor of the sci-fiction shows. Hell, there was a 1980's satellite laser program called Star Wars that was put in place by Ronald Reagan himself. It's not a stretch that some scientist on the verge of losing a extinction level war thought back on the brighter times where he watched shows that threw around silly terms like Tachyon generators. Remembering those times, he just names the device after it as one last laugh before teh Neo-facists seemly inevitable victory. Either way, Simon sounds crazy for mentioning such a cliche name for a generator. His yelling didn't help his case either.
  • As for Esposito, he appears to have a thing for science fiction, or at least time travel fiction — in a previous episode he identifies a victim's car as a replica of the Delorean from Back to the Future down to the flux capacitor, and also name-checks other time travel stories like Terminator and Twelve Monkeys. He also hangs out with Ryan a lot. Clearly he's a bit of a nerd but tries to hide it because it's not the sort of thing an alpha-male like him would usually be seen to be enjoying. Hardly that out of character.
• Simon did not recognize Deschile's picture. If the guy really is such an important figure, he totally should have. Yeah, could be explained that he knew the name, and maybe a recent picture (from 2035), but did not recognize the older photograph. But it shows a trend in that Simon's always able to explain things after they have come to light, but besides ''billions will die'' he never predicts a single thing. Well, except the bone he throws the Caskett shippers. But more about that later.
  • You ever see a picture of Einstein when he was 18 without spending a gratuitous amount time looking for it? It could just be Simon was a little more worried about the global extinction war then looking up some guy who, in his timeline, only recently became famous. Most scientists aren't really well known, even by other scientists, until they do something amazing like making a shield that saves billions of lives. So yeah, we can Hand Wave this too, because God knows how much actual time Simon spends in his own time period. He's a field anthropologist who travels through time. 90% of his life could be spent in the past for all we know. We had have to know what his life is like before we can figure out if he could have seen Deschille picture from when he was 17. That just brings in too many assumptions.

Most if not all of the above can be explained by shark jumping. But check out the writers and the director of this episode. They are all old hands of the show, two even were involved in the very first episode. With this show's history of clever twists, medium awareness and Leaning on the Fourth Wall, I refuse to believe that this team could simply mess up like this. True, maybe it is just a rushed episode with a low budget, but that would just be too sad.
I think that, in some way, the writers are messing with us. Note the titles of this and the next episode: Time will tell and Get a clue. Sounds like the show is taunting us, no? Also, I'd like to point out again that this is the first time in six seasons that Castle is almost undeniably right about a supernatural cause. Alot of the stuff that Simon says (heh.) makes Castle rather happy, not least the tree kids thing, and the serious literature. Then there's Lanie's comment that the murder is the work of a sick mind like Castle's. The best explanation I have been able to come up with is that we have seen something out of Castle's imagination, maybe either a dream or an idea for a Nicki Heat novel, and that this will be revealed next episode. That still doesn't feel quite right though, since the Pi subplot (crappy as it might be) seemed a touch too serious and personal for that.
Summing up: I notice that I am confused. Either this is one of the most intricate and brilliant Castle episodes yet, or it marks a new low for a much beloved show. Either way, I'd love some input on the subject matter. Night, Dirka.

• To each their own, of course, but to be entirely honest I don't really get why this would be a Jump The Shark moment anyway. Maybe it's me and I have more tolerance for this kind of thing, but as you mention the show's always had a bit of a tendency to dip it's foot into more fantastical waters and leave the audience guessing about whether it's real or not (albeit, as mentioned above, in a Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane), and has never really been that committed to social realism. It's not like the series is going to be hardcore science fiction or use time travel all the time from now on, so I don't really see how this matters that much. So one of Castle's goofy theories is right for once and time travel is (or will be) possible in the Castle universe — so what?
• My only contribution to this whole mess is, it was not a good idea for me to watch this episode after marathoning all 25 episodes of Steins;Gate. I need some aspirin now...

Castle and Pi

• Okay, so Castle doesn't like Pi (obviously) and is pretty rude to him. Alexis acts like this is a terrible, horrible thing that she needs time to forgive him for. But what about her? What about how she sprung her new boyfriend on her father the same day she gets back from Costa Rica and put Castle on the spot in terms of letting Pi stay with them? What about how Pi mooched off of Castle for an indeterminate amount of time? And then Alexis moves out with him into a hovel? I get that Castle shouldn't have been so rude, but can you blame him? He's had no time to get to know Pi as a person instead of 'the guy most likely doing his daughter' and everyone is treating him like he's crazy for not wanting his nineteen year old daughter that's still in college living with her boyfriend. Which makes perfect sense, seeing as how easily someone her age can screw up their life.
  • Yeah, this bugged me too. I mean, yeah, Castle shouldn't be quite so dismissive of the guy, but at the same time... this dude basically lived in his house uninvited for like a month without really contributing much other than fruit-related food. I mean, he's a nice guy, but you can't exactly fault Castle for having a less than glowing opinion of the guy.
    • This can be summed up in a three-word trope: The Unfair Sex.
  • Later episodes show that Alexis realizes that moving in with Pi wasn't the best idea.
  • And most of the other characters weren't really dismissing his feelings, their comments more being along the lines of "if you say this/continue acting this way, Alexis will get really angry and that may cause irreparable harm to your relationship". Doesn't mean they don't think his position is unjustified (hell, Ryan's comment would seem to indicate that he agrees with Castle).

Coercing confessions with Scare Tactics.

I've been wondering about this for a while, but is using scare tactics a valid method of getting confessions?

• In "Poof! You're Dead!", Castle and Beckett dress up the man's twin brother as a ghost and use magic tricks to scare a suspect into admitting that he killed the brother's twin. Is this a valid confession? It seems to me that doing this is a sure way to have the confession thrown out the window. This didn't bother me too much because he hasn't quite lawyered up yet, but there probably some obscure rule that says this isn't valid.
  • I don't see why; as far as I'm aware there's no rule that says you can't trick a suspect into confessing by playing on their superstitions. It's unorthodox, certainly, but it's not like they're beating him with a rubber hose or anything.
• The other case was in "Undead Again". A man is accused of drugging Carl with the "zombie drug" and using this to hypnotize him to kill someone. They tell the suspect that Carl (who murdered a man while under the influence) was released. The suspect thinks the detectives told the Carl that he probably drugged Carl and made him kill that man. The suspect asks for police protection or he'll sue in the event that Carl attacks him. He IS attacked, but he's attacked by CASTLE who dressed up as Carl in his zombie suit. How is that valid?! Sure there was no threat on his life, but they literally just hired a civilian to attack the suspect and force a confession out of him after they offered protection that they are required by law to give him! Even if it's not illegal, a lawyer could easily argue that the suspect's confession was a lie. The suspect could have told Castle that he drugged Carl to try to convince him not to kill him with a baseball bat. It is a form of reverse psychology. OR he could've have just sold that drug that was used on Carl, but he may not have made Carl kill anyone. They never proved that the suspect had access to the "zombie drug". They had no evidence that he drugged Carl. They had no evidence about HOW Carl was drugged. That confession would be useless in court and there was no proof that the suspect had access to the drug. The entire case rested on a coerced confession that is useless and that's it for the case? No reasonably intelligent jury would convict the suspect especially if the confession was immediately thrown out.

  • There is a huge difference between getting a suspect to incriminate themselves by lying that they have a witness or video of them committing the crime, and using fear to extract confessions. If real US police officers did what they did in these two instances -at the very least they would get fired and lawsuits filed against the city and people involved, charges relating to assault, abuse of authority and torture would be quite possible.

  • The answer to both of these is, well, Rule of Drama. Castle is clearly not meant to be a strictly realistic look into the functions of a police department, and when given the choice between the entertaining option and the real option, they go with the entertaining option.

Also "Undead Again" in general.

I like how the writers did their research on the topic, but they utterly failed writing that episode completely. It seems to me going through an entire episode with zombies and completely forgetting to mention that the Scopolamine is the most likely one of the main ingredients in making real honest to God voodoo zombies is a major over sight. Studies show that witch doctors in Haiti may use scopolamine to hypnotize people into doing their dirty work for years. They never mention this. They also fail to mention that there is currently a huge controversy on how scopolamine can be used to make people subservient. Recently, a doctor came out with a study that said that Haitians really are tricked into becoming slaves after they are drugged. The drug slows life signs to a crawl and then the victim is buried in the ground in a shallow grave and later dug up by the witch doctor and convinced that they are a zombie. The person is then used in slave labor. The man who released this study was most likely correct but was torn to shreds by the scientific community who said that the drug alone could not do this to people (despite the fact he also named cultural beliefs as a secondary reason the victims would fall for this trick). Do you know how much controversy there would be in that courtroom about this series of events. Scopolamine knocks people unconscious after a while and makes their vitals drop so low that they seem dead. It would be hell of a time to convince the jury that Carl could even stay conscious long enough to kill a man. It would be equally hard to convince a jury that Carl would have the strength to beat the crap out of two healthy, adult men after he had been drugged with something that would low his heartbeat to a crawl. While I said before that no reasonably intelligent jury would convict the suspect of murder, it would also be downright impossible to convict any reasonably intelligent jury that someone on something like that has the ability to kill someone. Again the entire case is based on that confession and they fail to mention any of these factors. How is that case even considered shut with piss poor evidence like that?

• Also, the only evidence that the suspect is a drug dealer who sells scopolamine is the word of a man who illegally takes scopolamine. Many, many people don't trust the word of drug users. Also, using said man's testimony implicates that man's use of illegally obtained drugs, so what does he have to gain for testifying? They never mention this either.
• As above, we probably have to just chalk this one down to Rule of Drama or similar.

No workplace relationships

• As is repeatedly stated that the NYPD has a strict "no fraternization" rule, so Castle and Beckett spend most of season five dodging suspicions. But ever since season three, Lanie and Esposito have been on and off. It's never been given a mention past season 3 of them trying to keep it a secret either. So why did they (presumably) get off scot-free, and Castle and Beckett have their sturm und drang?
  • This is just a guess, but it's possible that dating rules are more lenient when the relationships are between departments instead of within a department.
  • Same reason the NYPD has no regulations banning its officers from dating nurses, firefighters, lawyers, city sanitation workers, fast-food employees, yoga instructors or, indeed, any non-police profession — they have neither any disciplinary jurisdiction or authority over the employees of other city departments or any power over who their employees choose to liase with outside of their working hours as long as they're not breaking the law. They do, however, have control over the ways in which their employees liase within the department itself.

Will Castle and Beckett have two kids or three?

• In "Time Will Tell", Simon Doyle mentions that, according to Castle's future cover blurbs, he has a wife and three kids by the time Doyle came from. So does that mean three kids with Beckett, or Alexis and two kids with Beckett? I don't think it's ever explicitly said, and I very much doubt the show will last long enough to get us forward to Doyle's time and find out for sure.
  • Given the Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane nature of the episode (albeit one that leans a bit more heavily towards "magic" than normal), I imagine the ambiguity is part of the point; for what it's worth, his exact phrasing is "Richard Castle lives [my emphasis] in New York with his wife Senator Beckett and three kids"; since he's from the future, and since Alexis would presumably be living outside the family home by that point, I suppose the intended implication is that Castle has three kids with Beckett (certainly, that's the way she seems to interpret it).

So is this show supernatural after all?

• Related to a few of the Headscratchers related above, the sixth season of Castle has left me thinking that a lot of these supernatural themes are real in the Castleverse. One of the things that this show has always done is left a Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane explanation to crimes, from aliens in "Close Encounters of the Murderous Kind" in season 3 all the way to the incredibly egregious "Time Will Tell"... and now apparently there are telekinetics. Towards the end of the newest episode, the would-be practitioner tells Beckett and Castle that his telekinesis was just a magic trick, that he was using wires and magnets, but at the dance Beckett tells Castle that their evidence teams found no such materials. Obviously it's possible that the boy may have hid them, but this is the second episode this season that has leaned far closer to the 'Magic' school of interpretation.
  • Perhaps it's more accurate to say that it's less that the show itself is supernatural than that it's bordering on Magical Realism. It appears to take place on the edges of a world where ghosts, aliens, telekinetics etc. are real (or at least are more likely to be real than in the real world), but while the supernatural world might touch on the world of the characters from time to time, it's not and likely isn't going to be a major focus of the series.
  • Nearer the beginning of the season, I thought that maybe Castle never actually recovered from his virus infection- the whole series since then has been a coma dream. That doesn't look too likely now that the whole season's played out with no reveal (and closing a major arc from the 'real' world), but it would explain why so many extremely-implausible-but-Castle-would-think-they're-awesome cases have come up.

Elena "Markov"?

• Was it too much to ask for TV writers to get a Russian name right? Russian Naming Convention is not that hard... but then again, this is an age where The Dark Knight Rises has a "Dr. Leonid Pavel"...

The Old Haunt

• So, is the Old Haunt still operating? We know Castle bought it, but is he running it now?
  • Probably, but Castle is both a wealthy and fairly busy man; he probably hires people to run the day-by-day operations for him and drops by every so often if he wants a drink or feels like hanging around.
  • It is operating, at the end of several episodes Castle invites everyone to have a drink there, saying it's his treat.

3KX and his infinite wealth

• How is a petty crook/serial killer wealthy enough to enact all these vast conspiracies and pay people hundreds of thousands of dollars to get Lanie and Espo impersonators?
  • He does like playing games with other people through fake IDs; my guess is copious amounts of identity theft, killing people and taking over their identities and their personal finances, etc.
  • More likely, he's being financed by his lover and disciple Kelly Nieman, a successful plastic surgeon.

Is Bracken psychic?

In season 5's "Recoil", Beckett let's a man who was planning on assassinating Bracken, the man who murdered Beckett's mother, run free. Some scenes later Bracken approaches Beckett about this. How did Bracken even find out about this? When Beckett let the would-be killer escape, there was nobody around to witness that, and the only person Beckett told of this incident was Castle, and it's doubtful Castle would have blabbed such a thing to Bracken, so how did he even learn of this?

• He wasn't certain Beckett let him escape, but knowing the grudge she had against him, it was his most likely assumption.

Esposito's Name

"Esposito" is a very common Italian surname. Our Espo doesn't seem to be even the tiniest bit Italian. Do we blame this on his absentee father, who may have gifted him with the name and little else? Or do we suspect that the creative team can't tell one ethnic group from another?

• The name Esposito is also found in Spanish.

No traffic in Paris

So in Target, Alexis gets kidnapped with someone and in order to work out where they are, she listens and comments there is no traffic sounds, meaning they aren't in New York. Now this was obviously done to set up the farmhouse later in the episode, but the big reveal is that they are actually in Paris, France. Now even taking into account that they are several stories up and not in the city centre, do they really think there is not going to be any traffic in one of the most popular destinations in Europe?

• The building / room could have been soundproofed; they would have had ample motivation to make sure that no one could hear their hostage as well as making it hard for their hostage to know where she was with any clear accuracy.