YMMV / Castle (2009)

• Actor Shipping:
  • It's called Stanathan. With many, many YouTube videos. It was strongest in the first four seasons, but appears to have subsided heavily since then, which is ironically around the time when their characters became a couple.
  • The ship is now dead as a doornail: Stana Katic married her boyfriend Kris Brkljac in April 2015, and ABC announced in April 2016 she would be leaving the show after Season 8 (a month after this, they then announced the show was cancelled, full stop). This seems to confirm a lot of behind-the-scenes rumors that Katic and Fillion were not getting along with each other, possibly going as far back as Season 4.
• Adorkable: Most prominently, Castle and Ryan. Castle, because he often gets giddy for the dorkiest reasons, and Ryan in general, because he's awkward, but in a cute way.
• Alternate Character Interpretation:
  • Both in and out of universe in the episode Hell to Pay, which is a Whole-Plot Reference to The Omen. Were the victim and his associates (most of them killed in mysterious accidents) nut jobs persecuting an innocent kid, or doomed heroes genuinely after The Antichrist? Castle is concerned it may have been the later, but of course, he is an Agent Mulder, and it's mostly Played for Laughs.
  • In XX, Allison Hyde might have simply been The Mole, Forced into Evil due to threats against her family, or even been framed, ambushed and murdered instead of committing suicide, and while the first is implied, no answers are provided, given her mysterious death.
  • In "Knockout," did Chuck Ryker put Lockwood and McCallister in the same cellblock (causing the former to kill the latter because of how much he knew) for money? Was he manipulated into doing so with claims he'd be doing Beckett a favor by avenging her mother (given how Chuck's coworker mentions he had a crush on Beckett)? Or was he an innocent Fall Guy? Even the show's wiki isn't sure.
• Anvilicious:
  • Beckett on deficit spending, in the episode "Close Encounters of the Murderous Kind". Lampshaded, however, in that Castle, taken aback by Beckett's in-depth and forthright discussion of her views on this, has a classic "where the hell did that come from?!" moment.
  • "Suicide Squeeze" hammers the 'Castro's Cuba is terrible' message home a bit too hard.
  • "Countdown" takes this to a bit of an extreme level, where somehow the fact that a bomb will detonate somewhere in NYC in the next twelve hours or so doesn't keep people from sitting around, waxing philosophic about all the different aspects of terrorism.
  • In "To Live And Die In L.A", the ending of the letter Royce sends Beckett, spelling out the fact that she has feelings for Castle she's denying, is a bit on-the-nose. Then again, this is Beckett we're dealing with here.
  • Beckett talks deficit spending again in "Linchpin."
  • Subverted in "Till Death Us Do Part" with Beckett's comment about the importance of keeping secrets in a relationship, as it's so clearly contradicted by Ryan and Jenny's complete honesty about who Jenny's slept with as well as the secrets on both sides that are getting in the way of her having a relationship with Castle.
• Arc Fatigue: Many viewers became tired of the LockSat narrative, which dogged Season 8 from start to finish. It's unlike the show's formula to have a major villain be ever-present throughout many consecutive episodes (yet never seen) and affecting the protagonist's stories and decisions on a constant basis - in contrast to other key plots, which were in the background if not focused on). Worse, though, is it also implemented a hugely unnecessary Retcon that revealed Senator Bracken was working for someone else, which basically brought back the Beckett's Mother Arc over a year after it was definitively resolved with Bracken's arrest, and the unpopular decisions (such as killing off Lisa Edelstein's character off-screen and tying the entire thing to Castle's disappearance) that led to Season 8 being so unpopular with viewers.
• Broken Base: Fandom's starting to show signs of this - those who dislike season four vs those who just enjoy the show for escapist fantasy.
  • Season five. Castle and Beckett are now together, and some fans are annoyed with the way it's being treated - it's been compared to high school shenanigans. The finale, where Castle proposes to Beckett, has caused an even larger divide. (See Win Back the Crowd below for the flip side of the argument).
  • Another base is over Alexis, with those who think she's being a spoiled brat over her divisions with Castle (particularly with Pi) versus people who think she's acting like a perfectly normal daughter rebelling against her playboy father.
  • Season 8A. The decision to split temporarily Castle and Beckett not even a year after their marriage in order to continue the big 'mystery' storyline has been polarizing to say the least.
  • The finale. Not a few people think it was done in a rush after it was clear there would not be a ninth season.
• Complete Monster:
  • The final Big Bad, LokSat, real name Mason Wood, is the Greater-Scope Villain of the whole series. The silent partner to Senator William Bracken, LokSat provided him with hitmen to carry out political assassinations and covered up their crimes. Murdering Katherine Houghton "Kate" Beckett's former team for investigating his crimes, LokSat is ruthless about saving himself from facing justice for his crimes. Fearing for his own safety when Bracken is questioned by the heroes, LokSat has him eliminated and murders a woman to frame her for the crime, making it look like a suicide to close the case on him. Also a drug lord alongside the Senator and Vulcan Simmons, LokSat greedily continues the operations at the expense of societal misery even after the passing of his partners. When his coerced pawn Caleb Brown is persuaded to turn against him, LokSat has an innocent man burned to death to fake Caleb being killed, only sparing him for further use. In a final bid to save himself from the police, LokSat has Richard Castle tortured to try and get him to reveal the names of the others tailing him, intending to murder anyone who would stop him. A monster who thinks himself above the law, LokSat is a greedy criminal who shows himself to be the most threatening force ever faced by the protagonists.
  • "Tick, Tick, Tick...Boom!": Scott Dunn is responsible for the deaths of a string of prostitutes; caused the suicide of a man who he framed; and murdered a businessman to live off his identity. Calling Beckett to mock her each time he commits a murder, Dunn even sneaks a corpse into her apartment. Later sneaking a bomb into Beckett's apartment, Dunn is enraged when she manages to survive, murdering an innocent woman to vent his anger. Taking FBI Special Agent Jordan Shaw hostage when his identity is revealed, Dunn tries to lure the team into a building he plans to then blow up, killing them all.
  • "Kill Switch": Carol Jarvis is the superior of Paul Reeves at the Government Accountability Office (GAO). After learning that Latham Pharmaceuticals produced 10 million vaccines for a virus, but that there were only 1,000 cases of infection—which resulted in many vaccines ending up on the shelves—Carol decided to cause a epidemic so she could earn money. To this end, Carol had a sample of the virus stolen and put into the inhaler of Jared Stone, a hacker whose girlfriend and fellow hacker Erin Wilson had been prosecuted by Carol's husband. Carol then tricked Jared into believing that she wanted to help him free Erin. When Paul Reeves started to investigate the case, Carol sends an assassin to kill Paul. Further manipulating Jared, Carol told him—unaware about the virus in his body—to put on a suicide bomber vest and then attack a event with over 1,000 people to take them hostage, and take up time so the virus could spread.
  • "Hollander's Woods": The masked Serial Killer, Dr. Van Holtzman has spent over 30 years abducting young women, cruelly carving their faces before slitting their throats. Almost murdering an eleven-year-old Castle for seeing him disposing of a body, Holtzman only lets him live to avoid drawing attention to his crimes. When Castle and Beckett investigate his crimes years later, Holtzman tries to frame one of his mentally ill medical patients for his own murders. Confronting Castle in the barnhouse where he killed his victims, Holtzman expresses nothing but pride in his crimes, intending to kill Castle and Beckett painfully before resuming his spree of murders.
• Die for Our Ship:
  • Detective Demming upped the ante by kissing Beckett in "Overkill", thus securing his status as arch nemesis of all Castle/Beckett shippers. "DEMMIIIIIIIIIIING!" * shakes fist*
  • As of the end of Season 2, Beckett broke up with Demming... just in time for Castle and his ex-wife Gina to start hooking up again. Gina's got her work cut out for her, stepping into Demming's shoes.
  • Towards the end of "Punked," Beckett appears with a new beau named Josh. The fan hate for this particular character goes up to eleven as of "Countdown." It came to a head in "Rise", when Josh accused Castle of getting her shot. Cut to three months later, and she's broken up with him, too.
  • Inverted to some degree with "The Limey", however, where both Castle and Beckett seem to get (presumably) temporary new Love Interests in flight attendant Jacinda and British cop Colin... except most of the fan ire around the episodes seems to be directed primarily at Castle and Beckett themselves, mainly for once again refusing to just have a sensible, adult conversation about their issues and relationship and instead dicking about around the subject with other people.
  • It only took the promo for "The Squab and the Quail" for fans to start wishing this upon Eric Vaughn, the genius billionaire inventor whom Beckett is assigned to protect and who kisses her at one point. After approximately two seconds of footage, he has apparently skyrocketed past even Josh as the most hated character in fandom. Considering that Josh is blamed by this same fandom for everything bad every time (see Memetic Mutation), this is saying something.
  • Much like the Broken Base above, Alexis gets some hate for this, as well, apparently because her "bratty antics" take away from "Caskett time". Also, some think she doesn't like Beckett for some reason.
  • New Season 8 character Hayley Shipton drew suspicion early for possibly breaking up Caskett, but despite her now aiding Castle's PI firm, it doesn't seem like she has any interest in Castle romantically.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Lanie the Medical Examiner seems to be going this way. As of season two, she's been showing up more with bigger lines that aren't strictly about the case of the week. But then again, she also gets some of the best lines and could probably match wits with Castle so it's understandable. Fellow Medical Examiner Perlmutter gets some great snarks in on Castle, as well.
  • Detectives Ryan and Esposito have ended up becoming quite popular with the fans to the point of almost getting as much screen time as Castle and Beckett, but the charmingly Adorkable Ryan in particular might fit this trope most — he wasn't even supposed to be in the series initially, and was a relatively last-minute addition after test audiences didn't respond well to the detective who was initially supposed to take his place. He even has a Character Blog on ABC.com.
  • Captain Montgomery most definitely. Whenever he shows up, one can be certain he'll do or say something awesome. His death at the end of "Knockout" was no different and you can bet the tears flowed like rain.
  • West Side Wally in season four. He first showed up in "The Blue Butterfly," but made a reappearance in "47 Seconds." Lampshaded by Esposito.
  Esposito West Side Wally, back by popular demand.
  • Mr. Smith, the Crazy-Prepared Mysterious Backer for Castle and Beckett for a good chunk of their conflict with the conspiracy that killed Beckett's mother, was a character fans were generally pleased to see show up.
  • During Beckett's short-lived tenure at the attorney generals office in D.C., fans liked Rachel McCord for her strong dynamics with Beckett and being an honorable yet pragmatic character, as well as computer expert Richmond his resourcefulness throughout the investigation, and taking Castle's theories and contributions seriously.
  • Officer Ann Hastings appears in three episodes, two as a Spear Carrier and one as a costumed vigilante who makes an accurate "Not So Different" Remark to Beckett and has some excellent martial arts skills, making her a fondly remembered character who many fans wish had appeared more.
  • FBI Agent Jordan Shaw is only in one two-part season 2 episode, but is an immensely beloved guest star due to her Defrosting the Ice Queen relationship with Castle and Beckett that ends with her being a Shipper on Deck for them. She gets extra points for being an Action Mom whose detective skills rival the main duo, and who has a lot of cool technology to help her with her job.
  • Natalie Rhodes (Laura Prepon), the method actress playing Nikki Heat, is a good contender for the most delightfully hilarious guest star in season 3.
• Fan Nickname: Raglan's warning to Beckett that her investigation "woke the dragon" led to this becoming Bracken's alias by the fans until his identity was revealed.
• Fanon Discontinuity: The Season 7 finale was such a heartwarming sendoff, a lot of fans are making that their series finale (and ignoring the events of Season 8, with Castle and Beckett broken up and Alexis in the PI business with Castle.) Even series creator Andrew Marlowe takes this stance, even saying the season 8 finale would have been written by him had he known it would be, for all intents and purposes, the Series Finale.
• Friendly Fandoms: With Firefly due to the Nathan Fillion connection and Castle loving its Firefly Shout Outs.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • From the first episode, Castle expresses disbelief that the case was solved so easily, Beckett points out that this is not one of his novels, saying something to the effect of, "we find a guy holding a gun over a dead body, he did it." Later, the Season 3 opener has Beckett and crew finding Castle holding a gun over a dead body.
  • An early season episode had a fashion photographer extorting sex from models in exchange for not deliberately ruining shoots. This aired several years prior to the start of the #metoo movement, which showed such behavior was depressingly common.
  • Not so much harsher but sadder in that after the events of "Knockout", everyone knows exactly why Montgomery is so lenient with Beckett.
  • The Season 3 episode where Castle and Beckett get locked in a freezer. Beckett at one point remarks, that she always thought, as a detective, she'd die from a bullet. Guess what happens to her in the Season 3 finale? Okay, she didn't die from it, but that's pretty spooky.^note Had there been a Season 9, the Season 8 finale would have ended after Castle and Beckett were shot in their homes...and with Katic not being back for Season 9, Beckett would have presumably died from the gunshot wound.
  • In Season 7's "Meme Is Murder", Beckett laments about Internet trolls and bullies a hiding behind a username. In actuality, it was revealed that star Stana Katic and her family were the targets of Internet trolls as far back as October 2015. In a way, art imitated life.
  • Learning that Katic and Fillion couldn't stand each other and only spent time in the same room when they absolutely had to starting with the fourth season means every moment from five full seasons goes from sweet to bitter.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • In the pilot, at Castle's poker game after the premiere of the final Derrick Storm novel, James Patterson quips, "You certainly don't see me killing off Alex Cross." A few months later, he's advertising his next Cross book by saying "Buy this book, or I'm gonna have to kill Alex Cross."
  • The actress who portrayed one of the main suspects in the third season episode "He's Dead, She's Dead" would later have a major role in The Rookie (2018) as John Nolan's boss.
  • In "Hunt" James Brolin turns up as Castle's long-absent father. Just over a week later, he turned up on Community as Jeff's long-absent father.
  • In Season 6's "Room 147", when Castle tries to make one of his theories, Beckett jokingly suggests that it has to do with alternate universes - which Castle regards as crazy. Come Season 7's "The Time Of Our Lives", and Castle appears in an Alternate Universe where he never met Beckett.
  • The actress who plays Nikki Heat (in-universe) said she lived for a month in a crawlspace for a role. Who would make a movie about a crawlspace?
  • In "Tick Tick Tick", Beckett wonders how the death of a dog could lead to murder. FBI agent Jordan Shaw quips that Beckett must be a cat person. But come "An Embarrassment of Bitches", Beckett is clearly enamored with the murder victim's dog, Royal.
  • In "One Life to Lose", fans of the fictional soap opera Temptation Lane became furious at the victim, the show's writer, for killing off a beloved female character. Come the show's finale, and Castle fans would practically celebrate the show's cancellation on account of it saving Beckett from getting killed off.
  • "Need to Know" centers around a Revival Film of the Series for a Saved by the Bell Homage, where the former students return as teachers. Come 2020, Saved By The Bell would get a real revival series centered around the same concept.
  • "Once Upon a Crime" featured pre-royal Meghan Markle, who is connected to a series of crimes where the victim is dressed up as a fairytale character. Markle's character? Was dressed up as a princess. Even more hilariously, she ends up being the killer who faked her own attempted murder. That wouldn't go down well with the royals, would it?
• Like You Would Really Do It:
  • At the end of "Tick, Tick, Tick" it looks like the villain of the two-part episode has blown up Beckett in her apartment. Of course she wasn't.
  • The trailer for season 3 shows the cops busting in and finding Castle over a dead body holding a gun. Clearly he did it and will be sent to jail for the rest of his life.
  • "3xk" has the -real- climatic scene involve a serial killer with Castle at his mercy. The scene cuts abruptly after the killer threatens Castle. Of course, Castle isn't killed but, at least in the killer's and Castle's mind, that may be a Fate Worse than Death.
  • "Setup" / "Countdown" has a triple-whammy:
    • Castle and Beckett encounter the remnants of a highly radioactive device removed from a storage locker.
    • Castle and Beckett are locked in a freezer.
    • Castle and Beckett find themselves face-to-face with a dirty bomb counting down to zero. Obviously, it will explode, killing them and irradiating a good chunk of downtown Manhattan and its population, and they will not be able to do anything to prevent this. And if you believe any of the above spoilers, there is an excellent bridge property in Brooklyn for sale at a very generous price...
  • "Knockout" ends with Beckett shot and lying in Castle's arms, during which he finally whispers that he loves her. The entire fandom is sure she's not going to die, but the repercussions of the gunshot are the real issue.
  • "Probable Cause": It was highly unlikely that the main character of the series would be revealed to be a sadistic murderer who would be sentenced to prison six episodes in to the season. Slightly (but not much) more in-doubt, however, was the question of whether he had been cheating on Beckett with the victim.
  • "Valkyrie". Castle has been exposed to an aerosolised biochemical agent giving him one day left to live. Obviously, he will die in the second episode of the series, leaving Beckett without a fiance and the series without a main character.
  • The very end of "For Better Or Worse": Yeah, sure, you're gonna kill off the title character by running him off the road in a fiery conflagration. We all believe that one.
  • Had there been a Season 9, the Season 8 finale would have ended without the tacked-on Babies Ever After ending. And since that would have put Castle and Beckett on the floor having been shot...and given Stana Katic would not be there for a Season 9...there would have been every possibility that, yeah, they would've really done it, at least as far as Beckett was concerned.

• Memetic Mutation: Due to his incessant cockblocking in Season 3, Josh Davidson has earned the reputation on Tumblr of being blamed for anything negative that happens in the fandom or the show, from the cast not winning awards to problems on the show itself. It is almost always capped with the following picture.◊
  • In-universe, there's Johnny Vong's commercial, which Castle and Esposito recite.
• Moe: Castle's daughter Alexis, given her Wacky Parent, Serious Child characteristics, with some Not So Above It All moments. And then there's how much she avoids being a Bratty Teenage Daughter, such as her anxiety about stuff like a Wild Teen Party she accidentally started and how she once missed paying for a subway ride.
• Moral Event Horizon: You can sympathize with the motives, if not the actions, of the terrorists in "Countdown" — embittered soldiers who feel abandoned, betrayed and ignored by their country and their government. However, they kidnap an innocent mother and her baby (the husband and father of whom they'd already murdered to make him a convenient Middle Eastern scapegoat), hold the baby hostage, all but threaten to kill her and force the mother to drive a truck carrying a dirty bomb into the city, which will ultimately frame her as the terrorist when it explodes.
• Narrowed It Down to the Guy I Recognize: The show appears to take delight in furiously zig-zagging this trope:
  • "Inventing the Girl": Julian Sands didn't do it.
  • "When the Bough Breaks": Reed Diamond did it.
  • "Little Girl Lost": Francis Capra, AKA Weevil, and Judy Reyes, AKA Carla Espinosa. Capra's a red herring, but Reyes isn't.
  • "Kill the Messenger": Gregg Henry pops up. Anyone savvy enough to know about this trope went "Oh. Oh well." Subverted.
  • Ray Wise in 2x15, "Suicide Squeeze". Played straight.
  • "One Man's Trash" features DB Woodside, 24s Wayne Palmer and Buffy the Vampire Slayers Principal Wood, as well as Perrin "Mrs. Ari Gold" Reeves and Abigail "Miss Blah-blah Farrell" Spencer. Subverted for the women, not so much for the guy.
  • Played with like a kitten's ball of string and averted in "The Mistress Always Spanks Twice". Lesse, the Victim of the Week, was a post-grad who had Lane Kim and Brian Krakow vying for the same award, so it must've been one of them, right? She also went undercover as a dominatrix in an S&M club whose proprietor is Dina Meyer, so maybe it's her? Nope; it was her roommate, who was played by a relatively unknown actress.
  • "Wrapped Up in Death", Navi Rawat (AKA Amita from NUMB3RS), Erick Avari (crazy Dr. Bey from The Mummy) and Currie Graham (from Desperate Housewives, among others). Currie Graham did it. Currie Graham ALWAYS is the murderer, unless he's a series regular. No exceptions.
  • "The Late Shaft" averts this by salting the suspects with enough B and C-list celebrities for a VH1 reality show. Tom Bergeron played the big late-night talk show host victim; Fred Willard played his feisty sidekick, Beth Broderick played his first wife, Bill Bellamy played his heir apparent, Dan Cortese played the network president, Kelly Carlson played another guest who hooks up with Castle, and even French Stewart played a skeevy guy who did business with Bergeron. Fred Willard dood it.
  • Mitch Pileggi a.k.a A.D Walter Skinner turns up in "A Deadly Game" as a hardened spy / assassin. Hilariously subverted; turns out he's just some hapless schmuck on a spy vacation who thinks that this is all part of the game. Once he realizes he's in "real jail", he bursts into tears.
  • Muse Watson aka Mike Franks in "Punked". Didn't do it.
  • "Close Encounters of the Murderous Kind" has Lyle Lovett and Bishop. The killer was someone else.
  • "One Life to Lose" features All My Children regulars Rebecca Budig and Cameron Mathison, Jane Seymour (Actress), David Eigenberg, Corbin Bernsen, and Tina Majorino. That last one did it.
  • "Head Case" features Adam Davies (suspicious but didn't do it), April O'Neill (did it and then herself), Richard "Dickless" Thornburg (a subverted Corrupt Corporate Executive), and Yinsen (stole the victim's head, but with justifiable reason).
  • In "Demons": Has Frederic Lehne ever played a good guy?
  • In "Blue Butterfly": Mark Pellegrino, who has played Satan of all villains, appears as Tom Dempsey, a mobster in 40s and also his grandson Tom Dempsey III. Turns out that he was innocent of the murders in both cases. Infact, the grandson was a Nice Guy.
  • "Dreamworld" guest-stars Warren Christie — Cameron Hicks from Alphas. Guess who's the killer.
  • Annie Wersching and William Mapother show up in "Disciple". Mapother's character cops to the killing, but it's Wersching's character who is the titular disciple... to 3XK.
  • In "Hong Kong Hustle", we get not one, but two Star Trek alums in Linda Park (Hoshi Sato) and Rosalind Chao (Keiko O'Brien). Park's character is a good guy. Chao's character didn't do the crime, but her illicit trafficking business set it up.
  • In "A Rose for Everafter", Alyssa Milano didn't do it.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • "Undead Again" is horrifying with the zombies.
  • Normally, Castle's Papa Wolf tendencies are played for laughs, but in Season 5's Episode 15, "Target", when Alexis is involved in a kidnapping plot, he gets scary. He tortured a man-- an ''already injured'' man-- for information.
    • The worst part of it is we don't find out what he did to him.
  • Basically everything about Jerry Tyson and Dr. Kelly Nieman.
• One-Scene Wonder: Several witnesses, suspects, and other minor characters have their moments.
  • The old guy in "Nanny McDead" who — when Castle and Beckett conclude that he couldn't have been the one that the victim wanted to have sex with — shouts after them, "Seventy-seven ain't beyond the realm of possibility, you know!"
  • Introduced in "Punked", Ashley, Alexis' boyfriend, is accidentally Twerp Sweated by Castle in what was, for a while, his only on-screen appearance.
  • Vulcan Simmons, a Smug Snake suspect in "Knockdown" who all but dares Beckett to lose her cool and attack him in the interrogation room. He doesn't show up again until season 6, when he's shown to be running a drug operation to fund Senator Bracken's campaign for President. Then he appears in "Veritas", as part of an elaborate frame job meant to take Beckett out once and for all.
  • In "The Final Nail", a carpenter with an Eastern European accent that gets Beckett to accidentally mimic his accent.
  • Westside Wally, a homeless guy who insists on being called "Westside", appearing in "The Blue Butterfly". He returns in the episode "47 Seconds", reintroduced by Esposito:
  Esposito: Westside Wally. Back by popular demand.
  • Dr. Barker, the somewhat nutty dog doctor/dog whisperer in "An Embarrassment of Bitches". It doesn't hurt that she's played by the always utterly charming Nana Visitor.
  • Gene Simmons was hilariously laconic and jaded: "Yeah, yeah, from Kiss. Yeah, yeah, with the tongue."
  • "Overkill" has two within about five minutes of each other — Benny, a charmingly sleazy and hungover motel clerk, and Rebecca, a very weepy lab technician with almost indecipherable "cry talk".
  • "Love Me Dead" gave us Norman Jessup, the ex-con who wanted to be a locksmith, and considered himself a wordsmith. Castle even takes a liking to him, refusing to press charges for Jessup hitting him earlier in the episode (to be fair, Jessup apologized almost immediately, as Castle wasn't his target) because "He's a wordsmith."
  • "Deep in Death" has several Russian gangsters Castle plays poker with in a tense scene where he's trying to figure out which one of them might be the killer.
  • Dominatrix witness Mistress Sapphire from "The Mistress Always Spanks Twice" who ends up whacking Ryan's hands with a riding crop a couple times.
  • The hungover bachelorette party attendees who were some of the last people to see the stripper victim alive in "Almost Famous". The gullible Jersey girl who fell for the victim's con job also counts.
  • Mitch Pileggi plays a CIA operative who manages to give Castle and Beckett chills with his cold and efficient demeanor as he tells them exactly why they'll be letting him go. Then it turns out that he wasn't actually in the CIA, he was a role player in a spycation who was very convincing in his role until he found out he was in real jail and started crying.
  • "Lucky Stiff" has quite a few but standouts are the janitor who fell victim to a dye bomb that still hasn't came off, Loan Shark Logan Meech (who once burned a man with a grill, runs a "relief fund" heavily implied to be a scam and sold the victim a gun) and wannabe white rappers Greg and Ty Page (who beat up a drug dealer for the victim shortly before his death).
  • Incompetent, would be real-life superhero the Red Maroon, who can't figure out that someone going by the name of Lone Vengeance probably doesn't want a partner.
  • The Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane psychic in Demons.
  • "Swan Song" has a sinister cult leader, a songwriter who can't resist playing a dramatic score on his keyboard when Castle realizes a clue in his presence, and the neurotic documentary maker who employs the cameramen who end up following the main characters around for the rest of the episode.
  • Blind audio expert Le Taupe and the French government official who puts Castle into contact with Le Taupe's employer in "Hunt".
  • The obsessive ornithologist, and the victim's Conspiracy Theorist coworker in "Murder Most Fowl".
  • The hook-handed, crossbow-carrying Australian Bigfoot hunter from "The Fast and the Furriest". The guy is succinctly summed up as a cross between "Crocodile" Dundee, Indiana Jones and Ted Nugent.
  • The Reformed Criminal victim's old partner-in-crime from "The Good, the Bad & the Baby".
  • Playful Hacker and mafia associate Cyber Rita from "Bad Santa" makes an impression in just two scenes which, combined, barely add up to a minute of screentime.
• Paranoia Fuel: The cloaking technology used in "Clear and Present Danger" allowed the killer to be completely invisible, which means they could be anywhere and everywhere.
• Retroactive Recognition: Maya Stojan was a supporting actress on Castle for quite some time (she has played Tori, the tech specialist, from midway through season 5 to the end of season 7), but it's likely most people haven't taken notice of her until after seeing her as Agent 33 on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D..
  • "Once Upon a Crime" features a younger Meghan Markle, as well as a pre-Chicago Fire Taylor Kinney.
  • Alexis' new music tutor in "Fool Me Once..." is Derek Hale and Clark Kent / Superman. The teacher who appears in the same episode is fellow Arrowverse hero John Diggle.
    • Iris West appeared in the Cold Open of "Inventing the Girl".
  • "To Love and Die in L.A." has Dr. Ben Warren as a surfing CEO.
  • Det. Maria Baez is the victim's ex-wife in "The Fifth Bullet".
  • "Poof, You're Dead" has Chadwick Boseman as a street magician. His attempt to Smoke Out does not fool Beckett.
  • "The Wrong Stuff" has Sterling K. Brown as the simulation program director, alongside his future This Is Us co-star Jon Huertas.
  • "Hedge Fund Homeboys" featured Jamie Chung, pre-Once Upon a Time, as one of the teens.
  • Christopher Pelant appears in "Punked" as the boss of the victim.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Gates seems to have shaken off the hatred piled upon her when she arrived, especially now that she's been revealed to have her own quirks and Hidden Depths. It helps that she's dialed back the open hostility towards Castle a bit, while still keeping the snarkiness towards him.
• Romantic Plot Tumor: Whether you like it or not, the Castle/Beckett relationship is and always has been a central driving engine of the show so it isn't one of these. The 'significant others' plot arcs of the latter part of season two and season three, however, are generally disliked by the fans because they break up Castle and Beckett (the chemistry between the two generally being considered one of the show's great strengths) and shove them with other people in a predictable and angsty way that seems to have little point other than to act as a 'roadblock' that kills time and prevents them from getting together.
• Ron the Death Eater: If he shows up in fanfic, expect Josh Davidson to be presented as, at minimum, a pretty big tool. Granted, we didn't learn a lot about him and one of his few appearances involved punching Castle in the face (albeit after having just operated on his girlfriend, who had just been shot), and he does come off as a being a bit smarmy, but he's still suggested to be a devoted doctor and an all-round decent guy.
• The Scrappy:
  • Pi, Alexis's boyfriend in Season 6, who is basically what you get when you cross a Cloudcuckoolander and a Granola Guy together. Few fans have any kind things to say about him.
  • Josh Davidson is not popular with anyone. At all.
  • Vikram Singh in Season 8, mostly for being part of Beckett's team in her quest to take down Locksat (which led to her pushing herself away from Castle supposedly for his own safety.)
  • Hayley Shipton also from Season 8. Because she's a PI and not tied down by laws, she's able to make the entire cast look incompetent and inefficient in comparison - including Beckett and Castle.
• Seasonal Rot:
  • Many fans have argued that seasons 3 or 4 have experienced this, with the most common reason given being that Castle and Beckett's developing chemistry and relationship, a highlight of the first two seasons, has suffered through numerous ham-fisted attempts to string out the Will They or Won't They? factor by introducing various third-wheel love-interests, angsty 'roadblocks', and an increased emphasis on the conspiracy plot behind Beckett's mother's murder. Many also argue that Beckett has been gradually chickified into a Faux Action Girl as well.
  • An in-universe example of this trope — according to the interview in the real-life Nikki Heat novel Heat Wave — is why Castle killed off Derrick Storm before the start of the show. According to him, he'd grown to know the character too well and couldn't think up any surprises, so he had Derrick go out with a bang rather than inflict "the slow death of literary mediocrity".
  • Season 6 and especially Season 7 have seen deep fractures of the base and a certain level of agreement that seasonal rot has set in. Increasingly absurd plots, failures to tie up arcs, and generally inconsistent characterization have all contributed. A good deal of the base seems to think the Season 6 finale and Castle's disappearance was the marker of a show that has descended from quirky and clever crime-dramedy into soap opera. Other complaints include Castle's flanderization from savvy layman detective who had a variety of skills including (crude but effective) hand-to-hand combat, expert markmanship, and intuitive profiling of criminals, into dim-witted conspiracy theorist who seems incapable of finding his way out of a paper bag without equally-flanderized Action Girl Beckett to bail him out.
  • Coinciding with a change in showrunners, Season 8 was widely derided by many fans for a plot which basically undid the character and plot developments of the previous seasons just to rehash well-trodden ground about Beckett pushing Castle away to investigate the sinister conspiracy behind her mother's murder all by herself, despite the fact that this plot had basically been well and truly resolved two seasons earlier.
• Shipping Bed Death: Averted. The resolution of Castle and Beckett's Unresolved Sexual Tension only brought on a fresh new source of tension and humor, specifically how they keep their office romance a secret. Or fail miserably to, as it turns out.
• Special Effect Failure: In "Hunt", the scene in which Castle talks on a payphone in Paris has him standing in front of a very obvious and fuzzy green screen. Turns a serious scene into Narm.
• Strawman Has a Point:
  • During the first half of Season 8 Kate is keeping Castle in the dark about her doing further investigations into her mother's murder, mainly to keep Castle safe. Castle is understandably angry over Kate feeling she can't trust him, and tells her he would have stayed out of her way is she wanted. While, Kate was wrong for lying to Castle (for a number of months), but long-time viewers will remember that Castle has generally disobeyed Kate's wishes a number of times in the past, or put his own life in danger recklessly, so it's not hard to see why Kate felt a need to lie to Castle in the first place.
  • In Season 5, Castle's wariness about Alexis's college vlog — particularly that she might be oversharing — is treated as him being overprotective as usual. Come "Target" and "Hunt", it turns out Alexis mentioning a lecture she'd be attending on one video gave the men targeting her grandfather the perfect opportunity to snatch her.
• Take That, Scrappy!: Alexis's entire rant about Pi in episode 13 of season 6 more or less sums up precisely why the viewers don't like this guy. A few episodes later, she reveals she broke up with him off-screen.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
  • In season 7, the revelation that Castle is friends with a mob boss meant he could no longer work at the precinct with Beckett, Esposito, and Ryan. So he got a PI license, working cases on his own without Beckett. Often the two were competing against each other to solve the case instead of together. Soon, however, status quo was restored.
  • The decision in season 8 to have Beckett separate from Castle so that she can pursue the shady CIA official, who killed her old AG partner and Bracken to keep some dirty secret from coming to light., has naturally gone down like a cup of cold sick with much of the fans.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Beckett’s colleagues from her time at the Attorney Generals office are a cool and highly competent cast of characters who have some good chemistry with both her and Castle. It would have been nice seeing Beckett work with them for a few more episodes before returning to The NYPD, or at least showed up afterwards now and then to contribute to cases the main cast was working after Beckett returned to New York. Adding to insult is the fact that when they in fact do return they’re all Killed Offscreen, when at the very least Richmond The Smart Guy or Hendricks could have Vikram's role.
    • Stack and Freedman, the man who recommended Beckett for that job and the man who hired her for it respectively, are also never sene again after their debts when that level of involvement could have given them could interactions with Beckett during her time at the AG's officer, or given them a chance to make an impact during the LockSat arc, either by being among Beckett's dead colleagues or providing support to her and Vikram.
  • While no one wanted Castle to end up back with his ex-wife Gina over Beckett, she still could have appeared a little more to explore her Working with the Ex dynamics with Castle, and the literary side of his work now and then.
  • Natalie Rhodes, the Actress playing Beckett in the In-Universe movie is a complicated, off-screen example in a sense given how after a strong, an powerful episode that featured her sole appearance later episodes have mentions of the character and the movie she was making come across as derogatory in a way that feels like a let down after her in-person appearance.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: The use of Good Adultery, Bad Adultery in "Food to Die For": The killer's girlfriend left the victim because of his philandering ways, yet basically planned on using his foster brother to care for her and her baby by the victim (while leading him to believe it was his). This also applies to the victim; while he came across as noble, willing to change for the woman he loved, he tried to use money he got from his brother for his career to run away with the latter's girlfriend. Is it any wonder when the guy found out, he lost it and killed him?
• Win Back the Crowd: For many, putting Castle and Beckett together in season five appeared to give the show a critical and audience appreciation shot-in-the-arm after the Seasonal Rot of seasons three and four. (See Season 5's entry under Broken Base above for the flip side of this argument).
• The Woobie:
  • Castle became this in the episode "Wrapped Up in Death" after supposedly being cursed by a Mayan Mummy. The fact that Beckett, Ryan, and Esposito kept playing pranks on him to make him believe in the curse only made it worse.
  • His face when he sees Beckett kiss Deming at the end of "Overkill" is absolutely heartwrenching.
  • Beckett at the end of "A Deadly Game". She begins to work up the courage to tell Castle how she feels about him, something which does not come easy for her, but just before she can, his ex-wife Gina makes an appearance. The look on Beckett's face as they leave together speaks volumes.
  • For a while, Castle is this during the Season 3 opener "A Deadly Affair" because the entire precinct is giving him the cold shoulder for not returning sooner or calling at all during his absence. Sure, he deserves some of it, but you do feel a little bad for the guy after a while.
  • Cesar Calderon from "Anatomy of Murder" is an odd case. Yes, he's was a ruthless drug lord responsible for a lot of bad things... but he's also completely innocent in the murder and his horrified revelation of the killer is pretty darn heartbreaking. In fact, he was in love with the victim and it's implied he was going to marry her. The culprit? His own brother, who killed her and tried to dispose of the body in the same way as in their drug lord days (i.e. no body at all so she basically just disappears). Even worse, there was no reason for her to be killed in the first place because the reason the brother thought was basically incorrect. Had the brother done the first thing Cesar says (talk to him and let them confront her about it), none of it would have happened at all.
  • Castle in "47 Seconds". He is about to tell Beckett for real that he loves her, but he gets interrupted by Esposito before he can do it, so he decides to do it later. However, when Beckett is interrogating a suspect, he goes to the adjoining room to hear the interrogation, and discovers that Beckett actually remembers everything that happened after being shot. He is, naturally, left broken at the fact that Beckett decided to deceive him, and the rest of the episode, when he is not helping with the case, he acts passive-aggressively towards Beckett.
    • Beckett might also count here as well, to some degree at least; despite keeping her secret, she was also planning on taking things to the next level and, unaware that Castle has found out, is understandably bewildered and hurt by his sudden u-turn in attitude.
  • Jerkass Woobie: The wives in "The Last Seduction". While their husbands proved to be Jerkass Manipulative Bastards, the women did cheat on them willingly.

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