Tuesday, April 29, 2014

Castle - Law & Boarder


Beckett (Stana Katic) and Castle (Nathan Fillion) investigate the murder of a professional skateboard artist in town for New York Street Sports Festival who friends and rivals both say was acting very odd in the 24-hours leading up to his death. Seeing as the victim was favored to win, the investigation begins with his main competition (Yani Gellman) but soon takes some unusual twist and turns involving the purchase of a 10 year-old camcorder, borrowing money from his mother's (Claudia Christian) Albanian mob boyfriend (Eric Etebari) now out on parole (after doing time for a crime the victim put him behind bars for), and using the cash to hire another skateboarder (Jesse Luken) for his expertise at breaking and entering.

Over the course of the investigation "Law & Boarder" offers two subplots. The first centers around Castle's undisputed championship run of Scrabble being shaken to its core when his fiance beats him not once but twice. The second involves Ryan (Seamus Dever) and Esposito (Jon Huertas) acting odd with the writer, and hyper-competitive with each other, after hearing Beckett chose Lanie (Tamala Jones) as her maid of honor and naturally assume that one of them will be Castle's best man - not realizing the role has already be promised to Alexis (Molly C. Quinn).


After learning about the unsolved murder of their victim's childhood friend and discovering the break-in was in a law office of a a lawyer (Ned Vaughn) with ties to the promoter of the current event (Michael Lombardi) and with no interest in filing a claim for a break-in he claims never happened, Castle and Beckett start to put the pieces of the cast together, eventually nabbing their killer (Blake Cooper Griffin) who had paid to keep the truth about the first murder hidden for six years.

The murder of the week offers an interesting twist involving the victim, a witness to the first crime, finally trying to do the right thing (which sadly cost him his life). It's odd for the show that both of the subplots are rather goofy (the reveal of Alexis stepping in as best man was a nice touch, and I'll give Kate bonus points for winning the second Scrabble game with one of my favorite words), but given next week's preview hinting at a dramatic shift at dark days to come with the return of William Bracken (Jack Coleman), I can understand the show enjoying a few lighter moments this week.

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