TV Recap: Castle 6-14 - Dressed to Kill

During the first season of Survivor, every episode’s teaser involved some hint that the alliance of four might crack.  Of course, it was all about the editing and that alliance never came close to cracking at all until the end.

I bring this up because everyone seems to be trying to apply the same thing to Castle.  Not any of the official press releases I’ve read, but the clips that blogs are linking up to involve someone getting cold feet.  Please.  That’s not what they are writing toward.

But we are now writing towards a Spring wedding (now there’s a shocker).

Of course, there is a murder.  Two fashion designer wanna bes are digging through a dumpster when they suddenly find a dead body.  Turns out our victim was the assistant to the woman who runs one of the best fashion magazines in the country.

The surprise is that this woman knows Beckett.  Seems that Beckett had a past as a model, all 15 minutes of it, and actually turned this woman down to become a detective.  They do seem to be on friendly terms since she didn’t turn Kate away.  I was glad Castle didn’t remember this about Beckett.  Makes me feel better since I didn’t know it either.

It turns out our victim was the former assistant.  She had been fired the day before because she kept messing up her boss’s meetings.  There were two of them fired at the same time for these errors, and the second one blamed the first.  She had a very public fight over it, but alas she has an alibi.

The victim had a roommate who gives the standard, “she was stressed about something” response when asked.  I was actually surprised when Ryan and Esposito couldn’t get cell reception at the victim’s apartment.  I have a friend whose house is in a dead zone, so yes it still happens.  Anyway, it proved to be a plot point because when Ryan went to make a phone call, he heard some static on the line – the phone was being bugged.

There was also a stranger seen in the area of the murder.  Castle turns to his friends and finds out that this is the owner of a rival fashion magazine.  He was trying to get the victim to be a corporate spy, but she refused.  That was the end of it until the victim called and set up a meet the night she was murdered – a meeting she never attended.

Beckett follows the bug back to the magazine where the victim worked.  The magazine had been recently sold, and the former owner was getting paranoid.  She had started bugging everyone’s phones, covering it by putting it in the fine print of their employment contract.  However, she hadn’t heard the phone call that night.

It’s when Castle sees some of the designs that are being photographed for the current issue that things start to fall into place.  He recognizes them as having been done by the victim, not the hot new designer who claims them.  But no, the designer isn’t the killer, it’s the magazine former owner’s right hand man.  I actually had him pegged early just because he was played by Rob Estes.  I figured someone that important would turn out to be the killer.  And I was right.  Anyway, he knew about the theft of the designs and was working on covering it up.  She’d figured things out, so she had to go.  Ironically, the issues with the boss’s schedule were also an attempt to get her fired.

Okay, so the murder was a bit weak last night.  I never did understand why the murderer would help cover up the thefts in the first place.  But I still liked the episode since there was some great stuff on the wedding front.

It started with Beckett and Castle finding a location they both seemed to love.  Castle went with Martha to check it out, but it was booked until Fall of 2015.  That’s much longer than they wanted to wait.  However, there is a sudden opening for that spring.  They just have to put the deposit down right now.  Castle is ready to jump, so he calls Beckett.

Beckett, meanwhile, is trying on a wedding dress as a favor to the magazine owner since the model who was supposed to try it on never showed up.  She loves it, and as the owner compliments Kate on it, saying how proud her mother would be of her, Beckett gets a wistful look in her eyes.  Just then, she gets Castle’s call and shoots down the idea of getting married that spring.

However, after the case is solved, Beckett returns home to find a large box in her place.  (Funny, I thought she was pretty much living with Castle by this point.)  Inside is the dress, a gift from the owner.  She then goes over to Castle’s and explains.

When he called, she was feeling overwhelming sadness at the idea that her mother would not be there for her wedding.  She let her emotion speak.  While they’ve lost that venue, she and Castle definitely agree that they want to get married this spring instead of waiting until even the fall.

So it was the fact that Beckett didn’t jump at the idea of getting married this spring that caused the speculation about her getting cold feet.  In context, however, I knew exactly what was going through her mind.  While the murder was weak, the wedding sub-plot was beautifully written and handled.  Castle’s understanding and loving response at the end was so sweet.  And Beckett’s certain that her mom would have loved Castle was wonderful.  Those little moments between them have been so well done this season.

I knew they'd figure out some way to get them married this season. There was just no way they were going to wait until September to get married.

My only complaint was the dress itself.  Was it just me, or was it an ugly dress?  The way the bottom stuck out at the sides and back but not the front was just bizarre.  I think I would have liked it if that bottom part was stuck out all the way around – but since it was just part way around, it looked weird.  Then again, I’m not at all in to fashion, and I’m a guy.  Am I way off base with that?

I think that’s all I’ve got for this episode.  You can tell we’ve got the Winter Olympics coming up since we’ve got no February sweeps two parter and a rerun next week.  See you in two weeks for another new episode.  And in the meantime, what did you think of this episode?