TV Recap: Castle 7-22 - Dead from New York

Well, that was something I never have seen before in an episode of Castle – filler.  Can we say ratings grab attempt cameo?  I get that shows don’t always have a choice in this, but I was sorry to see Carly Rae Jepsen show up in such an obvious stunt.  She contributed nothing to the case at all, and Castle and Beckett dancing off to the side was rather pointless as well.

Okay.  Deep breath.  I’ve got that out of my system now.  Let’s get back to solving a murder because I did enjoy this episode.

The victim this week is the creator of a comedy sketch show that is obviously a spoof of Saturday Night Live.  He was not necessarily an easy man to work for, and so the list of suspects is rather long.  At the top of the list is the current season’s star who has been acting crazier and crazier, has threatened the victim, and is about to be fired.  However, when he learns he is a suspect for a real murder, he stops acting (because that’s all the crazy was) and admits he wanted out of his contract.  He alibis out, but not before saying he heard the victim talking about a meeting he had at midnight, roughly the time that the murder happened.

However, there is no record of this meeting, and the victim snuck out to it.  They manage to track him down via street cams to the subway he took to an ally.  Then, he fled from someone in a mask shooting at him.

There’s another person in that ally, an ex-con who claimed from prison that the victim should be sharing profits and show creation credits with him.  However, the victim was actually planning to give him the money that the ex-con claimed he was owed, so there was no motive.

Things take an interesting turn when the police learn that the victim had taken out a large sum of cash.  Then they figure out that his ex-wife is missing.  Thanks to her running tracking program, they are able to find her in an abandoned building.  The few details of her kidnapper she was able to see point of someone on the show.  At first, it looks like the lowly page did it, but he was set up.  The really killer is…

…the victim’s creative partner who had embezzled money from the company.  The kidnapping and ransom was an attempt to get it back.  Due to the upcoming sale of the shares to the ex-con, the company’s books would be audited and turn up the missing money. He had to return the funds before then.  However, when paying the ransom, the victim figured out who was behind the kidnapping, so he had to be killed.

Meanwhile, Martha is getting ready for her big Broadway comeback, but almost backs out when she starts to panic over the new technology and instant feedback.  However, Castle talks her into going on, and she wows everyone with her performance.

As a light, fun mystery, this one was pretty good.  Nothing too much to add to my rant above.  For the big amount of time they gave Carly Rae to sing her new song as the musical guest on the show within the show, she didn’t add a thing.

On the other hand, there was the spoof of Castle and Beckett the show within a show was doing.  That was pretty funny, especially when they were talking about Beckett’s hair and her high heels being so unrealistic for a cop, a criticism of the real show Castle on a regular basis.

I’m curious to see where they are going with next week’s season finale.  And how it wraps things up or leaves us hanging since the biggest cliffhanger right now is whether the show will be back for season 8.

Thoughts?  Feel free to leave them in the comments.