Castle – Recap & Review – The Third Man

photo: abc

Castle
The Third Man

Original Air Date: Jan 25, 2010

Karen Belgrad – TwoCents Reviewer
karenbelgrad @thetwocentscorp.com

As much as I enjoy the witty banter of Castle, its predictability is becoming troublesome. Find victim. Introduce random character in brief interview segment, usually a family member. Chase false leads for remainder of hour. Loop back around in last ten minutes to random character who gladly confesses. Will it shock you now if I tell you that last night’s episode was completely formulaic?

This week we find the victim, a John Doe, found dead in the apartment of a family returning from vacation. He appears to have been squatting in the family’s home. Parrish points to a neck puncture wound as his cause of death. It was actually a bit distracting to have her, on the scene, declare that he was “probably injected with something that stopped his heart.” Although it ended up being true, it seemed a little presumptuous at the time. Through fingerprints, they identify the deceased as Douglas Bishop. His sister and her husband make the positive identification in the morgue.

Douglas seems to be unlikely as a squatter. He runs a travel agency. Dreams of opening a scuba shop. Hadn’t seen his sister since he attended her husband’s work party near the airport.

Through the twist and turns of the hour, we meet the true squatter. Mickey Carlson is a homeless newspaper deliveryman. Using vacation newspaper holds, he knows when homes will be empty. During his squat-stays, Mickey takes photos of the home to make sure to return things as he found them. With his photo card revealing evidence that makes him look guilty, Mickey’s incredulous tale of events begins.

He tells that while squatting in the previous apartment (The Maitlands), he saw the victim and two other guys (one with a facial scar). They had a climbing equipment, gun, syringes, and vials of Ketamine. He took off, accidentally grabbing one of their coats/phones in the process. They followed him to the next dwelling. While fighting amongst themselves, the non-scarred man plunged the syringe into Douglas Bishop, killing him. Beckett fins this to be a highly unlikely scenario, but Castle is wide eyed at the implausible story.

The officers and Castle arrive at the Maitlands apartment. Castle is very impressed by the old architecture, namely that they have turned their dumb waiter into a stereo unit and the icebox into a cupboard. He’s less impressed when he opens the refrigerator and the guy with the facial scar falls out dead. Castle lets out the girliest man scream since Howard Dean. They also find a letter that the Maitlands are on a free cruise… booked by Douglas Bishop.

After all the back and forth, it eventually pans out that Bishop and Facial Scar guy worked with a third man. The third man knew that the pet shop under the Maitlands apartment (accessible by aforementioned dumb waiter) was getting a shipment of snakes from South Africa. The third man was able to deduce that the snakes were smuggling diamonds and worked with the other two to get the Maitlands out of town so they could use the dumb waiter to break into the pet shop and steal the diamonds.

And the third man is… the brother-in-law, Stan Kopek. He worked in customs, knew about the snakes, wanted to provide his wife a better life. And he’s sorry that he killed her brother.

In the amusing B-plot of the week, Castle is named the New York Ledger’s #9 Sexiest Bachelor in the city (down from #7 last year). After the article erroneously identifies him and Beckett as a couple, he plans to go out with the #3 Bachelorette to throw off the media. Beckett is a little jealous, wishes she had a life, makes a date with a hunky (Mr. July) fireman. Of course, both end up at the same restaurant. Of course, Beckett and Castle are too distracted by the case to pay attention to their dates. Of course, the dates end up together at the end of the night. So, it was amusingly, just very sitcom predictable. But didn’t Beckett look absolutely beautiful?

There was one line of dialogue, from Esposito, when Beckett asked him to look into the snake shipment from South Africa:
“Why do you care about some mother freakin’ snakes on a mother freakin’ plane?”
OK, it’s a dated reference, but his delivery was excellent!

Another cute moment, in true with Castle, the writer:
Ryan: “It’s ironic, people put on vacation holds to avoid break ins.”
Castle: “Good use of irony.”

So it definitely wasn’t my favorite episode of the series. I’d really like to see them shake up the mold a bit in upcoming episodes. And pretty please, shorten those opening credits!!!

Those are my TwoCents! What are your TwoCents?