Castle – Recap & Review – Suicide Squeeze

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Castle
Suicide Squeeze

Original Air Date: Feb 8, 2010

Karen Belgrad – The TwoCents Reviewer
karenbelgrad@thetwocentscorp.com

How many puns can one use to describe this episode of Castle? While the murder mystery was merely a double or triple, the show really hit it out of the park with continued character development! They really stepped up to the plate! Until they threw it out the window… literally!

The episode opens with a man laying dead in a baseball field being pelted with balls from a pitching machine. He is instantly recognized by the baseball loving detectives as New York ball player, Cano Vega. A local hero to the local Cuban community until his recent trip to Cuba made him reviled within the neighborhood. There were a lot of leads last night so lets run the suspects down. The path begin with some finger pointing courtesy of Vega’s agent, Bobby Fox.

#1) Alfredo Quintana- Editor of local Cuban newspaper. He had called Vega a traitor for his visit to Cuba and incited the neighborhood into a rage against Vega. Alibi: At home with wife, sons, and brother.

#2) Anton Wade- Loan shark. He was at crime scene, but only to collect payment from Vega. This leads to the questioning of why Vega, a famous ball player, would need to borrow $200,000 from a loan shark. Alibi- Dead guys won’t pay him back / cleared by forensics.

At this point, Castle and Beckett go to see Bobby Fox to try and understand what was going on with Vega. Upon arriving at the office, they run into MLB Manager/Former player, Joe Torre. Beckett squeals like the fangirl she is and goes to call her dad. Once in Fox’s office, they discover although he went to Cuba on a goodwill mission, something occurred while he was there that made him no longer want to be involved. Fox tells an inspiring tale of plucking Vega from relative obscurity to fame and glory in the United States, all by bribing Cuba’s state security with a Rolex. He then points his second finger of the evening to…

#3) “Freight Train” Tommy Zane.- Former teammate/Co-owner of night club. He had recently fought with Vega over a misunderstanding about Vega’s wife. It seems the wife thought Vega was cheating, but when Zane went to talk to her Vega thought he had been with the wife. Zane does however have a photo on his phone of Vega and another woman.

#4) Maggie Vega- Wife. She had found a note dated the day prior to the murder with the name ‘Lara’ and Mi Cariňo, which translates to ‘my love’. Alibi- Security camera proves she never left house.

#5) Mario Sanchez- Head of Cuban Consulate. We next find that Sanchez and Vega were fighting. Sanchez says they fought because Vega felt guilty in Cuba seeing how much money he had and the locales didn’t. He was also greatly upset about a girl there named Lara.

This leads to the girl in the photo who turns out to be a waitress that had information for Vega on smuggling in people from Cuba (for $200,000). And the smuggler is…

Alfredo Quintana (#1), who admits to smuggling in Lara and stashing her in an apartment. Upon arriving at the apartment, the police find blood but no Lara. In turn they find Lara at the Cuban Consulate. She discloses that she is actually Vega’s previously unknown/recently discovered daughter. And Lara tells of seeing the man who killed her father….

#6) Bobby Fox- Agent. He purposely separated Vega from his pregnant sweetheart when helping him defect. He didn’t bribe the security to let Vega out, but to keep her in. She was imprisoned and died, unbeknownst to Vega. When Vega learned all of this during his Cuba trip, he got into it with Fox who murdered him.

In the sweet ending, Lara goes to live with Maggie Vega.

But the sweetest part of the hour, was the interaction between Castle and Alexis. Alexis had been working on a genealogy project and we learned that not only is Castle’s father absent, he’s unknown. While the episode revolved around paternal revelations and baseball bonding, Castle wore a slightly pained expression of the father he never knew, leading to this exchange:

Castle: “That’s the beauty of the mystery. My dad could be an astronaut, a pirate, a humanitarian, winner of the Nobel Prize. What one man could live up to all of that?”
Alexis: “Do you think he ate whipped cream out of the can?”
Castle: “Yes. And he invented whipped cream.”
Alexis: “Dad! You are gonna spoil your dinner!”
Castle (mouth full): “This is my dinner.”

More so than the convoluted murder mysteries of the week, Castle does character relationships better than any other hour long crime drama out there. There’s banter, humor, jealousy, and genuine warmth. And flirting! What other show would have this exchange?

Beckett: “Oh I don’t know, Castle. Me in a swimsuit under the blistering hot sun.”
Castle: “I’d be happy to rub lotion on you.”

Or this…

Castle: “Did you just use the word veritable?”
Beckett: “Yes, I did.”
Castle: “Sexy.”
Beckett: “You should hear me say fallacious.”

I did have a minor quibble with Castle and Alexis discussing his story of Alison, the girl he met, fell in love with, danced, talked for a span of six hours, but she was gone the next morning. Or how Gram loved a lifetime the night she met Castle’s unknown father. Telling a teenager stories of her elder’s one night stands has a definite ick factor!

But the father-daughter (with daughter acting as father’s father) game of catch was completely endearing! Even if they broke the window… Guess Gram never told them not to play ball in the house!

Well, that’s my TwoCents! What’s your TwoCents?