Castle – Recap & Review – Food To Die For

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Castle
Food To Die For

Original Air Date: May 3, 2010

Karen Belgrad – Sr. Reviewer
karenbelgrad @thetwocentscorp.com

This was the week that the subtle glances turned into longer stares and more prevalent jealousy. Whether you’re calling them Rick and Kate, Beckett and Castle, R-ate, or Cas-kett, this was the duo’s breakthrough week.

This was the week that they began to show their mutual desire with a little less cloaking. This was the week that gave all of the couple’s fans this telling dialogue:
Beckett – “Guy’s like Wolf come in and upset the apple cart. Makes you feel alive, but eventually you know he’s just going to let you down. So why risk it?”
Castle – “Because the heart wants what it wants.”

There was also a corpse-icle who may have been murdered by one of eight people, but was anyone truly surprised by the killer’s identity? Let’s break down the suspect and case first…

The victim was Balthazar Wolf, a rising chef made famous by a cooking reality show. Found frozen to death by liquid nitrogen, Wolf’s murder was a mystery of motive and suspects. It could have been anyone from his boss to his reality competition to his bookie to his married lover to his pastry chef to his nondescript brother-like friend to his… Wait, they mentioned a nondescript family-type character… hmmm….

It turned out that Wolf was in love with his brother-ish friend’s girlfriend. Wolf had also gotten her pregnant. And she hadn’t told her boyfriend, as she was going to stay with him, since he was more stable and monogamous than Wolf. He found out. He killed Wolf.
The suspects were mostly introduced and exonerated, each within a single scene. The only interesting ones were Jennifer Wong and Madison Queller.

Jennifer, Wolf’s reality show competitor, was interesting because she gave a sneak peak on the behind the scenes going on. They definitely nailed the pompous character that these shows create through producer-prodding and editing. Once their rivalry was deemed “all for show”, she was quickly dismissed as a suspect.

Madison, the owner of Q3 where Wolf worked, was quite the interesting character, not because she was a fleeting suspect in the murder, but because she has known Kate Beckett (aka ‘Becks’) since ninth grade French class. And how about those tidbits we learned:
-Beckett likes Saved By The Bell.
-Beckett loves oatmeal cookies
-She was the “biggest scofflaw at Stuy” (www.stuy.edu)
-They both like Brent Edwards in high school.
-Beckett has dated a grunge guitarist, a med student, and a French guy who may have been royalty.

Just like Demming before her, Madison made sure to check to see if Beckett and Castle are a thing before expressing interest. Beckett, like Castle, practically chokes on the words while giving the go ahead.
I didn’t think Madison and Castle had great chemistry, it was really more friendly than flirty. We’ve seen Castle flirt, and that was not serious Castle flirting. While guest star chef Rocco Dispirito really didn’t advance the story much, it did give Castle the opportunity to show off more of his foodie vocabulary. When Beckett arrived mid-meal to take Madison downtown for questioning, Castle was very pouty!

Then Madison said it. She said the line promoted in countless TV ads, but it was such great delivery that I rewound it several times. She accused Beckett of interrupting her date with Castle because Beckett wants to “make Castle babies”. And Beckett didn’t deny it! Her embarrassment that Castle could hear them was louder than 1,000 denials or admission, don’t you think?

Beckett had her own date with Detective Demming, whose regular morning coffee appearances are causing Castle to become quite territorial over his espresso machine gift to the squad, eh? I do have to give Demming some props though, as providing a candlelight delivery meal from a place that doesn’t deliver is pretty romantic.

But the exchanged mentioned at the top of this story was the magical moment of the entire hour. It encapsulated Beckett’s fear of going for it with Castle, but also showed a keen understanding from our mystery writer. And when she canceled her date with Demming to hang with Madison, it gave even more of a sense of Castle-for-the-win. I sense a Demming-Castle showdown coming! As long as Beckett doesn’t pull a Kelly Taylor-“I Choose Me”-90210, I think fans will be happy!

The parallel events of Alexis debating between studying and the Hamptons showed even more of Castle’s insight. Knowing that Alexis would cave to her friends and go to the Hamptons, even when she really wanted to study, he offered himself up as the uncool dad “demanding” she stay home. I love it when Castle is in awesome dad mode.

My second favorite exchange of the night was between Castle and Alexis. As Castle played with the liquid nitrogen and Alexis hemmed and hawed over the Hamptons versus studying…

Castle: “Maybe this weekened I’ll figure out a way to take this tank of liquid nitrogen and build it into a weather machine. I’ll make it rain and your friends will have to cancel their trip. You won’t have to choose and then we can take over the world!” (Castle then laughs in a deliciously maniacal manner)
Alexis: “Not helpful.”
Castle: “But evil?”
And of course, who wouldn’t choose Dad and studying over the Hamptons? Especially when Castle tells Alexis of his plans for “1001 ways to distract someone who’s studying.” I’d like to see those frozen ping pong balls now!

Not the strongest of murder mysteries, but did that even matter by the hour’s end? That’s my TwoCents? What are your TwoCents? Leave your thoughts, comments, ideas for items to be frozen, and observations below!

Next Week: Overkill

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