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One Life To Lose
Original Air Date: Mar 21, 2011
Karen Belgrad – Associate Editor
karenbelgrad@
thetwocentscorp.com
This week’s Castle takes us deep into Nathan Fillion’s past. His past where he had scandalous affairs with older women. His past where his first love was his brother’s future wife. His past where his first love eventually had an affair with his nephew. You might think that’s a strange past, but this week Nathan Fillion fully embraced, celebrated, and poked fun at his past as Joey Buchanan on One Life To Live.
Nathan Fillion is the rare soap star who moves on to bigger fame but openly acknowledges his roots. When was the last time you heard Julianne Moore mention her Daytime Emmy for her stint as twin cousins Frannie and Sabrina on As The World Turns? Thus, Nathan Fillion has endeared himself to daytime ‘shippers the world over. And this week’s case gives daytime fans something else to mull over as the murder victim is a little bit of daytime karma!
This week’s case is centered around the murder of the head writer of fictional daytime serial Temptation Lane. And someone literally took an axe to her back. I personally know of many daytime fans who would like to do the same (non-literally) to some current headwriters!
So let’s run down the suspects!
Was it the diva leading lady Mandy Bronson (played by All My Children’s Rebecca Budig)?
Was it the obsessed fan, Carrie Albert, upset over the plot direction of her favorite couple?
Was it her estranged director husband (played by All My Children’s Cameron Mathison)?
Was it the con woman pretending to be her long lost mother, Gloria Chambers (played by legendary Jane Seymour)?
Was it the older leading man who was disenfranchised with his daytime lot in life Lance Buchanan (played by The Young & The Restless’s Corbin Bernson)?
Was it the other staff writer who was angling to have his own stories featured (played by Sex and the City’s David Eigenberg)?
Or was it some other person to which the show dropped anvil clues and never actually interviewed as a suspect? Have you seen Castle before? Of course it was, but we’ll get to that in a little bit.
The hour was more fun than the gigantic two-parter and my favorite Castles are always the fun ones. We had campy moments galore, from Castle referencing General Hospital’s classic “Weather Machine” plot, finding out Martha had an action packed short stint on Temptation Lane many years ago (where her character was even kidnapped twice), and best of all, found out the Beckett is a secret soap fan (it brings back childhood memories).
My favorite moment, hands down, was when Beckett and Castle were working out crime theories, each building on the other’s scenarios. It’s great when they do that, but even better was Ryan (who’s portrayer Seamus Dever used to be a General Hospital baddie) and Esposito wondering if they practice.
After following red herrings of divorce, characters being killed off, and contract options, the killer end up being the dutiful assistant who wanted to be a writer but was turning in plagiarized work. It wasn’t a great surprise as the show rarely wastes its guest stars and Tina Majorino wasn’t going to just be in the background. Castle and Beckett tricking her into confessing by having the actors act out her motive was an enjoyable twist.
At the end of the hour, Beckett confesses that she used to watch Temptation Lane with her mom, so watching it now gives her a sense of comfort. Castle sweetly surprises her with an autographed cast photo. There’s a tender moment between the two, but it’s interrupted when Beckett’s boyfriend calls. Yes, as soapy as it gets. Rinse, lather, repeat with these two!
A note of interest is that while they called the episode One Life to Lose, no actors from One Life to Live actually appeared. Presumably this is because Fillion’s alma mater films in New York and Castle films in Los Angeles. But I would have really loved to see Robert S. Woods, Robin Strasser, or Gina Tognoni (former cast mates) in some sort of cameos!
I’d been looking forward to this episode since I heard about it a few months back. You may have guessed, but I am a daytime viewer (One Life To Live in particular) and love it when the industry winks at itself. This episode was fluff, pure and simple, but a thoroughly enjoyable hour of television!
Well, those are MyTwoCents! Share your TwoCents, feedback, and comments below!
TheTwoCents 
Very nice recap, I loved the episode too, I like fun episodes like this. A lot of chemistry between those two during the whole episode.
The chemistry between the two is so fluid, that I think all we have to wonder about is “when,” not “if”!!!