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Demons
Original Air Date: Oct 24, 2011
Divina F – TwoCents Reviewer
divina@thetwocentscorp.com
In lieu of a Halloween episode next week, we’re getting a delightful paranormal romp through Castle’s imagination when a renowned ghost hunter is found dead in an equally infamous haunted house. Oh, there’s an Espalanie/Honeymilk double date.
If it’s somethin’ great an it won’t look dull? Who You Gonna Call?
The ghost hunter, Jack Sinclair, is filming an episode inside the McClearan house, made a landmark in New York after a rash of murders allegedly committed by a demon. He pans the room ominously. The lights flicker. His gadgets detect high frequencies of electromagnetic activity! Suddenly, he sees something. “Mercy,” he says. “I see it!” And then it all cuts out like the last episode of The Sopranos.
I can see how some people might find Castle’s blind faith in the paranormal annoying, but since this episode builds such a complicated mystery around the murder while playing up the possibility – not to mention the fact that I have had a few experiences myself – make the corny little shout outs very worth it.
The first suspect is “Ghost Wrangler” camera man Barry, who quickly alibis out. Following his lead, Castle does a lot of research on the house and finds out that a murder story can be attributed to nearly every renter of the place. Renter because the house still has a landlord who supposedly talked Sinclair into doing the show in hopes of exorcising the bad mojo of the place enough to make it rentable again.
According to Ryan, Sinclair used to live near the house and tried to avoid walking past it, telling friends that it gave him the creeps. So when a taxi cab record leads the team to a Mercy LeGrand (paranormal consultant and religious leader impersonator extraordinaire) it’s not hard to guess that Sinclair was getting those heebie jeebies from having witnessed one of the murders. Namely, a Melanie Benton.
To get a more solid grasp on the case, Beckett and Castle visit the detective assigned to the Benton case. He throws them a bone in the way of the woman’s husband, who apparently disappeared, which leads them to suspect his lawyer brother of either smuggling him in and out of the country or killing Melanie for choosing his brother over him and then Jack to cover it up. Unfortunately, there is no hard evidence to pull him in on. And after the Castle Family Epiphany! of the week – brought to us by Martha – Castle and Beckett find Mike Benton. In a hidden alcove of the house.
Dead.
As a doornail.
With a dead-end, the team has a three-way theorizing session, coming up with the landlord as the killer, guessing that he was Melanie’s lover. Killing Sinclair just as he was starting to recover the repressed memories was only natural. Plus he’d be drawing more attention to the house’s haunted nature! And he would have gotten away with it, too, had it not been for those meddling cops! And their writer.
That would have been a little too gimmick-y, so instead we are thrown for a total loop when we discover that the detective on Melanie’s case was her lover. And her killer. He got rid of Sinclair to cover his tracks, with the help of the landlord. Although… there was never an explanation for the odd blood splatter patterns, which has me confused. Did I miss the part where that was explained?
Woven loosely into the backdrop of Castle and Beckett’s conversation about the existence or nonexistence of ghosts is the Espalanie/Honeymilk double date that begs the question: “So, when are you two getting married?” No. Seriously. I’m sad that Esposito and Lanie called a time-out. They seemed to be the only working canon relationship on this show besides Ryan and Jenny, who we don’t see enough of anyway. Even Alexis and Ashley are on shaky ground, blaming it on distance.
The episode ends on what I think must be an input for the Espalanie fans, with Castle telling Alexis – about her relationship with Ashley – that perhaps things don’t work out because they were never supposed to. Excuse me while I groan.
Do you think Esposito will get a hot guest star fling (as wished by Jon Huertas)? Will the writers of the show push witches and warlocks on us next? And most importantly! Are you a Castle or a Beckett when it comes to things that go bump in the night?
Next Week: Cops and Robbers
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I know this website is essentially defunct, but for anyone who is still wondering about the blood splatter, it IS explained. Castle states that the person who killed Jack Sinclair was hanging from the rod in the ceiling. He tells Beckett as much by saying it explains her “demon free” murder theory, as soon as they got up into the ceiling and look down. This means the killer was out of the way of the blood spatter.