Castle Review: Episode 4.20 "The Dead Pool"

ABC

Today is not a good day to cancel Castle.

It was another "carrot" episode on Castle this week, which is both great, and horrible. For those of you who have never seen an 80's style workout montage, using a carrot basically means to tempt someone with something. In our case, it the continuation of the will they, won't they of the leads, Richard Castle and Detective Beckett.

And you know what, I did it.

This is why I watch this show. Every week I tune in and couldn't care less about the murder of the week, I want to see the chemistry between Castle and Beckett and that I just hope will be resolved, even if I know it won't this week.

As Jeramy pointed out in his last post, the two of us know a little something about TV, and one of the things we know is that you do not do anything as major as resolving romantic tension in mid-April. Now this time next month during May sweeps, the expectation will change, but not now.

So for what it was, a carrot episode, it was very good. The central story this week centered around the murder of an ascending young swimmer. Everything about this story put me to sleep. This felt like something I could have seen in any one of millions of CSI clones that have come and gone over the last several years. I expect more zany stories from Castle.

Fortunately, the B story of Castle mentoring a young writer, whom Beckett ends up having great chemistry with, is good fun. The resolution feels rushed, but it is sweet enough to keep that us chasing the carrot.

Overall, it was a rather disappointing episode of a usually great show. Even more disappointing is the fact that the show will be preempted over the next several weeks for Royal Wedding coverage.

I will not be reviewing that, but give me Stana Katic over Kate Middleton.

-Blake

(For those of you looking for a star rating, thumps up, or any other ridiculous way of quantifying my thoughts, you won't find one. I don't believe in giving arbitrary ratings on singular episodes. Don't be lazy and infer my rating based on the above thoughts. Critical thinking people, let's be grown ups.)