Castle, S5 Ep9 – Secret Santa

It’s time for Castle‘s Christmas episode – and in true Castle fashion, the episode teaser does quite the opposite of spreading holiday cheer: a man dressed as Santa falls out of the snowy night sky, shot dead.

Despite Castle’s insistence, though, this does not spell the end of Father Christmas delivering presents. The body is actually a man named Edmund Smith, a professional Santa who turned Robin Hood in order to help one of the families he scammed out of their money in his former life as an investment businessman of some kind. But in the process of trying to obtain evidence to help the family’s case against the other scammers, Edmund ended up getting shot by his ex-wife and tumbling out of the getaway helicopter. Still, because this is Christmas, his efforts are not in vain: the evidence will go to the DA and the case will move forward.

I’m mostly posting this pic because I’m jealous of the tree and Alexis’s gorgeous green sweater.

Meanwhile, as should not be even slightly surprising to anyone who knows anything about the character of Richard Castle, Rick is very upset at the fact that Alexis and Martha will not be keeping their usual family Christmas Eve tradition. Each of them has somewhere else they’re planning to be that night. And Beckett seems less than excited about joining in, too. In fact, Castle discovers that she has volunteered to take the Christmas Eve shift at work instead of joining the Castle family. He’s hurt, but thankfully he actually asks her why she would do that, instead of just continuing to be huffy. Hooray for communication! It turns out Kate has a Christmas Eve tradition of her own: she stands guard at the precinct, in memory of the year her mother was murdered, which was the last time she and her dad ever celebrated the holiday.

Each of our other team members have an appropriately holiday-ish story, too. As Captain Gates (whom Castle compares to the Grinch) complains about her insufferable mother-in-law coming to stay at her house, Esposito tries to find something to do on Christmas Eve, since his usual hangout time with Ryan won’t be happening this year. This is because Ryan is planning to be “stuffing [his] wife’s stocking” (as Espo rather graphically puts it), maybe even starting a family. Man, those would be some beautiful children, I have to say. And for Lanie/Espo fans, there’s a little shred of hope: Lanie refuses to be Espo’s desperate Christmas Eve date, but tells him to ask again after the holidays. Awww.

I think we all approve of this new holiday tradition.

Finally, both Beckett and Castle decide to change their normal holiday traditions for each other, and start something new. Though they do not kiss under the mistletoe at the precinct (alas!), their kiss and forehead touch in front of Castle’s Christmas tree makes up for it. Also a beautiful sight: Jon Huertas’s brilliant smile at the very end, when he gets invited to have Christmas dinner with the family Edmund was trying to help.

And with that, since our show will not be back until the New Year, merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.