Castle, S5 Ep12 – Death Gone Crazy

I didn’t expect a little bit of continuity at the center of this week’s episode, with the return of “College Girls Gone Crazy,” last mentioned in the frozen head episode (in 2011), according to Ryan. Anyway, the case of the week is the death of “Gone Crazy” founder, Beau Randolph, strangled to death by the strap of a bra at one of his own parties.

I’m not sure if I would have guessed the murderer so easily this time if I hadn’t ever watched Cold Case, but since I have had that misfortune, it was simple to guess from the beginning that it would be Beau’s friend and partner who killed him. (It’s always the best friend). The motive behind it was not as easy to figure out ahead of time. It was nice that not only was the guilty party not the stuffy, angry, fundamentalist Christian leader, but the guy was shown to be a real human being who truly cared about his daughter Candice, and (gasp!) had a conscience. From what we saw, I think it’s believable that he’ll accept his daughter and his granddaughter, as Castle thought he would, instead of cutting her off.

I hope Alexis doesn’t actually get a stalker. Stalker storylines creep me out.

The way Castle reacted to Alexis’ vlog was very in-character, I thought. I was glad he started off over-the-top worried, but by the time he actually spoke to Alexis, he was calmer and more reasonable. In fact, I agree with Castle that while her dad ~~can be~~ is usually overprotective, unfortunately it’s very true that Alexis should be more careful about putting personal information about herself online. But Alexis is smart enough that we can hope she took his advice to heart and will be more careful.

Esposito’s little thing for the female bodyguard who ended up having all the secrets was amusing. After we discovered that Scarlet had yet another agenda than the one she’d told our team, I was a little worried we were going to cut to a scene of Scarlet incapacitating a love-struck (or should that be lust-struck?) Espo in order to escape. Thankfully, we did not. Clearly, the guy needs to find himself an attractive, smart, confident, sane woman to settle down with. Like, say, Lanie.

There wasn’t a lot of Castle/Beckett goodness this week, other than the usual kinds of case-related banter we get all the time. I’m not necessarily complaining, since we’ve had a lot already this season. However, I am noticing more references to the importance of fatherhood, and I don’t think it’s just my imagination that many of the recent cases center on people who never knew their own fathers or had terrible relationships with them. Who wants to bet on how long it’s going to be before Castle’s mysterious dad shows up? (Okay, I already posted about how ABC has released some information on this season. But it’s still a valid question).