Castle S6 Ep8 – A Murder Is Forever

My brain has difficulty imagining a diamond that’s actually that big, much less that valuable.

The case this week is the murder of a famous and wildly successful writer/relationship coach named Alice Clarke. Though her house and the car in which she was murdered were both ransacked, it turns out the ransacker was not the killer: he was only hired to find the gigantic, 100-carat diamond that Alice was involved in stealing. (Hence the name of the episode.) Our team is confused at first that such a huge, perfectly-cut diamond doesn’t seem to have a history or have been reported missing. But then they discover that it’s a man-made diamond. A large, flawless diamond like this? Could change the diamond industry forever. The techno wizard who developed it hired the guy to steal it back from Alice – but the techno wizard’s wife ended up killing Alice before she could expose them to the diamond cartel who owned the technology.

Overall verdict: an enjoyable ep, although it doesn’t particularly stand out other than in a few scenes. For instance, although it felt ludicrous to me that Ryan & Esposito would be carrying that insanely valuable diamond around in their car without any kind of, I don’t know, security, I did feel like the way they reacted to the attack was believable. And of course, the Ryan/Espo banter was delightful, as usual.

In addition, I’m glad that this time the boyfriend, who was interviewed first, was not actually the guilty party. Way to change up the formula a little bit, show. Also, I always appreciate a chance to listen to some South African accented English.

I call shenanigans re: the elephant figurines on Beckett’s desk at the precinct. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure we, the viewers, have never seen them before this episode in all previous six seasons. However, that doesn’t mean I didn’t find the little plotline with Beckett, Castle, and Linus the Lion amusing. Glad Castle wised up and didn’t keep making a big deal about keeping the picture in his bedroom. He should, in fact, have learned his lesson about taking Beckett for granted again. Really, dude, it’s a nice picture, but I think Beckett in your bedroom is nicer, yes?

Two alpha males?

Lastly, Castle framing the shells he and Beckett collected in the Hamptons is pretty darn adorable and sweet. Though I tend to be suspicious of pop psychology (like Alice’s theories of human behavior), I utterly agree with Beckett: I like the story of Rick & Kate, too.

So, what did you think? Do you wish man-made diamonds could really be that flawless and huge? Did you miss Pi this week (ha!)? Let us know in the comments.