Episode: Castle 2.04 – “Fool Me Once”
Original Air Date: October 12, 2009
Oh my goodness! It’s another week of Nathan Fillion being charming and hilarious for a 40-minute hour! No, that’s not sarcasm, he really is charming and hilarious in every single episode of this show. The problem is, he’s portraying the only character worth watching on this show (I guess it’s a good thing it’s the Richard Castle Show, then). I couldn’t even attempt to do my regular recap/review style here, because the actual story was boring and not worth recapping.
Okay. This episode is the standard “Con Artist” episode. Of course, you’ve seen one Con Artist episode, you’ve seen them all. Dude gets killed. Dude turns out to be a confidence man. Huge list of potential suspects because Dude was a really good confidence man (check out the mom from The Great Outdoors being all crazy and out of her life savings because of said Dude!). It can never be that easy, though! Dude was engaged to be married (to a rich, high class girl), but he really did love her and was throwing away his lucrative life of conning people for an honest life with her. But he had a partner! The one who set him up to con the Rich Girl out of her money! Cue the blaring, crunchy guitar riff! It was the partner who killed the Dude and tried to finish the con on Rich Girl! The End!
The show has the “Been there, done that” herpes all over its face, let’s just be honest here. Nothing about the actual murder mystery part of this show hasn’t been completely predictable and flat out uninteresting in every single episode. I mean, at this point, I’m not even trying to figure out “whodunit” ahead of time. This show keeps me coming back because I enjoy the banter that Castle has with everyone around him. He really is the only character in this show that’s interesting. Not sure if it’s the writing (because then I’d wonder why no one else on the show gets this treatment), or the acting, but I’m leaning toward the acting. I think if there were a scene that called for Castle to be reading the New York Times on the crapper for an hour, Nathan Fillion would somehow make it witty, charming, and entertaining to watch.
That may sound harsh, but let’s face it people; the Peanut Gallery, while entertaining when they actually get lines and things to do, are not interesting enough as supporting characters. One season + four episodes in, and I still don’t care what happens to any of the other characters. I mean, wow, we got a Beckett bathtub scene here! That was a great character development moment. Having an attractive woman take her clothes off, get in a tub surrounded by candles, and drink wine while reading a book! Or how about how she pouted last episode about not getting an advanced copy of Castle’s book, and then in this episode she acted like she didn’t even care to read it now that she had it? Oooooh, sexual tension between the tough, but soft, lady cop and the dashing rake novelist who has contacts EVERYWHERE.
Strong and smart dialogue is a good thing in a television show. It’s a great thing. However, having an interesting murder to solve if your show is a murder mystery type of show would be awesome too. Especially if you’re only going to make one character out of the ensemble get the best writing. Until then, I think my rating for each episode is going to remain at the “not great, not horrible” level.
Rating: 3/5 stars
