For those who missed their Nathan Fillion fix on the Emmys last night, the second season of Castle boots up tonight. 
Thanks for the heads up! I would have missed it. Hopefully the DWtS lead-in will be good for the viewer numbers.
Could someone spoiler last season for me? Especially what I assume was the finale or closing arc - something about Becket’s mother’s murder and Castle looking into it.
There wasn’t really much arc there – I suspect that will be this season’s arc.
Basically, at the end of last season, despite her telling him not to, he’s done some poking into her mother’s murder and discovered that it was probably a serial killer. He tells her that, and she tells him she never wants to see him again if he can’t respect her enough to obey her wishes.
Last season Beckett had told Castle not to dig into it, that the case nearly destroyed her when she first became a cop. She was spending every moment pouring through the files, obsessing about it. Of course, Castle stole the file and gave it to one of his contacts, a top-flight medical examiner. Then Beckett got stronger, said if he didn’t let it go, she was finished with him. I think he woul’dve, but the ME came back with his report that it was no random murder, and that three others were murdered in the same way near the same time. Castle’s mom told him he had no choice but to give her the info. At the end of last season, he sat her down and said, “We have to talk. I have new information about your mother’s murder.” and that was the end of the season. This season picks up with her obviously angry that he didn’t leave it alone.
I thought Castle’s apology was nice - sincere, not smirking. And I love the daughter’s character.
StG
I believe the last ep from season 1 is still available on Hulu for anyone that needs to catch up.
Ep 1 of Season 2 is also up now
Yeah, it wasn’t a bad opener. Not great, but good enough. We see last season’s ending resolved and we move on.
It left a sour taste in my mouth, honestly. He looked sincere, and I believe he was. Had Beckett not accepted he would have stayed away. But the set-up and execution screamed phony manipulation to me.
Excellent episode, though. Some great lines and high tension. They managed to pull off a season premiere that, IMO, outdid the previous season finale, which is unusual.
Missed it. Thought it was cancelled.
Is it just me, or is Esposito wearing much tighter tops this season?! Also Beckett’s hair is a lot softer and ‘girlier’. I really hope they don’t play about with her character too much this season, I like her just the way she is!
Favourite line: “They really hate his guts!”
Second favorite (when she first does the Russian accent): That’s really hot.
Me at home: nod
My wife spent a year in Russia and mentioned that her accent was really bad. True Russian gangsters should have figured her out right away. On the other hand, the visible bra probably acted as a distraction.
It sound to me like the “Russian” accent was only used on the guys in the van, and the Chinese(?) guards outside. In the club, the accent shifted to something more generically low-class New York.
But bad accents passing for the sake of the plot is pretty common in TVland. Anybody remember the truly horrible “German” accent Evel Knievel used in that episode of the Bionic Woman?
No, she was definitely using a Russian accent in the kitchen with Castle and the mobster, to try to throw off the mobster (and I think make him think Castle was “in” with the Russian mafia). If we’re not assuming that TV Russians do in fact sound like that, it can still be handwaved away by figuring the mobster was too agitated to notice how real the accent was.
Apparently Stana Katic is second generation Croatian and fluent in it. Maybe her “Russian” accent got pulled in that direction?
Resolved? Far from it. My guess is (spoiler for pure speculation) that another body will be discovered with the same pattern of knife wounds, and someone will take notice, forcing Beckett to reopen her mother’s case. Best bet is the ME, since they went out of their way to show Castle explaining the case to her.
Eh, speculation has historically not needed spoilers. I think you’re probably on target, though the bit with the ME was clearly exposition for us watchers, since we didn’t see Castle tell Beckett. She probably will be instrumental, as she’s pretty damned clever, especially if she has the information from Castle that the old ME didn’t know about.
I think a lot of stuff from the first season will end up seeing time again, or at least I hope so. Take for example the Missing Persons scene in A Chill Runs Through Her Veins. One of the detectives, can’t remember which, tells Castle a vaguely spooky story about a girl who just disappears without a trace. It’s a throwaway bit, but it could have more relevance later on.
Also, and this is more interesting to me, in the same episode we learn that the victim’s husband was killed four years after she was killed, one year before the episode takes place. It had some relevance when they brought in the victim’s father, but he denied doing it…and then they never followed it up. They never said one way or the other what happened to the husband. I think the assumption was that the husband was killed at random as a result of a mugging or something, but that same assumption was made about Beckett’s mother. I’ll bet anything that guy turns up again in a later episode.
I just meant that Castle and Beckett made nice so we can move into the next season. No doubt we will see the dead mother plot resurface.
Probably the closest thing to some flesh-baring we’ll get from her this season–not that I think they should do something completely out of character for her or out of tone for the show.
But she is a hottie.
I thought the episode started out well. The aforementioned “guts” line was good, as was the other cops’ puzzling over Castle narrating the conversation they had just been listening to on his mic.
However, I thought it got a little too stupid toward the end. A few points:
[ul]
[li]After spotting the guy with the fake finger, and knowing backup wasn’t close by, Castle flat-out tells the table full of murderous gangsters everything he knows about them. Why? Would just asking them to shoot him have been too subtle?[/li][li]The poker was execrable, even by tv standards. No-limit five card draw? And he still wins even though everyone is colluding against him in another language and probably cheating on the deal as well?[/li][li]Beckett suddenly has backstory that allows her to understand Russian, but rather than distract the gangster by actually speaking Russian, she does silly Boris and Natasha accent. Somehow this works. Bozhe moi![/li][/ul]
I know it’s light entertainment, not meant to be taken seriously, but this concept can be carried too far.
Oh, and Stephen J. Cannell either isn’t a very good actor or isn’t trying very hard.