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| # ? Sep 24, 2012 01:44 |
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| # ? May 25, 2013 02:25 |
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 Kate Beckett (noted Frank Miller enthusiast Stana Katic) is a devoted Homicide detective in the NYPD who attracts the attention of Richard Castle (noted Star Wars enthusiast Nathan Fillion), a smart-rear end pulp mystery novelist in the vein of Harlan Coben and Dennis Lehane. Castle creates a new franchise character, Nikki Heat, based on Beckett, and obtains special permission from the Mayor to ride along with her for research purposes. To everyone’s surprise, Castle makes for a pretty goddamned good amateur detective, becoming a valuable special consultant for the NYPD. As he and Beckett work cases together, the unspoken bond they share grows and grows, until it’s finally consummated in a rain-soaked season 4 finale. In short,   Lovable characters and absolutely bonkers plotting. The lovable characters can speak for themselves. Fillion and Katic have explosive chemistry together, but Fillion, Susan Sullivan, and Molly Quinn (who comes across as a credible sci-fi nerd) work absolutely beautifully as a family unit, while there isn’t a soul who would object to Seamus Dever and Jon Huertas in a buddy cop movie of their own (replete with an Eric Clapton theme). All together, you could make a highly entertaining hour out of watching these five people do nothing but trade stories and bullshit each other in a bar for an entire night. Penny Johnson-Jerald (24, Deep Space Nine) is the lone exception, stuck with a shallow “fun vampire” role, but I can see this show eventually turning that around (even if I’m not holding my breath). As for the bonkers plotting, there are a few running plots that the show occasionally visits, dropping into them for a full episode before getting back to the fun stuff. But mostly I’m talking about the mysteries themselves. Sometimes they’re rote, but sometimes they’re imaginative little trips down a rabbit hole, effortlessly springboarding between worlds to create the feeling that you’re riding along on a big, breathless adventure.  You can do that, but be warned: the series doesn’t really find its voice until the second season. If you’re looking for a good litmus test episode, I’d recommend “Fool Me Once...” (which is the first time the show really started to play to its potential) or “Last Call” (which is a decent -- though not the best -- example of how an individual episode can take you on a rollercoaster ride).  Well, you can always marathon through the entire series, but if you’re on the go, I’ve prepared a list of episodes. Anything listed is recommended; that’s 59 out of the 81 that were produced in four seasons. Episodes that are bolded are important to either the main plot or the various arcs of the supporting players: 39 in all. This is the path I recommend, a nice middle ground that allows you catch up quickly while giving you plenty of time to get to know the characters. The essentials, the ones you MUST see if you’re looking to get a full picture of the main series arc, are bolded and underlined. There are only 20 of them. Here we go: SEASON 1 -Flowers For Your Grave -Hedge Fund Homeboys -Always Buy Retail -Home is Where the Heart Stops -A Death in the Family SEASON 2 -Deep in Death -The Double Down -Fool Me Once... -Vampire Weekend (wherein Castle is told to let things go) -Kill the Messenger -Love Me Dead -The Fifth Bullet -A Rose For Everafter -Sucker Punch -The Third Man -Tick, Tick, Tick... / Boom! -Wrapped Up in Death -Den of Thieves -Food to Die For -Overkill -A Deadly Game SEASON 3 -A Deadly Affair -Under the Gun -Punked -Anatomy of a Murder (STANDOUT EPISODE) -3XK -Murder Most Fowl -Close Encounters of the Murderous Kind (wherein Tom Waits plays a creepy government agent and Castle speaks a language that he learned from a TV show) -Last Call -Poof! You're Dead (the DVD may have this episode after “Nikki Heat”; don’t trust it, watch this one first) -Nikki Heat -Knockdown -Lucky Stiff -The Final Nail -Setup / Countdown (Note: In terms of actual quality, this two-parter splits the fanbase down the middle. However, a small yet crucial part of the season finale will make more sense if you see it.) -Slice of Death -To Love and Die in L.A. -Knockout SEASON 4 -Rise -Heroes & Villains -Head Case -Kick the Ballistics -Eye of the Beholder -Demons -Cops & Robbers -Heartbreak Hotel -Cuffed (ANOTHER STANDOUT) -Till Death Do Us Part -Dial M for Mayor -An Embarrassment of Bitches -The Blue Butterfly (fun, off-speed episode where the cast plays different characters in a noir homage that runs parallel to the week’s mystery) -Pandora / Linchpin (most people HATE this two parter but it asks some questions about a few characters that will probably be important down the line) -A Dance With Death -47 Seconds -Headhunters (Adam Baldwin is Vic Mackey) -Undead Again -Always --- So, let’s talk about season 5: First three episode titles are currently After the Storm, Cloudy With a Chance of Murder, and Secret’s Safe With Me. As the title suggests, the first episode will pick up the morning after Beckett and Castle’s first tryst. They’ll have a few moments to bask in the afterglow, but then Cole Maddox (Tamoh Pennikett), the guy who almost killed Beckett in the season 4 finale, will be back on their radar. Jack Coleman (Heroes) joins the cast in a presumably recurring role, playing a senator who’s up for re-election and may know something about Joanna Beckett’s murder. The rift in Ryan and Esposito’s relationship will take a while to heal, with Jon Huertas hinting/speculating that it’s going to take a major act of selflessness on Ryan’s part to patch things up. Meanwhile, as far as Beckett and her badge is concerned, apparently she won’t get it back in the season premiere, but she will be back on the job at some point soon; those hoping for Castle and Beckett to set up shop as P.I.s are likely to be sorely disappointed. As far as Joanna Beckett is concerned, Stana Katic revealed in an interview that (this is really mild, I’m only masking out of respect) that Beckett will be changing tactics in her investigation, playing things cooler, someone who knows exactly the game that’s being played and is going to pick her opportunities. Obviously this is code for “No, we’re not going to spend the whole season angsting over the loving murder,” but I assume the best case scenario is her coming off kind of like Gary Oldman in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. The second episode is credited to Elizabeth Beall, and I’m going to go ahead and assume she’s somehow related/married to Will Beall, the guy who wrote many of the best episodes of the first three seasons before Warner Brothers bought his Gangster Squad and tapped him to write the Justice League movie. Not that Season 4 was a HUGE step down, but my fingers are crossed so loving hard that even half his talent rubbed off on her (or better yet, that her talent actually rubbed off on him). All right, enjoy your new thread! DivisionPost fucked around with this message at Sep 24, 2012 around 03:32 |
| # ? Sep 24, 2012 01:45 |
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You know who's awesome? You. You're awesome. Love the new thread.
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| # ? Sep 24, 2012 02:18 |
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Tide posted:You know who's awesome? You. You're awesome. Love the new thread. Indeed. That said - and I'm sorry to nitpick - it appears "best-selling mysery author" went unnoticed by the editor. Looking forward to see Jack Coleman in this, had no idea he was joining the show. DivisionPost posted:Meanwhile, as far as Beckett and her badge is concerned, apparently she wont get it back in the season premiere, but she will be back on the job at some point soon; those hoping for Castle and Beckett to set up shop as P.I.s are likely to be sorely disappointed. drat 
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| # ? Sep 24, 2012 02:28 |
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The effort you put into this OP is truly amazing.
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| # ? Sep 24, 2012 02:28 |
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seravid posted:Indeed. That said - and I'm sorry to nitpick - it appears "best-selling mysery author" went unnoticed by the editor. drat, he's really in trouble now!
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| # ? Sep 24, 2012 02:30 |
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Thank you for the new thread, Division Post! Can I ask why there were rumors that you didn't wanna do it?
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| # ? Sep 24, 2012 02:35 |
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I hope they are a bit better at spreading out the serious (aka Beckett's mom's murder and her angst) episodes this season. I swear last season it was like a string of 3 or 4 of them that didn't include the premier or finale or the two parter. Maybe it was sweeps or something but I never noticed the previous seasons doing more than sprinkling them once or twice throughout instead. I hate it when I get home or had a crappy day but I go to watch Castle and instead of Castle/Beckett/Ryan/Espo hijinks it's another episode tangentially related to Beckett so everyone has to be super serious for 40 out of 42 minutes.
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| # ? Sep 24, 2012 02:43 |
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chesh posted:Thank you for the new thread, Division Post! Can I ask why there were rumors that you didn't wanna do it? I was chided for making a lot of threads and I agreed that I was getting out of hand, plus I created last year's thread on the trial version of a cheap Photoshop knockoff that could never quite squeeze into my budget. So I figured I'd back out and let someone else take a crack at it. But everybody (read: like five people) wanted me to do another one and nobody seemed to want to step up in my place (at least for all I know). So my ego eventually won out and guided me to pixlr (which managed to be an even bigger step down), and the rest of the story tells itself. DivisionPost fucked around with this message at Sep 24, 2012 around 03:25 |
| # ? Sep 24, 2012 03:07 |
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Bravo, DivisionPost! An excellent job as always. Really looking forward to tomorrow. Usually I watch it the next day on Hulu but for the premiere I'm going to a friend's house with a bag of M&Ms. Edit: I hear that this season's cases will include a murder at a Comic-Con type event. Can. Not. Wait. Hijinks Ensue fucked around with this message at Sep 24, 2012 around 03:37 |
| # ? Sep 24, 2012 03:27 |
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Hijinks Ensue posted:Edit: I hear that this season's cases will include a murder at a Comic-Con type event. Can. Not. Wait. Oh, that is gonna be glorious fanservice out the rear end right there. By the way, this season, Castle will be hitting the fabled 100 episode mark. It'll be episode 19 this season. The big two-part episodes usually hover around 15-17, but Marlowe seems a little reluctant to do one this year because, to paraphrase, "How do you top World War III?" (I think it's for this reason that a lot of you are breathing a sigh of relief.)
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| # ? Sep 24, 2012 03:48 |
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Yay! Although I'm sad because I've not able to watch any episode live this season since I'm busy every single Monday until April. I'm so happy I live in a world where DVR exists.
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| # ? Sep 24, 2012 03:48 |
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DivisionPost posted:I was chided for making a lot of threads and I agreed that I was getting out of hand, plus I created last year's thread on the trial version of a cheap Photoshop knockoff that could never quite squeeze into my budget. So I figured I'd back out and let someone else take a crack at it. For my own two cents, I didn't think last year's post looked cheap (I thought it inventive) and while you may post a lot of OP's, I find its for all the shows I wanna follow anyway, so basically, keep up the good work.
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| # ? Sep 24, 2012 03:50 |
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Yeah, I wasn't as annoyed with the two-parter as most people were, but won't miss it if they don't do one. And if they do one they need to dial things back or we're going to have Castle and Beckett marooned in orbit or being lowered slowly into the volcano lava, which is more ridiculousness than even this show can handle.
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| # ? Sep 24, 2012 03:52 |
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I wouldn't mind if they're fever dreams, because I can see that that's how Castle's mind works but the show doesn't do super serious thrillers well, especially when the show's strengths don't lie there.
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| # ? Sep 24, 2012 04:06 |
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Had no idea this was returning this Monday. A nice surprise it is.
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| # ? Sep 24, 2012 04:11 |
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Hijinks Ensue posted:Yeah, I wasn't as annoyed with the two-parter as most people were, but won't miss it if they don't do one. And if they do one they need to dial things back or we're going to have Castle and Beckett marooned in orbit or being lowered slowly into the volcano lava, which is more ridiculousness than even this show can handle. No, see, that would be great. A cop and a writer stopping a major terrorist plot then averting WWIII and doing it all with a Totally Serious tone? Not so great.
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| # ? Sep 24, 2012 04:14 |
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But... whatever became of Stana Katic's stillborn cocaine baby? 
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| # ? Sep 24, 2012 04:36 |
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Season 4 blooper reel featuring The Kiss between Ryan and Esposito everyone had been waiting for. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uT7PB5xZ-kc
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| # ? Sep 24, 2012 05:16 |
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CeeJee posted:Season 4 blooper reel featuring The Kiss between Ryan and Esposito everyone had been waiting for. Wait, Captain Montgomery's dead lol 
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| # ? Sep 24, 2012 05:18 |
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If you want to catch up or relive it all Castle will be airing on TNT this week Also, thanks for the new thread! Can't wait to lurk most weeks.
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| # ? Sep 24, 2012 05:22 |
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Yay, more Castle! Also, I can't remember what happened between Ryan and Esposito. Why are they pissy at each other again?
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| # ? Sep 24, 2012 09:59 |
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Esposito is upset because Ryan told on him and Beckett to Gates. This is stupid because Ryan showing up with actual backup saved Beckett's god drat life.
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| # ? Sep 24, 2012 10:06 |
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Ah, that's right, I can see the scene now.
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| # ? Sep 24, 2012 10:18 |
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VDay posted:Esposito is upset because Ryan told on him and Beckett to Gates. This is stupid because Ryan showing up with actual backup saved Beckett's god drat life. But from Esposito's point of view it's: If Ryan had only shut his mouth and engaged in the illegal action with Beckett and Esposito, then there would have been three of them facing the killer and he never would have almost killed Beckett.
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| # ? Sep 24, 2012 11:22 |
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DivisonPost, great job on the OP. You rock.
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| # ? Sep 24, 2012 15:14 |
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And that is why I didn't want to do the Castle OP. I can't make an OP that good.
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| # ? Sep 24, 2012 16:58 |
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That was quite an effortpost DP!! Also thanks for the episode list. I didn't really watch the first season at all, caught the odd season 2 episode here and there, and only most of season 3, then all of 4. I really don't know much about the Beckett's mother arc and it'd be nice to catch up on that completely. 
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| # ? Sep 24, 2012 19:19 |
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Nathan Fillion is on Aisha Tyler's most recent podcast. It's more about firefly, but they do discuss Castle. It's worth a listen, he's a good interview.
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| # ? Sep 24, 2012 19:34 |
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Sherry Palmer (PJJ will always be that to me) is on this series? I've always thought that I should watch the show but this news really helps the cause.
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| # ? Sep 24, 2012 21:51 |
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Pinwiz11 posted:Sherry Palmer (PJJ will always be that to me) is on this series? I've always thought that I should watch the show but this news really helps the cause. You should definitely give the show a chance, but Penny Johnson-Jerald's character is... well, let's just say she's not exactly a fan favorite.
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| # ? Sep 24, 2012 22:56 |
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Uh, when does this come on exactly? Because I'm not seeing it in the guide Edit: Nevermind, didn't see it after Dancing With The Stars
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| # ? Sep 25, 2012 00:36 |
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Beckett pistol whips a bitch
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| # ? Sep 25, 2012 01:58 |
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Hijinks Ensue posted:Bravo, DivisionPost! An excellent job as always. Thank you for a great OP. I am really excited for the show tonight. I'm in Arizona, so I'm on West Coast time... so I'm tuning out now until after I watch so I don't see anything I shouldn't.
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| # ? Sep 25, 2012 02:03 |
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Holy poo poo. That whole bit with Beckett trying to leave was loving hilarious.
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| # ? Sep 25, 2012 02:08 |
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As was Castle acting "casual." "I was in the neighborhoo--I live, uh, 20 blocks, uh..." Smooth, man. Real smooth.
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| # ? Sep 25, 2012 02:14 |
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pkticker posted:As was Castle acting "casual." I was sorta hoping for Ryan to immediately say something along the lines of "Holy crap you two are sleeping together", but no, immediately went straight into Beckett's Mother.
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| # ? Sep 25, 2012 02:16 |
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NOOOOOO HELO NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
fuseshock fucked around with this message at Sep 25, 2012 around 02:29 |
| # ? Sep 25, 2012 02:20 |
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Polaron posted:I was sorta hoping for Ryan to immediately say something along the lines of "Holy crap you two are sleeping together", but no, immediately went straight into Beckett's Mother. Yeah, I kind of hoped for that, too. That would have been hilarious.
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| # ? Sep 25, 2012 02:37 |
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| # ? May 25, 2013 02:25 |
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Re-elect Senator HRG.
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| # ? Sep 25, 2012 02:39 |
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