Source: tvequals.com

Title Private Eye Caramba!

Two-Sentence Summary While Beckett and the team at the 12th precinct investigate the murder of a telenovela star, Castle’s private investigator business is struggling to find worthwhile cases. To help him feel better, Beckett sends him a client—a friend and costar of the murder victim looking for her missing purse, which may be a bigger clue to finding the killer than anyone thought.

Favorite Line “Canvasing? Oh, that thing you get Espo and Ryan to do.” (Castle, to Beckett)

My Thoughts While it might not have been quite as much fun as last week’s “Castle, P.I.” (mainly because it didn’t have the element of pleasant surprise on its side), “Private Eye Caramba!” was still a thoroughly entertaining way to spend an hour. It featured some of the show’s most crowd-pleasing elements (plenty of “Caskett” banter—and kissing, a healthy heaping of bromance, and a fandom-inspired case that revealed a secret nerdy side of one of our main characters), and it was a good way to combine beloved elements of Castle lore with this new direction the show is heading in at least for the moment.

This new direction for the show seems to be including more interaction between Beckett and Martha, which I adore. Last week’s cute morning greeting was followed-up by this week’s breakfast-table discussion of Castle’s P.I. business. I loved seeing these two women share their worries about Castle’s new venture while still being willing to support him if it’s what he really wants. Martha fills such an importance place in Beckett’s life, and I hope these scenes are a sign that their dynamic is going to continue to be explored in such a positive way. Scenes between Beckett and Martha are also a nice reminder of Castle’s love for and admiration of strong women. Both his mother and his wife aren’t afraid to say when they think he’s wrong, but it’s also nice to see them still ready to encourage him if he really believes in something.

And Castle really does believe in his P.I. work. It’s something he’s obviously having fun with (hence his film-noir-style voiceovers), but it’s also something he takes seriously, which is why he was frustrated that he couldn’t find better uses for his time as a P.I. than doing background checks on teenage boys. And I loved that Beckett could see how much this P.I. work means to him (even beyond him getting to be his own muse, which was a fantastic line). I found her sending him a client to be a very romantic gesture, especially for these two characters. It was her way of supporting her husband in his new work the way he’s supported her in her work for so many years. Sometimes Beckett might tease Castle about his crazy theories or his goofiness, but she ultimately respects his ability to solve cases. And sending Sofia to him was a nice vote of confidence in his professional abilities, which ultimately paid off for her, too, as it helped her find Anna’s killer.

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Source: spoilertv.com

Title Castle, P.I.

Two-Sentence Summary As Beckett attempts to readjust to life at the precinct without Castle after he was banned from helping the NYPD, she begins to investigate the murder of a teacher at an elite NYC preschool. The complicated case gets even more complicated when Castle, now a licensed private investigator, tries to solve it, too.

Favorite Lines
Castle: Did I tell you I got pepper-sprayed today?
Alexis: You say that like it’s a good thing.
Castle: Yeah.

My Thoughts Although no TV fan enjoys a hiatus, sometimes they can be the best thing for a show. Castle’s last episode, “Bad Santa,” left me feeling depressed and blindsided by its big cliffhanger ending, but it appears that some time away from the precinct has done both Rick Castle and me some good. Having some distance from the bombshell ending of “Bad Santa” and some time to process what things could be like for Castle as a private investigator allowed me to approach “Castle, P.I” with an open mind. And the result was an hour of TV-watching that made me even happier than I’d imagined it would.

It’s tough for shows to stay fresh in their seventh season, and I think we can all admit that many of the procedural aspects of Castle were starting to feel stale. However, making Castle a private investigator breathed new life into the crime-solving part of this show, and it even added a nice little spark to the romantic part, too. The time in between “Bad Santa” and “Castle, P.I.” allowed the latter to have a light tone even after the former had such a heavy ending. Airing them only a week apart might have felt too jarring in terms of their vastly different tones when it came to Castle’s dismissal from the precinct. However, airing them a month apart made it seem less jarring and more of an example of the kind of tonal shifts only Castle can pull off so fluidly.

In my recap of “Bad Santa,” I mentioned that the case in that episode—which was neither emotionally compelling nor nerdy in nature—was downright boring. Imagine my surprise when I found myself thoroughly enjoying the case in “Castle, P.I.,” which was also without a fun theme or an emotional component tied to one of our protagonists. Instead, it was the pure thrill of good-old-fashioned crime solving that did it for me this week (and did it for Castle and Beckett, too—but more on that later). I really liked watching the different ways Castle and Beckett used their various skills and resources to take steps closer to solving the case. By putting the focus on the actual detective work, this episode reminded me of what made Castle so special even when it was a very young show: It features two main characters who approach the world in very different ways but whose different approaches are perfect complements for each other.

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