< Castle (TV series)

Castle (TV series)/YMMV


  • Anvilicious:
    • Beckett on deficit spending, in the episode "Close Encounters of the Murderous Kind".
      • This is lampshaded, however, in that Castle, taken aback by Beckett's in-depth and forthright discussion of her views on this, has a classic "where the hell did that come from?!" moment.
    • "Suicide Squeeze" hammers the 'Castro's Cuba is terrible' message home a bit too hard.
    • "Countdown" takes this to a bit of an extreme level, where somehow the fact that a bomb will detonate somewhere in NYC in the next twelve hours or so doesn't keep people from sitting around, waxing philosophic about all the different aspects of terrorism.
    • In "To Live And Die In L.A", the ending of the letter Royce sends Beckett, spelling out the fact that she has feelings for Castle she's denying, is a bit on-the-nose. Then again, this is Beckett we're dealing with here.
    • Beckett talks deficit spending again in "Lynchpin."
  • Ass Pull: Sophia's being the mole/Russian sleeper agent in "Linchpin".
  • Broken Base: Fandom's starting to show signs of this - those who believe season four has Jumped the Shark vs those who just enjoy the show for escapist fantasy.
  • Chickification: Beckett. Begins roughly midway through Season 3. By the Season 4 "Pandora/Linchpin" two-parter some would say she's devolved into a Too Incompetent to Live Faux Action Girl.
    • Justified that she was shot at the third season finale as well emotionally compromised. And she still remains to be competent.
  • Crazy Awesome: Pretty much Castle's MO. Remind you of anyone?
  • Die for Our Ship:
    • Detective Demming upped the ante by kissing Beckett in "Overkill", thus securing his status as arch nemesis of all Castle/Beckett shippers. "DEMMIIIIIIIIIIING!" * shakes fist*
    • As of the end of Season Two Beckett broke up with Demming... just in time for Castle and his ex-wife Gina to start hooking up again. Gina's got her work cut out for her, stepping into Demming's shoes.
    • Towards the end of "Punked," Beckett appears with a new beau named Josh. The fan hate for this particular character goes Up to Eleven as of "Countdown."
      • It actually came to a head in "Rise", when Josh accused Castle of getting her shot. Cut to three months later, and she's broken up with him, too.
    • Inverted to some degree with "The Limey", however, where both Castle and Beckett seem to get (presumably) temporary new Love Interests in flight attendent Jacinda and British cop Colin... except most of the fan ire around the episodes seems to be directed primarily at Castle and Beckett themselves, mainly for once again refusing to just have a sensible, adult conversation about their issues and relationship and instead dicking about around the subject with other people.
  • Ear Worm:
    • The show's theme tune deserves a mention here.
    • The victim's eventual-murder-solving last song from "Famous Last Words". And they play it constantly throughout the episode. Auuuugh.
    • Get on the Floor, from "Lucky Stiff."
      • In-Universe, too, since Beckett is later seen trying to do an acoustic guitar version of the track.
    • The ringtone from "Nanny McDead".
  • Ensemble Darkhorse:
    • Lanie the ME seems to be going this way. As of season two, she's been showing up more with bigger lines that aren't strictly about the case of the week. But then again, she also gets some of the best lines and could probably match wits with Castle so it's understandable.
    • Detectives Ryan and Esposito have ended up becoming quite popular with the fans to the point of almost getting as much screen time as Castle and Beckett, but the charmingly Adorkable Ryan in particular might fit this trope most -- he wasn't even supposed to be in the series initially, and was a relatively last-minute addition after test audiences didn't respond well to the detective who was initially supposed to take his place. He even has a Character Blog on ABC.com.
    • Captain Montgomery most definitely. Whenever he shows up, one can be certain he'll do or say something awesome. His death at the end of "Knockout" was no different and you can bet the tears flowed like rain.
    • West Side Wally in season four. He first showed up in "The Blue Butterfly," but made a reappearance in "47 Seconds." Lampshaded by Esposito.

Esposito West Side Wally, back by popular deamand.

  • Even the Girls Want Her:
    • Many of the girl fans' reaction to Kate Beckett.
    • This promo.
  • Even the Guys Want Him: Ryan, in the first episode of season 3, comments on a cardboard cutout of Castle "He really is ruggedly handsome".
    • Esposito gets a moment at the end of "Anatomy of a Murder" when he smiles knowingly after the heartwarming moment between Castle and Beckett. For some reason, he just looks so charmingly happy in that scene.
  • Fan Disservice: In "Kill Shot", there's a scene where Beckett is dressed only in her bra and pants. This would have been Fan Service if Beckett wasn't going through a mental breakdown and staring at the bullet wound on her chest.
  • Fan Girl:
    • Beckett is a devoted reader of Castle's novels, the leader of a fanclub for Castle, and has been since before he started shadowing her. She does NOT want him to know the spoiler.
    • Beckett was also raised a baseball fan, and as a result, the normally cool-headed detective turns into a fifteen-year-old girl when she meets Joe Torre in "Suicide Squeeze."
  • Fan Service:
    • See Even the Girls Want Her above.
    • In "The Mistress Spanks Twice" many of the 'quick-cut New York landmark' establishing shots are replaced by shots of attractive young women in leather corsets writhing in various mild BDSM positions.
    • There also seem to have been a few scenes of Beckett either showering or bathing in the recent series; "Boom!" begins with Beckett, having been in the shower just before her apartment blew up, stark naked for the first few minutes. Castle isn't entirely unhappy with this state of affairs, and neither were many viewers of both genders, judging by the above.
    • To Live and Die in L.A. has Beckett getting out of a pool, in slow motion. Castle's reaction says it all.
  • Fetish Fuel: Most of the female cast gets into the Fetish Fuel. Lanie talks about engaging in various food fetishes while examining the body at the crime scene. Alexis is shown in both a school girl's uniform and a cheerleader's outfit. Beckett does some domineering and pseudo-leather outfit wearing as well as quipping about knowing about certain BDSM related things. In "The Mistress Always Spanks Twice," there's the scene with Esposito questioning the dominatrix who makes him unlace her boots; She pushes her foot against his shoulder, and hits him lightly with her crop the longer he goes without making progress, which makes the normally smooth and unflappable Esposito more flustered, which makes him make mistakes, which makes her hit him more...
    • Beckett ends up in some pretty sexy dresses, usually for special events related to Castle's books. There's also that quick change scene in "Deep in Death." And then there's this.
    • Ryan and Esposito getting 'questioned' in "Knockdown". The Bromance put to the test with drenched, clingy clothes and a strangling rope.
    • Beckett seems to be a master at (hinting) this. In "A Deadly Affair", the duo visits a burlesque club complete with burlesque dancer, snake acts, firebreathers, circus motif, and so on and so forth. Castle comments to the effect that it's pretty wild. Beckett comments that it's not as wild as some of the clubs she's been too. This being only the latest in many such comments and quips.
    • In a later episode, after revealing that she owns a Harley, she also hints that she owns the proper riding attire to go with. That is, skin tight leather.
    • Castle's daughter Alex is an attractive, mature, self-possessed redheaded teenage girl. Any youngsters of the appropriate age and orientation watching the show have probably noticed.
    • In-universe example: In "The Mistress Always Spanks Twice", Beckett shows more-than-a-little greater knowledge of the New York BDSM scene than Castle expects. Castle reacts by biting his hand with one of the most turned-on expressions ever.
    • He has similar interest when Beckett mentions she has a tattoo.
    • Castle's Safe Word (Apples) has been mentioned in the first episode and at least once after that.
    • When discussing which superhero they'd be in "Heroes and Villains", Beckett says she'd be Elektra. The commentary by Luke Reichle, costume designer, says he already has the costume designed.
  • Fridge Brilliance: In "Suicide Squeeze", the wife's victim thought he was having an affair with a woman that appeared in a photograph with him, who turned out to be the victim's daughter (the aforementioned 17-year-old). Given that she looked like a short adult, is it too outlandish that the wife thought the girl was her husband's lover?
  • Geeky Turn On: Beckett plays the guitar!
    • Also, Beckett and Castle's shared, unabashed love for comic books and sci fi, which is brought up several times. Geeky couples ftw!
  • Harsher in Hindsight: Not so much harsher but sadder in that after the events of "Knockout", everyone knows exactly why Montgomery is so lenient with Beckett.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight: In the pilot, at Castle's poker game after the premiere of the final Derrick Storm novel, James Patterson quips, "You certainly don't see me killing off Alex Cross." A few months later, he's advertising his next Cross book by saying "Buy this book, or I'm gonna have to kill Alex Cross."
  • Ho Yay: Ryan and Esposito. Oh so very much.
    • In "Den of Thieves", the word 'partner' is used repeatedly in questionable context.
    • Also in the same episode: "Where's Esposito? WHERE'S ESPOSITO?
    • In "Lucky Stiff" Ryan reveals that he plays Esposito's lottery numbers, so it wouldn't be awkward if one of them won. Uhm yeah...
      • Even moreso because Esposito's numbers are the dates of his firsts - as in, his first time in combat and the first time he had sex.
    • Castle to Esposito about Ryan when Ryan's girlfriend calls him yet again.

Castle: Don't worry, he still loves you.

Beckett: When I'm not here, do you guys braid each other's hair and discuss who's your favourite Jonas brother?
Esposito: No...but it's Nick.
Ryan: Absolutely Nick.

    • Esposito throwing Ryan up against a wall in "Knockout", after finding out that Captain Montgomery was involved in Johanna Beckett's murder. And the heads of a thousand Slash Fic writers exploded...
    • It gets better in "Dance With Death", when a (keep in mind, married for seven episodes) Ryan pretty much insists Esposito wear his wedding ring when interviewing suspects at a strip club...to see if strippers will flirt with him even if he's not taken. The scene is set up to look like a proposal, which isn't even mentioning the subtext that Espo gets a date because of the ring...and later, can't take it off because his finger's too big and needs Beckett's hand cream. Ryan panicked. Slashers squealed.
    • The best thing about the Ho Yay here is that Esposito and Ryan pretty much acknowledge the fact that it's there and just roll with it.
    • Between Castle and his old high school friend Damian in "The Last Nail." Teenage boy sent off to a boarding school, gets homesick, and gets comforted by an older student.
  • Incest Subtext: Richard and Alexis, often seem positively flirtatious, not to mention often jealous of each others romantic interests. This seems to have cooled down somewhat since Alexis got a steady boyfriend.
  • Les Yay: The killer in "The Mistress Always Spanks Twice" is the victim's female roommate, whose Motive Rant for killing is loaded with Les Yay with a Psycho Lesbian twist. Add in the fact that the victim once compared her to a dominatrix...
  • Like You Would Really Do It:
    • At the end of "Tick, Tick, Tick" it looks like the villain of the two-part episode has blown up Beckett in her apartment. Of course she wasn't.
    • The trailer for season 3 shows the cops busting in and finding Castle over a dead body holding a gun. Clearly he did it and will be sent to jail for the rest of his life.
    • "3xk" has the -real- climatic scene involve a serial killer with Castle at his mercy. The scene cuts abruptly after the killer threatens Castle. Of course, Castle isn't killed but, at least in the killer's and Castle's mind, that may be a Fate Worse Than Death.
    • "Setup" / "Countdown" has a triple-whammy:
      • Castle and Beckett encounter the remnants of a highly radioactive device removed from a storage locker. This clearly means they will die from a fatal dose of radiation poisoning.
      • Castle and Beckett are locked in a freezer. No doubt, they will freeze to death before anyone finds them.
      • Castle and Beckett find themselves face-to-face with a dirty bomb counting down to zero. Obviously, it will explode, killing them and irradiating a good chunk of downtown Manhattan and it's population, and they will not be able to do anything to prevent this.. And if you believe any of the above spoilers, there is an excellent bridge property in Brooklyn for sale at a very generous price...
    • "Knockout" ends with Beckett shot and lying in Castle's arms, during which he finally whispers that he loves her. The entire fandom is sure she's not going to die, but the repercussions of the gunshot are the real issue.
  • Mary Sue: Alexis has all the makings of this - the perfect daughter who is only grumpy when Castle's being unreasonable, shown to be a brilliant detective without any training and never does ANYTHING wrong without apologising tearfully to her dad. Go on, try to find an episode where she does anything considered remotely negative.
    • As of the fourth season however, this seems to have been toned down what with her failing to get into Stanford, and having a very large meltdown over it, as well as the Word of God that she will be getting unreasonably resentful of Beckett during the season.
      • YMMV - she gets a new boyfriend almost immediately after dumping Ashley, and starts working as an intern in the morgue - and even when a body disappears, she has people cooing over her and saying "It's not your fault!" There's also no appearance of the resentment so far.
    • And now she's been accepted to Stanford. Apparently, the first one was only an early admission rejection. She's also been accepted almost to every university in the US. She even had Adam Baldwin's detective character make lewd comments about her!
      • He made lewd comments about every female in that episode.
  • Memetic Mutation: Due to his incessant cockblocking in Season 3, Josh Davidson has earned the reputation on Tumblr of being blamed for anything negative that happens in the fandom or the show, from the cast not winning awards to problems on the show itself. It is almost always capped with the following picture.
  • Moral Event Horizon: You can sympathize with the motives, if not the actions, of the terrorists in "Countdown" embittered soldiers who feel abandoned, betrayed and ignored by their country and their government, but any sympathy goes out the window when they kidnap a mother and her baby (the husband and father of whom they'd already murdered), hold the baby hostage, all but threaten to kill her and force the mother to drive a truck carrying a dirty bomb into the city, which will ultimately frame her as the terrorist when it explodes.
  • Narrowed It Down to the Guy I Recognize: The show appears to take delight in zig-zagging furiously on this trope:
    • "Inventing the Girl": Julian Sands didn't do it.
    • "When the Bough Breaks": Reed Diamond did it.
    • "Little Girl Lost": Francis Capra, AKA Weevil, and Judy Reyes, AKA Carla Espinosa. Capra's a red herring, but Reyes isn't.
    • "Kill the Messenger": Gregg Henry pops up. Anyone Genre Savvy enough to know about this trope went "Oh. Oh well." Subverted.
    • Ray Wise in 2x15, "Suicide Squeeze". Played straight.
    • "One Man's Trash": features DB Woodside, 24's Wayne Palmer and Buffy the Vampire Slayer's Principal Wood, as well as Perrin "Mrs. Ari Gold" Reeves and Abigail "Miss Blah-blah Farrell" Spencer. Subverted for the women, not so much for the guy.
    • Played with like a kitten's ball of string and averted in "The Mistress Always Spanks Twice". Lesse, the deceased was a post-grad who had Lane Kim and Brian Krakow vying for the same award, so it must've been one of them, right? She also went undercover as a dominatrix in an S&M club whose proprietor is Dina Meyer, so maybe it's her? Nope: it was her roommate, who was played by a relatively unknown actress.
    • "Wrapped Up in Death", Navi Rawat (AKA Amita from Numb3rs), Erick Avari (crazy Dr. Bey from The Mummy 1999) and Currie Graham (from Desperate Housewives, among others). Currie Graham did it. Currie Graham ALWAYS is the murderer, unless he's a series regular. No exceptions.
    • "The Late Shaft" averts this by salting the suspects with enough B and C-list celebrities for a VH-1 reality show. Tom Bergeron played the big late-night talk show host victim; Fred Willard played his feisty sidekick, Beth Broderick played his first wife, Bill Bellamy played his heir apparent, Dan Cortese played the network president, Kelly Carlson played another guest who hooks up with Castle, and even French Stewart played a skeevy guy who did business with Bergeron. Fred Willard dood it.
    • Mitch Peliggi a.k.a A.D Walter Skinner turns up in "A Deadly Game" as a hardened spy / assassin. Hilariously subverted; turns out he's just some hapless schmuck on a spy vacation who thinks that this is all part of the game. Once he realizes he's in "real jail", he bursts into tears.
    • Muse Watson aka Mike Franks in "Punked". Didn't do it.
    • "Close Encounters of the Murderous Kind" has Lyle Lovett and Bishop. The killer was someone else.
    • "One Life to Lose" features All My Children regulars Rebecca Budig and Cameron Mathison, Jane Seymour, David Eigenberg, Corbin Bernsen, and Tina Majorino. That last one did it.
    • "Head Case" features Adam Davies (suspicious but didn't do it), April O'Neill (did it and then herself), Richard "Dickless" Thornburg (a subverted Corrupt Corporate Executive), and Yinsen (stole the victim's head, but with justifiable reason).
    • In "Demons": Has Has Frederic Lehne ever played a good guy?
  • Not So Different: In "Law & Murder", Castle says that Alexis' "tell" is her nose twitch. When he lies to her later on, she realizes he's lying when his nose twitches. This is promptly following by her rapidly figuring out what the truth is by boiling down a series of guesses to their logical conclusion. She'd make a good detective, is the implication.
  • Portmanteau Couple Name:
    • The best one in the genre, fandubbed "Caskett" for Castle and Beckett.
    • As of "One Life to Lose," "Esplanie" (Esposito and Lanie) has been made canon.
  • Seasonal Rot: The third and particularly fourth seasons have come in for some criticism from various quarters, with probably the most frequent criticism being that the Castle / Beckett relationship keeps getting bogged down in various angsty misunderstandings and 'roadblocks' designed to artificially stretch out the 'will they, won't they' angle (despite the fact that it's frequently made very clear that they ultimately will), in comparison to the more fresh and light-hearted approach taken in seasons one and two.
  • Too Cool to Live: Roy Montgomery.
  • The Woobie:
    • Castle became this in the episode "Wrapped Up in Death" after supposedly being cursed by a Mayan Mummy. The fact that Beckett, Ryan, and Esposito kept playing pranks on him to make him believe in the curse only made it worse.
    • His face when he sees Beckett kiss Deming at the end of "Overkill" is absolutely heartwrenching.
    • Beckett at the end of "A Deadly Game" She begins to work up the courage to tell Castle how she feels about him, something which does not come easy for her, but just before she can his ex-wife Gina makes an appearance. The look on Beckett's face as they leave together speaks volumes.
    • For a while, Castle is this during the Season 3 opener "A Deadly Affair" because the entire precinct is giving him the cold shoulder for not returning sooner or calling at all during his absence. Sure, he deserves some of it, but you do feel a little bad for the guy after a while.
    • Cesar Calderon from "Anatomy of Murder" is an odd case. Yes, he's was a ruthless drug lord responsible for a lot of bad things... but he's also completely innocent in the murder and his horrified revelation of the killer is pretty darn heartbreaking. In fact, he was in love with the victim and it's implied he was going to marry her. The culprit? His own brother who killed her and tried to dispose of the body in the same way as in their drug lord days (ie no body at all so she basically just disappears). Even worse, there was no reason for her to be killed in the first place because the reason the brother thought was basically incorrect. Had the brother done the first thing Cesar says (talk to him and let them confront her about it), none of it would have happened at all.
    • Castle in "47 Seconds". He is about to tell Beckett for real that he loves her, but he gets interrupted by Esposito before he can do it, so he decides to do it later. However, when Beckett is interrogating a suspect, he goes to the adjoining room to hear the interrogation, and discovers that Beckett actually remembers everything that happened after being shot. He is, naturally, left broken at the fact that Beckett decided to deceive him, and the rest of the episode, when he is not helping with the case, he acts passive-aggresively towards Beckett.
      • Beckett might also count here as well, to some degree at least; despite keeping her secret, she was also planning on taking things to the next level and, unaware that Castle has found out her secret, is understandably bewildered and hurt by his sudden u-turn in attitude.
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