TV Review: CASTLE – Season 4 – “Headhunters”

By ANNE LOUISE BANNON / Contributing Writer

Posted: April 17th, 2012 / 04:42 PM

Nathan Fillion and Adam Baldwin in CASTLE - Season 4 - "Headhunters" | ©2012 ABC/Ron Tom

Stars: Nathan Fillion, Stana Katic, Susan Sullivan, Molly Quinn, Tamala Jones, Seamus Deaver, Jon Huertas, Penny Johnson Jerald
Writer: Alexi Hawley
Director: John Terlesky
Network: ABC, Monday nights, 10 p.m.
Original Telecast: April 14, 2012

It’s a little more back to business, as usual, on CASTLE, with a nice balance of comedy and some angst. And it’s always fun to see Adam Baldwin doing his thing and he doesn’t grunt this time. Plus, the producers guiding the writers have offered us some hope that we will see Det. Kate Beckett (Stana Katic) and author Richard Castle (Nathan Fillion) get their act together in the reasonably near future and (we hope and pray) without all the manipulative nonsense that happened with the last episode, “The Limey.”

Baldwin goes all out as Det. Ethan Slaughter, the kind of cop that gives police brutality a bad name. When Slaughter catches a case of a dead Irish gangster found with a duffle bag of severed heads of a rival Jamaican gang, Castle snags a ride along. After all, he’s blocked on his latest Nikki Heat novel and reduced to playing with dolls for inspiration and Beckett is busy getting ready for a court case (and how come Castle never has to testify?). Okay, things are still pretty cool between the two of them, and Beckett is at a loss as to why.

At least, she’s being honest about why she didn’t tell Castle that she remembered his confession of love – well, to her shrink Dr. Burke (Michael Dorn, speaking of someone else it’s fun to see working). She was dealing with the trauma of being shot and just plain wasn’t ready for it. Only now she is and she’s really, really afraid it’s too late.

And, naturally, Castle isn’t helping. To get in good with Slaughter, he bribes Esposito (Jon Huertas) to get an ID on the severed heads (and, yes, they’d been buried first), then convinces Ryan (Seamus Deaver) to be nice and run a license plate for him, even though Ryan is good and torqued off about Castle’s betrayal of the team. Only Slaughter is not such a great cop, doing things like dumping a suspect in a trash truck and threatening to squash him to get answers, and slapping around another suspect, and then almost getting Castle killed a couple times.

Then Slaughter has the nerve to ask Castle to speak up for him at the Review Board hearing that Slaughter faces for, you guessed it, police brutality. This as Slaughter is torturing another suspect in the trunk of his car, and after Slaughter drools over the new girl working at the morgue, the redhead who just happens to be Alexis (Molly Quinn), Castle’s daughter.

Alexis, for her part, is getting all kinds of college acceptance letters, including one from Stanford. Even though Stanford was her first choice, they did reject her for early acceptance, and all of a sudden Alexis isn’t so sure she wants to go there anymore. Gee, funny how her attitude toward Stanford’s rejection suddenly mirrors Castle’s situation with Beckett.

Eventually, Castle has to turn to Beckett for help, not to mention that Esposito has given him a solid shove in that direction. They’re still pretty cool toward each other, but there’s a glimmer of hope.

Again, we know it’s extremely likely the writers are saving the big get together for the season finale. We know somewhere along the line, Castle and Beckett will get together. And as long as the stringing-along is done in a way that’s logical and organic, I will be okay with that. It’s this endless dragging things out for no good reason that’s making me nuts. So here’s hoping that we’ll start seeing some appropriate movement in the right direction.

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