TV Review: CASTLE – Season 5 – “Secret’s Safe With Me”

By ANNE LOUISE BANNON / Contributing Writer

Posted: October 10th, 2012 / 01:27 PM

Stars: Nathan Fillion, Stana Katic, Susan Sullivan, Molly Quinn, Tamala Jones, Seamus Deaver, Jon Huertas, Penny Johnson Jerald
Writer: Terence Paul Winter
Director: John Terlesky
Network: ABC, Monday nights, 10 p.m.
Original Telecast: October 8, 2012

One of the great things about CASTLE this season is now that the producers have resolved the big tease between author Richard Castle (Nathan Fillion) and Det. Kate Beckett (Stana Katic), the show can now focus on the mystery part – and the mysteries have been getting better. In “Secret’s Safe With Me,” yeah, there’s a couple things you see coming, but the plot actually had some interesting twists. Plus we got the relationships, which is what this show has always excelled at.

We start in Castle’s apartment where his daughter Alexis (Molly Quinn) is packing for to go away to college, well, her college dorm room. Alexis, as she does, is stressing out. But Castle’s mom Martha (Susan Sullivan) is being as soothing as only she can, which is to say, soothing for Alexis, crazy-making for Castle. And sure enough, it turns out that Martha is on to Castle and Beckett’s new relationship, which they’ve been trying to keep quiet, Beckett being afraid that police department policy will prevent her and Castle from working together.

So Castle has to spill and Beckett is worried sick that Alexis will tell Lanie (Tamala Jones), who will tell Esposito (Jon Huertas), which means everyone will know then, because Esposito can’t keep his mouth shut. And it’s not like Lt. Gates (Penny Johnson Jerald) wouldn’t love an excuse to get rid of Castle because she really hates him. But never mind all that, they’ve got a bloody female stiff in a hotel room who has written a message in her blood that looks like LIE. Not quite.

Turns out that it’s the number to a storage unit – 317 – that’s about to have its contents auctioned off. Well, Castle being a wealthy best-selling author, he’s got the cash on him and he buys the contents of the unit. But there doesn’t appear to be much there except junk. And a creepy ceramic doll that Gates goes nuts over – it’s apparently highly collectible. So Castle gives it to her. I guess we’re supposed to believe that he’s already checked it for potential clues because this that part where you can see what’s coming.

Anyway, Castle is trespassing a bit on Beckett’s territory, answering her desk phone and going through the drawers to find a pen to write something down. Only he finds a little stick man, about which he is curious. But Beckett admonishes him, instead.

The owner of the unit appears to be the twin brother of the stiff – and he was killed by a subway train two weeks before in a station where the security cameras were broken. Hmmm. And said twin Wendell worked as a chauffeur for a wealthy socialite Angelina (Caroline Lagerfelt) who is in bankruptcy, but also recently had a break in at her place, in which a pink diamond bracelet was stolen. Or wasn’t, in this case. Turns out Angelina took advantage of the break in to commit some insurance fraud.

Still, Beckett and Castle are puzzling over the stuff in the storage unit. There had to be something worth killing over in there, but what? Gates all of a sudden is now Castle’s biggest fan and in one of the hotter moments on TV, Castle says good night to Beckett at the station. They can’t kiss, but his description of said kiss as the two shake hands… OMG! Was that ever hot!

And Castle goes off to help Alexis move into her dorm room. Alexis has been a tad surly. Castle thought she was worried about competing with Beckett, but no, she’s just freaking out about living away from her dad for the first time. It such a sweet scene and it’s so beautiful how he reassures and checks under her bed for monsters, just like he used to do when she was little. But seeing a teddy bear back pack elsewhere on campus triggers the clue that Castle needs to solve the case.

The problem is, it involves smashing one of the ceramic dolls that Gates brought from home and then the one he gave her. Ah-hah! There is something in the doll – a thumb drive and a glass eye. The thumb drive has pictures of the car accident that killed the twins’ parents, and it wasn’t Angelina that was behind the accident, but her butler. Yep, the butler did it. It’s gotta happen some time, for crying out loud.

As for the stick man, Castle agrees that he’s got to let Beckett have some privacy, but she relents and tells him the story behind the stick man. After her mother’s funeral, she and her dad escaped to Coney Island, where they made the figure out of stuff they found on the beach there. Beckett keeps it as a reminder that even on the worst days, there is the possibility for joy.

We’ll see how joyful she is when she gets Martha’s big bomb that she drops on Castle the moment he gets home. Martha has decided to be merciful to Castle. She’ll keep living there just so he doesn’t have to be alone in the apartment. Oh joy.