Castle: A Murder is Forever (6x08)

I guess I'll dive straight into the plot on this one. I won't be talking about it too much because because in all honesty this was just a straight-forward case of the week episode. The focus remained on the case, not the characters, although of course the characters had moments where they shined through.

The case involves a famous relationship therapist who works with very powerful and rich clients. When she turns up dead just before giving a lecture on her latest relationship book, the team takes the case. There were lots of twists and turns, and the truth ended up involving the diamond industry, fake names, intriguing scientific discoveries, and more. In the end, it turns out that a very wealthy man had discovered how to manufacture huge perfect diamonds, which would then threaten to put the diamond industry out of business. Our victim and her boyfriend want to put the information out there so that the bad activities connected with the diamond industry will stop once and for all, but when the rich man's wife discovers this, she kills the therapist in an attempt to save her and her husband's money.

So, as you can probably tell from that description, there was nothing particularly stand-out about this case of the week. It wasn't bad, it wasn't amazing, it was just decent. I guess I sort of liked the twist at the end that it was the wife and not the husband who had committed the murder, since that's definitely not what you would have expected. However, as I often find with procedural cop shows, the case seemed to take a few too many turns on the way to the conclusion. Several of the angles that they took were interesting, but there was an issue of overcrowding.

However, there were great things about the case - the foremost being that we got a lot of Ryan and Esposito. I was worried earlier in the season that they were sort of phasing these characters out. That doesn't seem to be the case anymore, for which I'm grateful. Even though I'm still annoyed that they botched Beckett's DC story line, one happy byproduct of having her back at her old job is that we can get plenty of Ryan and Espo. The best scene in the episode for me was when they got hit by a car and shot at by men wearing masks. I know it's their job to watch each other's backs, but it still warms my heart to see them being so fiercely protective of one another. I would totally watch a spin-off about these two. Their bromance is a thing of beauty.

There was also a minor subplot in this episode, involving Beckett and Castle's shared living space. Beckett expresses her discomfort with a giant picture of a Lion (named Linus) hanging in Castle's bedroom. Beckett says that since the space is now theirs, she should have a say in what goes there. In the end, Castle moves Linus and replaces him with framed shells that they collected together on one of their first dates. I thought this plot line was very cute. It didn't add much of substance to their relationship, but I appreciated that Castle acknowledged how both of them are alphas. I think that's a very good point, and one of the reasons why it took them so long to get to where they are now. As much as I did like this small plot thread, I would have loved to see it take the story in a fresh direction. There was no real conflict here, and what little there was was resolved almost instantly.

This is a really short review, but that makes sense for what was basically your run-of-the-mill episode of Castle. This isn't one I'll be remembering, but it was by no means anything bad.

7/10