Castle Season 7 Episode 10 Review: Bad Santa
Christine Orlando
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Rick and Kate's first Christmas together as a married couple took an unexpected turn in Castle Season 7 Episode 10 leaving a big question looming as they head into the new year.
But first…the murder of the week.
Dr. Eric Mercer was run down and shot to death by a homicidal Santa. Is nothing sacred? Maybe Rick had a point as he said in this Castle quote…
Squeezing down countless chimneys. Delivering millions of presents in one night. It was bound to happen. Santa finally cracked.
Rick Castle
It turned out Eric wasn't just any doctor. He was a mob doctor for an old friend of Castle's, Dino Scarpella. It was a relationship that became a double edged sword and I'm not even talking about the cut on Rick's hand.
The case had plenty of twists and turns giving Rick more than one opportunity for a field trip to Dino's strip club. It was nice even the strippers were dressed with the holiday spirit in mind.
A murder mystery turned into a Romeo and Juliet saga with a bit of cyber crime thrown in. I really liked Rita the Cyber Reader. She reminded me of Tori if she had gone over to the dark side.
Back at the precinct, Lanie's parents were stopping in for a visit on their way to Paris and they wanted to meet her fiance. Her what? Yup, even the strongest people sometimes lie to their parents to get them off their backs and it always comes back to bite them.
To be honest, I didn't feel much of a connection to Lanie's folks one way or another, but perhaps that was just due to their lack of screen time. Javi was amazing the way he stepped up to the plate and played along, but Ryan was the true star as he jumped in to fill in the blanks of a romantic, yet funny, proposal story. However, I had one question: Where did Lanie get the ring?
All along I kept expecting this story to end with Lanie and Espo finally realizing they were meant to be together, but instead I got the opposite…and was surprisingly okay with it. I like Lanie and Espo. They're good friends with nice chemistry, but perhaps marriage isn't where their relationship is supposed to lead. As long as they can remain friends, I think I can live with them moving on.
Earlier at the loft, I half thought Castle was pulling another prank on Beckett – reminiscent of his family dressing up in costume for Thanksgiving; but no. The Castle family really does have a holiday poem competition and Martha's been working on her's since July. Am I the only one who wanted to hear them all?
I completely empathized with Kate when she realized being an official member of the Castle family meant writing her own poetry for the holiday…
What word rhymes with I'm screwed?
Kate Beckett
But she managed to hit out of the park and her words were more poignant than she knew.
This has been an epic year.
been full of joy and tears.
Solving crimes and catching killers
just like Castle's famous thrillers.
We share a passion every day,
as partners go, we're here to stay.
Or not, which leads to my one complaint. I couldn't understand why Capt. Gates wasn't involved in the arrest of Detective McBride. Arresting another member of the NYPD is a huge deal and Gates was once a detective in Internal Affairs so having her involved would have made perfect sense. At first I thought she simply wasn't in the episode at all, but then all of a sudden she popped up…to tell Castle he'd been banned.
The poor guy used his contacts to help with the case only to have it come back to bite him. Even with the best of intentions sometimes that happens. I thought he'd have told Kate right away, but she looked so happy and proud when she came to him with her poem that I immediately understood why he kept it to himself. This could have been his last time with his NYPD family at the 12th; better to enjoy it with everyone smiling. They'll be plenty of time to break the bad news later.
Which leads us (if you've seen the promo) to a very different twist in the Castle saga. It looks like it could be a lot of fun…temporarily.
Now we've got to wait for January 2015 for new episodes so feel free to watch Castle online any time here at TV Fanatic.
C. Orlando was a TV Fanatic Staff Writer. Follow her on Twitter.
