Castle 5x09: Secret Santa

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A man dressed as Santa falls out of the sky and nearly lands on a family making snow angels. Needless to say, that's a little bit odd, so the NYPD is brought in to investigate. Despite having ID with the name Kris Kringle, Santa's real name is Edmund, and he's a professional Santa.

One of many.

The murder and its rationale are a bit complicated, so I'll just explain it. Five years ago, Edmund was a shady dude who forged a bunch of mortgage contracts and cost 43 families their homes. He couldn't live with himself, so he walked out on his life and became a Santa. Then to make even further restitution, he moved in next to one of the families he screwed over and decided to help them with their lawsuit against his former company... which no longer exists.

However, some of the documents they need -along with a really expensive clock that the family put up as collateral- were stored at his former partner's new business. Edmund took a Santa gig at the place and with help from the family's son, he broke into their records room. But, someone made him and he had to high-tail it up to the roof where another Santa was waiting for him with a red helicopter. They get away, but that someone opens fire and Santa Edmund is hit. The helicopter banks, and his body falls to the ground.

Now, who was that someone? His ex-wife, of course. He went to her the night before the heist to apologize for what he was about to do. The lawsuit would've taken all the assets she was left with, and she just couldn't allow that.

Meanwhile, Esposito and Ryan usually spend Christmas Eve getting bro drunk and playing Madden, but Jenny wants to start trying to have a baby, so that's out. Ryan's not sure he's ready for kids because working as a homicide detective shows him how crappy the world can be, but Javier convinces him to go for it. When Lanie turns him down for a Christmas booty call, that leaves him all alone until he decides to return the family's clock and they invite him in for dinner.

The man loves free food.

On the home front, Castle's really big on Christmas traditions, but Alexis wants to spend Christmas Eve with her new boyfriend and Martha wants to do some drunken carolling. Castle's pretty bummed, but he figures he'll be fine as long as he has Beckett. Unfortunately, Beckett's tradition is to work the Christmas Eve shift to make sure everyone else is safe, so Richard's going to be alone on Christmas. However, everyone sees how upset he is, so Alexis and Martha cancel their plans and in a whole Gift of the Magi thing, Beckett sells her hair to buy him a comb... or she gets someone else to cover her shift and comes over. One or the other.

Dang, that's a big tree.

What I Liked
-They Christmased-up the title sequence. They make it really dark and grim when they do a serious business episode.
-Esposito's dance when he discovers the sexy Santa lingerie Ryan bought for Jenny.

Ho ho ho, indeed.

-Castle suggests a Christmas Eve sex marathon to Beckett. I'm with him: drinking egg nog in front of the fire's for suckers.
-The best theory Castle can come up with for why Edmund took the clock is that there's a secret society of Santas who are the guardians of time. I have to say, I'd watch that if it were a movie, but I wouldn't read the book. It seems like it would be a little too Da Vinci Code-ish.
-When Esposito and Ryan go to arrest the accomplice Santa, he kicks Espo's ass with a giant candy cane and a sack full of toys. That's the best fight scene they've ever had on this show.

What I Hated
-Beckett does that thing where she tells Castle not to get him anything, then gets upset when he doesn't get her anything. I swear, that only happens on TV, and it happens way too often.

Final Thoughts
This was a nice episode. It wasn't overly grand or flashy or exciting, but it was a Christmas episode, so grand, flashy, and exciting wouldn't have felt right. Of course, without anything to make it really stand out, this probably won't be counted amongst the show's best episodes. But, you know what? That's all right.

In a television world where everyone's lives are constantly going to hell, Castle shows a happy, functional family that actually enjoys spending time together around the holidays. Sure, they killed Santa, but it wasn't the real Santa and his death was not in vain. No one got raped or molested or tortured or had a miscarriage or found out they had AIDS, and everyone got to have a merry Christmas. Ryan even got lucky.

So, this wasn't a great episode, but it was a nice episode, and that's pretty good.