Aging pop singer Regina holds a release party for her newest album, and who should show up but Josie Lange, the latest young pop sensation. Daggers are stared. However, the next day when a corpse turns up in a dumpster it's not either songstress, but rather the DJ who was working the party.
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| The music industry is a cutthroat business... only she was shot. |
A check of the dead girl's history finds that she has a pretty lengthy rap sheet, but cleaned up her act seven years ago. She also had a phone number written on her hand, which leads to a hotshot producer who wanted to take her to the next level, and who, coincidentally, is producing Josie Lange's new album. The producer tells Esposito that DJ Dead was getting an angry earful at the party from one Darius Carson aka MC Thug.
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| He's not a happy man. |
Mr. Thug tells Castle and Beckett that he thought the DJ stole a diamond bracelet from him at a party he threw a week earlier, and he confronted her at the party. He has a pretty solid alibi, though, since he was upstairs getting frisky with a lady during the time of the murder.
Further investigation shows that over the past year, thefts have been reported at seven of the parties where DJ Corpse was spinning the hits. They bring in her assistant, and he tells them that sometimes she used a different guy, and the nights we worked correlate exactly with when the thefts occurred. Fingerprints from the equipment lead to Joey Malone aka Monster.
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| His nickname's not quite as accurate as MC Thug's. |
Beckett questions Monster, but he clams up when she starts asking about the murder. Esposito's from the streets, though, and he knows that a 14-year-old isn't smart enough to run a high-end burglary scam on his own. So, he takes over and tries to get Oliver to give up his Fagin. Monster's not going to peach, though, even after Esposito shows him photos of DJ Deceased.
Joey's caseworker comes in to talk about him, and their options are limited. They can send him to temporary foster car or toss him in juvie, neither of which would engender his trust. Thus, Espo is forced to take him in for the night. Witty banter ensues, and it looks like things might work out until Joey bails out the window while Esposito's getting him a blanket. Javi's swift, though, so the next day the two of them walk into the station wearing matching bracelets.
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| Part of the 2013 spring collection. |
Castle and Beckett pull out Joey's record, and one name sticks out. The same guy who bailed Monster out a while back also bailed out DJ Departed when she was 17. Esposito tracks him down, knees his bodyguard in the groin, then has Fagin cuff himself so he can take him in. Regular interrogation techniques don't work on him, so Espo spends a minute alone with him so he can get him to rat out the kid on video and show it to Joey. Seeing his mentor sell him out is enough to get Monster to start talking.
Oddly enough, he wasn't at the party to steal jewelry. He was there to swipe a cell phone from the record producer. Ryan and Esposito head back to the studio and find DJ Done For's blood all over a wall. The producer doesn't know what happened, though. He didn't even realize that his phone was stolen because it turned up in a bathroom at the party an hour or so after Joey boosted it. The phone wasn't the target, though. The producer uses it as an e-Key to access his studio, which is filled with valuable equipment and even more valuable unreleased audio tracks.
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| Including something from Joe Mantegna's favourite group, the Lone Believers. |
None of the equipment is missing, but someone downloaded Josie Lange's entire album just before DJ Dumpster was killed. And who had the most to gain from Josie's album leaking on the internet? Regina, whose album was coming out on exactly the same day. Castle and Beckett bust her, then Esposito goes to see Fagin and threatens to murder him if he ever goes near Joey again.
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| Case closed. |
What I Liked
-Esposito and Ryan are fans of Regina and Josie, respectively. It's like Tupac vs. Biggie.
-Castle knows what it's like to wake up the morning after a party without any pants. We've all been there, man.
-Joey craps all over Esposito's decor. He's right, there's no way you can get a girl if your apartment looks like that.
-Esposito describes how he caught Monster. Sometimes it's better to leave things to the imagination, and I think telling the story works in this case, while showing it probably wouldn't have had the same effect.
What I Hated
-Monster says something about Esposito not being able to make it past level one in Assassin's Creed III multiplayer. Now, I think that technically makes sense since there's a mode that has character level progression, but that's probably not what the writer meant. Apparently, no one on the writing staff has played a video game in the last decade if they think that all games still have something that can even generally be referred to as 'Level One'. And I guarantee that the kid who played Monster and at least one of the regular male actors could've corrected them, so I don't know why a line like that made it into the episode.
Final Thoughts
No Alexis this week, which is unfortunate because I think she could've provided some insight into the state of modern pop music.
The plot in this episode was a little convoluted because -just like on Hawaii Five-0- the murder was a crime of opportunity rather than a well thought out plan. On Castle it was a little bit worse, though, since the killing was done with the dead person's own gun and may have even been an accident.
What really bugged me was that Regina and Josie's albums were coming out on the same day. No one puts out a major release on the same day a competitor these days. That's why the 'summer' movie season now begins in mid-April.
All in all, I thought it was a poor episode with a killer whose motive was far too complicated.
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