Castle 5x17: Scared to Death

A girl makes a frantic 911 call and tells the operator that something is coming to kill her. Seconds later, the lights go out and she screams. When the gang arrives a few hours later to investigate, she's lying on the floor, apparently scared to death.

She died the way she lived: Wearing a shirt.

The dead girl's roommate, Amanda, comes home and tells Beckett that dead girl had been acting strangely for the past three days. A check of her financial records also shows that she had just recently bought lucky horseshoes and a book on urban legends recently, and a talk with her ex-boyfriend reveals that she got a mysterious package in the mail and she thought something supernatural was coming to get her. Castle and Beckett search the apartment more thoroughly, and discover that the package contained a DVD. He presses 'Play' on the girl's DVD player and is treated to a lovely Ring-style montage that finishes with the phrase "You saw. Midnight on the third day: You die!"

That can't be good.

Back at the station, Castle's very concerned that the spirit of the DVD is going to kill him in three days. Beckett thinks it's absurd, and asks Ryan to watch the video to see if he can find anything useful on it. He won't do it, though, because he and Jenny are trying to have a baby and they don't want to jinx it. Espo won't watch it either, because doing so would make his partner look like a wimp. That leaves Beckett to do the dirty work.

Upon a second viewing, Castle notices it contains symbols representing rebirth and resurrection, and he thinks it means that the video heralds the rebirth of a demonic spirit. His fears are not assuaged when Perlmutter admits that he has no idea what killed the girl.

Esposito and Ryan manage to trace the package, and it leads them to an old man in Hoboken. Only, when they bust down his door, they find that he actually received a similar DVD in the mail, and he's been dead for two days.

He's not quite as freaky looking as the dead girl.

After seeing what happened to the other people who watched the DVD, Castle can't sleep. So, he gives his good buddy Wes Craven a call for some advice on what to do to stop evil spirits. Wes thinks he's being a bit weird, but Castle lies and says he's writing a horror screenplay. Anyway, since the DVD is the portal for the spirit into the human realm, it should contain clues to its origin.

Through the power of Twitter, Castle tracks one of the images to an old inn. A quick search shows that both the dead girl and dead old guy stayed there five years ago, so Beckett and Esposito go to check it out. The creepy innkeeper tells them that based on their room numbers, the two dead people must have been witnesses in a serial killer's murder trial that was held in the nearby courthouse. Beckett thinks that the killer must somehow be getting revenge on the people who put him away, except there's one problem with that theory: He's been dead for three years.

That can't be good.

Though the serial killer may be dead, his younger brother/accomplice is still alive and being held in a creepy mental hospital in Connecticut. Castle and Beckett drive up for a visit and find him to be a very cordial, extremely creepy dude. He doesn't offer them any new information, but he slips up and lets them know that he's aware of the deaths of two witnesses even though they only told him about one.

On the way home, they get a call from Ryan who tells them that the serial killer's body was dug up and has gone missing. He and Esposito also track down a third witness who also got a DVD and then fled the city for his family's cabin in the woods. Castle's a little hesitant, but Beckett insists on going, so he tags along after making a quick stop to pick up his bag of demon-fighting tools.

Featuring incense, ba gua mirror, and holy water. Proton pack not included.

When they get to the cabin, the final witness is drunk and in full-on Bill Paxton 'Game over' mode. Castle tries to convince him to talk things over out in the car where it's safe, but they guy's all freaked out that the killer's back from the grave and before he can get him outside, the power goes out.

Beckett heads outside to see what's happening, while Castle stays in the cabin to guard the witness. She sees someone lurking in the bushes, she tackles the shadowy figure, and it turns out to be the nurse from the mental hospital. She's in love with the brother and was trying to prove he wasn't involved in the killings so his appeal would be granted and he could be let go. She even went so far as to dig up his brother's grave to prove he wasn't a zombie, but the body was already gone.

Meanwhile, the remaining witness tells Castle that he and the other two witnesses were almost killed by guilt because they fingered the wrong guy in a police line-up and that man committed suicide due to the stress of being accused of murder. He also says that the guy had a daughter named Amanda, and wouldn't you know it, but that's the dead girl's roommate's name.

Amanda bursts into the cabin and temporarily blinds Castle with a flash from a specially-modified stun gun. She waits a moment for the capacitor to recharge, and just as she's about to zap the witness to death, Beckett gets the lights back on, which distracts her just long enough for Castle to club her over the head with his bottle of holy water.

Thus saving the day and cleansing her sins at the same time.

That wraps everything up, but still leaves the question as to what happened to the dead serial killers body. As it happens, the guy's corpse went missing from the prison morgue just after he died and the police buried an empty coffin. While he's still out there somewhere, possibly zombified, Castle and Beckett are both happy to have survived seeing the DVD, and when their midnight deadline passes, they celebrate with a little survivor sex.

Aw, yeah.

What I Liked
-Nathan Fillion does some more good face acting in this episode.

His years of training on One Life to Live really paid off.

-Esposito wonders how much Castle values their friendship. Like, would he leave him his Ferrari in his will? That's an excellent question, and it's not like dead people can drive.
-Castle wants Beckett to outlive him so someone will be around to tell his tale of sacrifice and selflessness.

What I Hated
-Castle makes a big show of shutting the blinds when Beckett goes to watch the DVD, but he doesn't shut the ones that face the TV. Sure, the detectives are protected, but the lowly desk sergeant deserves to die? Bad form, Castle.
-They made specific mention of the fact that there were no signs of forced entry in the dead girl's apartment. That makes sense since the killer was her roommate. However, they also mentioned that the door was locked and the couch was shoved up against it, which is not something you can do from the outside.
-The killer showed up for thirty seconds at the beginning of the episode, wasn't even a suspect, then disappeared until the end of the episode. I really hate when that happens.

Final Thoughts
I really wasn't feeling this one. Nathan did some excellent face work, but the plot itself was a bit odd and had at least one gaping hole in it.

I also didn't really see the point of having Wes Craven on. He provided some useful advice, but I think Castle could've probably figured it out on his own if he gave it 30 seconds of thought. They need to go back to having poker games with famous authors. Maybe get George R. R. Martin in and give him some crap for taking so long to write the Song of Ice and Fire books.