Castle 5x22: Still

The team is tracking the evil midnight bomber what bombs at midnight. They bust down his door, but he's already gone down the fire escape and is trying to flee. Esposito and Ryan catch him, but before they can get him into custody, he pulls out a transmitter and arms a bomb. Castle and Beckett immediately start to leave the apartment, but she steps on a pressure plate and they're stuck.

That's not good.

The techs clear the floor under Castle, but Beckett is most definitely standing on a very large explosive device and they can't move her without blowing up the whole building. So, to keep her mind of her impending doom, Castle decides they should talk about their relationship... clip show style.

Back at the station, Esposito and Ryan put the squeeze on the bomber, but he's not talking. He immediately asks for a lawyer, and since he's not a rich dude, he gets a public defender who just finished law school a few months ago, and he can't convince him that a deal for full amnesty just isn't in the cards. So, Javi has Ryan keep the junior lawyer busy while he goes to beat the code out of the guy. Unfortunately, when he gets there, he's lying on the floor with a fatal, self-inflicted wound to the neck.

It's really hard to talk when there's blood pouring out of your mouth.

Meanwhile, Castle and Beckett are still talking about their relationship, even going so far as to call the guys so they can find out who was into whom first. Which is good, because it helps keep their minds off things when the bomb squad tells them that the bomb has a timer and they can't stop it. As the timer slowly ticks down, eventually it gets to the point where Castle has to leave. He doesn't want to, but Beckett makes him go. She tells him she loves him and then bows her head to await the inevitable.

Standing on a bomb is lonely business.

Of course, a couple minutes later, he comes back with coffee and the arming device so they can make a stab at disarming the bomb. She tries to make him leave again, but he's not going anywhere. Instead, they wonder why the bomb is where it is. If it were meant for the cops, it would've been by the door, but it was in the middle of the kitchen. Sort of. It was an open concept apartment. Anyway, they discover that the dead bomber's girlfriend gave birth while he was in prison, and he's been trying to track down the son he never met. Castle enters the kid's name as the disarming code, and all is well.

Case closed.

What I Liked
-Beckett's dizzying array of hairstyles. They really have mixed it up over the years. You can tell which season it is based on the length and colour of Stana Katic's hair.
-"I can't help it if you get off by putting things in my mouth." Inyourendo.
-The Cap'n finally reveals that she's known all along that Castle and Beckett are a couple, and she's only been ignoring it to maintain plausible deniability. I'm glad she's just a stereotypical angry Captain, and not an idiot, too.

What I Hated
-They can't swap in some weights for Beckett because of plot necessity. Yes, I understand that there wouldn't have been much of a show if they could've employed some real-world solutions to disarm the bomb or get Beckett out of there, but that doesn't make the whole thing any less idiotic.
-Diego Jimenez.

It's like when I go to bars and run tabs under the name 'Carlos Rodriguez'

Final Thoughts
You don't see clip shows much these days. At least I don't see them very often. It's possible that a great many series I don't watch are running clip shows every single week.

Anyway, since this was a clip show, it was really more like half an episode, so it's not particularly fair to give it any kind of rating. As clip shows go, it was a pretty good effort; it framed things with a bit of a story, and most of the clips followed a general theme ie. Castle and Beckett's relationship.

I've seen every episode of this show, and it's surprising how much stuff I've forgotten (I totally forgot about Meredith until they brought her back this year). The writers have probably forgotten a fair chunk of it, too. They've remembered the charm and the goofiness, though, and that's what matters. It's what sets Castle apart from the CSIs and NCISs; it's rarely serious, and the characters seem like they're having fun. As long as they keep that up, I'll be happy to take a clip show every now and then. Maybe the next one can be about Ryan and Esposito's bromance.