Watching: Castle – “Boom!” – (ABC)

Do you have a cast-iron bathtub? You better hope you do. It could be the difference between life and death if a bullet-inscribing, abandoned carousel-tampering serial killer ever decides to blow up your apartment. Yes, Detective Kate Beckett survived the blast that engulfed her home in the schmuck-baiting finale of last-night’s Castle two-parter, which seems to have doubled in size more to accommodate special guest star Dana Delany than for actually having a story to tell worthy of two parts. If Part One was all about setting up the stakes, Part Two was all about not living up to them. More contrived dialogue, less action, cheap sentiment, a limp conclusion, and worst of all, no cameos by The Incredible Hulk.

By the way, I saw a commercial for Castle earlier in the day and I think it’s only fair to tell you…. He’s armed! She’s dangerous!

Got it?  Then let’s move on.

At the top of the episode, Castle bursts into the flaming apartment to find Beckett saved by the protective barrier of her cast-iron tub. I am assuming a cast-iron tub is a real thing. I won’t bother to Google it or suggest to myself that the writers went about finding what kind of materials might survive an explosion of that magnitude and then wrote in that Beckett’s bathtub was made out of that same material. No, I definitely will not do that. And while it seemed a little odd for Castle and Beckett to find time to for quips in the middle of a raging inferno three flights up from the ground, I did enjoy when a naked Beckett asks Castle for a towel, and Castle calmly reports, “The towels are on fire.”

I waited patiently through all of Part One to see Beckett lock horns with Dana Delany as “Special Agent Jordan Shaw” but it never really happened.  Dana did throw Beckett off the case, only to relent moments later at the first sign of an argument.  Way to hold your guns. And I’m still trying to figure out why Dana Delany’s character is even necessary.  She’s doing nothing more than re-capping plot points and making impossible deductions.  Isn’t that what the regular characters on this show are supposed to do?

We come to learn that our killer is named Ben Conrad and Dana Delany makes the first of nearly four-hundred references to Ben being a ”chameleon” who assumes the identity of someone close to the people he wants to kill. I have no idea how they figured this out, and I went to college.  A good one.

Conveniently, the killer calls Beckett right about now.  I thought it would be funny that since he’s a chameleon, he be voiced by the guy who does the Geico gekko.  That would have been off the charts!  But he doesn’t sound like that guy at all, plus he’s super-pissed that Beckett isn’t dead because somehow that means he has to go on killing people.  But isn’t that sort of his thing already?  He went to a lot of trouble to waste a woman in Part One and dump her on an abandoned-but-highly operational carousel.  He clearly puts a lot of pride into his work.  It would be a shame after all of that, he not be allowed to explore his gifts further, but Beckett didn’t ask him about any of that.  I think she might have said something like, “Where are you?” which would mean she thinks he’s the dumbest serial murderer ever.  It’s like when you get a crank call and you instinctively ask, “Who is this?” like the person on the other end is gonna just give up the jig and come clean… “Aw, you got me. It’s Johnny! I didn’t know you were gonna ask who I was. That was a real curve ball. Man, I suck at this!”

Beckett is letting the killer get to her. Dana Delany reminds Beckett and Castle that Son of Sam was caught by a parking ticket, which leads to the worst line of the night:  “All we need to do is find our parking ticket, and we catch this son of a bitch!”  Then Dana paces the room educating Castle and Beckett on the killer’s hubris, and throws in the word ”chameleon” a few more times for good measure.

Our killer is a loner who spends his free time e-mailing resumes using free internet at local coffee shops and bars. Holy shit! Throw in a great big fat-ass cat and the killer is ME.  Castle and Beckett hit the local bars, because it would be boring if they hit the local coffee shops. The supporting characters can do that.

Next, much of the cast look at special effects and sip coffee from paper cups  WAIT A MINUTE. Then they crack open their dossiers on really bad Photoshopping and discover that this guy Chris Doherty died six years ago, but just recently renewed his driver’s license Whaaat? I don’t know about you, but I think I smell a serial killer who can save me 15% or more on car insurance.
Cut to the chameleon’s empty apartment. Pages of something (Castle’s writing?) hang from the ceiling like those glow-in-the-dark cardboard planets you can get at the Discovery Channel store.
And our killer is writing his own mystery novel, Dead Heat. Damn, that killer is prolific! Do I need to become a serial killer to get so much out on the page. “Writing is probably a symptom of his psychosis.” says Dana Delany.  Beckett and Castle try to keep up.   Dana also suspects that the reason there are no fingerprints in the home must be because the killer doesn’t have fingerprints.  It could also mean that he has a kick-ass cleaning lady or won an unlmited supply of Pledge wipes on GSN Live.  Just saying.

Beckett and Dana Delany have a heart-to-heart in the back of the surveillance van. Dana admits to a slight career obsession that prevents her from being the wife and mom she secretly longs to be. But before they can get into it, we find our guy!  Time to bust down some doors and charge up some stairs.  As the FBI moves in in, Beckett sees the killer running down the fire escape and takes matters into her own hands. Chase ensues.  Beckett screams, “Stop!” like she’s getting ditched by the rest of her girl scout troop on Tom Sawyer’s Island at Disneyland. The chase continues.  We’re only halfway through the episode, so you can guess how it ends.
By the way, it’s never good to make “I win” faces at the cop whose trying to nail you for multiple murders just because the subway doors closed between the two of you.  That’s right when they accidentally re-open.  And then you just look like an idiot.

Dana makes a call to her kid to say “I love you” in a dark isolated parking structure. That’s a sign that trouble is about to hit… and it does.   Another call to Beckett from the killer, “Come to the Battery Park ferry tonight, and come alone or she dies… and bring a six-pack.” (Some of that dialogue didn’t actually make it to air).

Beckett and the serial killer finally meet face to face.   The serial killer has put tape over Dana Delany’s mouth because he got tired of her saying the word, “chameleon.”  I told you he was smart.

Then there’s something of an almost-chase through some sort of cardboard box storage room.  Castle catches up, takes a shot, blows the gun out of the killer’s hand, and it’s all over.  Simple as that.  I’m really not short-changing the ending of this episode just because it’s getting late and I’m tired of writing.  It really did wrap up that weakly and disappointingly, just like my first two careers.

A respect develops between Dana Delany and Beckett not before seen.  And then it’s “Delany out!”  Special Agent Jordan Shaw has darted off like a chameleon.  I hope Dana lands her own procedural drama next season.  From this special guest performance, she’s clearly shown that she looks good in trenchcoats, can convincingly do things like drink coffee, run, talk on a phone, stare at graphics, say things like “let’s nail that son of a bitch!” and point a flashlight.  I’d tune in.  Would you?

Tags: ABC, Castle, Dana Delany, Nathan Fillion, Stana Katic