Castle: "Headhunters"
Apr. 16th, 2012 10:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
icepixieThat...was actually not bad! I mean, it would've been better had the context for Castle's decision to follow Slaughter around been grounded entirely in needing to find more inspiration for his writing after however many books he's on, rather than mostly in the ongoing secrets mess between him and Beckett, but once you get past that, it was good! (And the writer did at least throw a bone at the idea of Castle actually being, you know, A WRITER in that scene at the beginning with Martha.)
Before Slaughter turned skeevy, it was fun watching Castle get his ass handed to him. Kind of like the early days. And then when Castle realized Slaughter was basically nuts, it was nice to see him realize that Beckett's style of police work still has things to teach him. The way Beckett, Esposito, and Ryan backed him up in their own ways, and Beckett's line about how that's what partners do, also hearkened back to earlier seasons, when they were still kind of feeling their way around this partnership.
Hell, the ending, with Castle telling Alexis that she'd have to decide whether going to Stanford was worth getting over the hurt the early admission rejection had caused, coupled with his DRAMATIC LOOK OF REALIZATION when he twigs to the idea that this could also be relevant to his situation with Beckett, was at least handled with relative dexterity. I still hate the whole context for it, but the actual writing of the scene itself was not bad. (Plus the ice cream race was cute.) That's weird, since Alexei Hawley is not exactly a name I've come to associate with quality episodes on this show, but hey, good for him.
I did get the impression they were circling around some point about male vs. female work styles and/or male methods of interaction, but they never quite made the point. Hmm.
Before Slaughter turned skeevy, it was fun watching Castle get his ass handed to him. Kind of like the early days. And then when Castle realized Slaughter was basically nuts, it was nice to see him realize that Beckett's style of police work still has things to teach him. The way Beckett, Esposito, and Ryan backed him up in their own ways, and Beckett's line about how that's what partners do, also hearkened back to earlier seasons, when they were still kind of feeling their way around this partnership.
Hell, the ending, with Castle telling Alexis that she'd have to decide whether going to Stanford was worth getting over the hurt the early admission rejection had caused, coupled with his DRAMATIC LOOK OF REALIZATION when he twigs to the idea that this could also be relevant to his situation with Beckett, was at least handled with relative dexterity. I still hate the whole context for it, but the actual writing of the scene itself was not bad. (Plus the ice cream race was cute.) That's weird, since Alexei Hawley is not exactly a name I've come to associate with quality episodes on this show, but hey, good for him.
I did get the impression they were circling around some point about male vs. female work styles and/or male methods of interaction, but they never quite made the point. Hmm.