Castle Review: "Cuffed"

Castle and Beckett find themselves cuffed together; Esposito and Lanie bicker like a married couple; Ryan's worrying over actual married life; Captain Gates refers to Castle as one of her "people".

There is more to come after this short break for some more Twizzlers...



So this week's episode of Castle finds our dynamic duo in a somwhat compromising position: passed out asleep on a matress. Of course, Beckett's subconscious shows us what her conscious self still tries to deny: she likes to cuddle with Castle. And Castle seems to have no problem with that, but who would really. Sadly, Kate has to go and wake up, ruining every Caskett shipper's little euphoria stricken moment. But, then things get interesting. Castle and Beckett find themselves handcuffed together (awkardly, I might add) and suffering from temporary amnesia. They discover that they've been drugged (not without a little Castle fondling), and have to slowly retrace their steps. So we get to see in flashbacks how our duo got into their compromising position, starting at a seedy hotel that Beckett called Castle to.

Unfortunately, it was for a dead body.

Esposito and Lanie were really going at it with the married couple bickering (with a great nonverbal exchange between Jon Huertas and Tamala Jones). It's pretty obvious those two want to get back together, as Beckett states, especially with innuendo Esposito threw out there in the lab.

Poor Ryan is worried about his upcoming trip with Jenny to Florida (hinted by Castle in the opening sequence). He doesn't seem to understand that sometimes you spend the holidays with your spouses family, even if they are their old grandma. And he really doesn't seem to understand that anything a woman does is a way to test the relationship. Driving all the way to Florida? Just the two of you? You're asking for trouble, as Esposito pointed out.

Of course, as all of this is going on, Castle and Beckett are still handcuffed to each other. I thought this showed really well how these two work with each other even if they are getting on their each other's last nerves (as well as Katic's and Fillion's chemistry being so good).

But we can't forget the most shocking part: THE TIGER!!!

Every show is better when they throw a random jungle cat in that can tear our heroes to shreds. This tied in with the dead body, a trucker who was hauling exotic animals for this stereotypical redneck Texas family (Marlowe, not everybody from the South or Texas look like inbred hillbillies. But thanks for the insult.) That part turned out to be rather uneventful, outside of them cuffing our duo together (and if they hung around in their and listened to them long enough, they probably would've just shot them out sheer annoyance).

But let's get real, this episode was about the relationships among our favorite NYPD Homicide team. And that last scene gave the Caskett shippers their "squee" moment with Beckett's walk away line about "next time" when talking about being cuffed together, not to mention a rather amused and hot look back.

 Each relationship got to it's own level of resolution, whether it's Esposito and Lanie still wanting to be together but being to stubborn to admit it, Ryan concluding that he and Jenny will just fly to Florida, or Castle and Beckett maybe getting closer to being on the same page. This was a fun episode with moments that definitely appeased the shipper crowd.