Review: Castle “Kill The Messenger”

Season Two, Episode Eight (208)

Castle: “Kill The Messenger”

The ABC Network on Monday Nights at 10 pm

By Susan Haderer, Guest Columnist

It was a racy start to Monday night’s Castle, but not the kind of racy found on page 105 of Heat Wave.  I’m referring to the mph variety.  A bike messenger is zooming in and out of a busy NYC street without a care in the world. No exaggeration here folks, bike messengers are fearless individuals. You can keep that job especially after what came next. A car comes out of no where and intentionally hits this poor guy head on (quite literally because his head slams into the pavement). No flimsy helmet was going to help him out. The culprits run out of the car, steal the messenger’s bag containing a package, and drive off. Haven’t these guys ever heard you shouldn’t kill the messenger?

After Esposito takes Castle “to school” per Beckett’s request at the crime scene, they get back to the station and are able to identify where the stolen package originated from. Thanks to a typo with the package delivery company, Beckett & crew nearly mow down a little old lady thinking she’s a terrorist. Let’s hope the real NYPD have a better tracking system than that. The lady confirms that she sent the package at the request of her grandson, Brady, who has been imprisoned for a murder he committed 10 years ago. On a sidenote, this old lady was pretty boisterous and spunky for someone who was hooked up to oxygen tubes. Anyway, the most important information she provides is that her grandson had wanted her to send the package to the detective who had worked on his murder case 10 years ago, Roy Montgomery. Yes, the same Roy Montgomery who is now Captain; Beckett and the Bopsy Twins boss.

Back at the station, once the Captain finds out about this new connection to his old case, he is just as confused as the rest of the team. Not long after, they get another twist thrown their way when they find out that the imprisoned Brady was found dead in prison that same morning. At this point, Captain Montgomery and Castle both look on as Beckett goes to breaks the news about the bike messenger’s death to his sister. Castle continues to be in awe of how Beckett approaches these sensitive moments. “How does she do it?” he asks the Captain. Last week we saw Beckett observe Castle shifting gears into a mature adult for his daughter. This week we get to see Castle observe Beckett’s sensitive, empathetic side. This isn’t the first time he’s witnessed this side of her, but you can see his admiration is growing. And it’s interesting to watch them make observations about each other from a far… you can almost see them taking mental notes during these eye-opening moments.

In an earlier scene, we see Alexis giving her grandmother, Martha, a tutorial on the bigger-than-life social networking site, “MyFace” (a clever rendition of the real thing). As Martha navigates through the site, she begins to see all of the intricacies it offers.  Soon she’ll learn that this site is the best way to stay in touch with people you don’t like, you don’t care about or you don’t know.  And I’ve got some bad news for Martha if she thinks a cat passing a kidney stone isn’t worthy of a status update. You ain’t seen nothing yet, girl…nothing.  The highlight of her navigation though is when she reconnects with a high school sweetheart of hers. But more on that later.

The investigation continues on when Beckett interviews the wife of the now deceased prisoner, Brady.  She informs them that 10 years ago, her husband pleated guilty to a murder even though he was innocent.  He struck a deal with the murderer.  He would take the blame for the murder, and in return, the real murderer would provide a healthy sum of money to Brady’s family on a monthly basis.  Brady’s wife agreed to the plan for her son’s sake (who needed regular medical attention). This money would give her son a chance to live.  However, after 10 years, the monthly payments started to dwindle and eventually stopped.  With nothing to lose now, Brady decided to come out with the truth and sent a package (proving his innocence) over to Captain Montgomery.

To get to the bottom of the current case, the Captain along with Beckett, Castle and the twins, reopened the 10 year old murder case.  With the help of Medical Examiner Perlmutter, they decided to exhume the body of the murder victim, Olivia.  Just a quick note that I find M.E. Perlmutter’s dry sarcasm to be a great break from norm.  I’m quite partial to sarcasm though so don’t go by me.  Moving on, even though Beckett & Castle do not find a body in the coffin, they do find a picture that is worth a thousand words.  It helps link the murder victim to a family with more political pull and quite possibly more secrets than the Kennedys.  The Wellesleys are a family who know how to stick together. 

At this point, it seems that the suspicion continues to transfer from one Wellesley brother to the next.  Thankfully, the truth does begin to unfold after we find out that Olivia was the illegitimate daughter of one of the high profile brothers, Westin Wellesley.  Once his mother had found out and learned that Olivia was snooping around, Mrs. Wellesley decided to have Olivia “taken care of.”  It’s hard to believe there are Wellesley’s out there that exist.  The whole “mother this…mother that…” dialogue was nauseating, not to mention it gave me flashbacks to Norman Bates.  Who calls their mom “mother” anyway?

At this point, both murder cases (past and present) come full circle. Brady and his family had stopped receiving a wad of cash when Mrs. Wellesley started to lose her marbles and was no longer in charge of the family bank account. Since she knew Brady would come out with the truth once he stopped receiving his monthly installments, she instructed her family’s “go-to man” to kill him before he opened his mouth. And so another crime investigation comes to a close.

In the last scene, a vivacious Martha is all dolled up and ready to hit the town with her high school sweetheart. After being so wishy-washy throughout the entire episode about whether to accept this old flame as a “MyFace” friend, it was good to see her on the prowl and ready to have some fun.  Plus, she’ll soon learn that if it doesn’t work out with this guy, she can just place him on her high exclusions list…

This episode worked for me even though the Castle/Beckett interaction was minimal.  We did get to see their conflicting, simultaneous response to the question: “Are you two together?” That was a funny, albeit predictable moment. Overall though, I liked the weaving of the past and present cases. We also got to see a lot of air time for Captain Montgomery.  And in doing so, we see another side to him.  In my family, the term we use is H.A. (hard ass).  This was a new look for him and I think Castle worded it best… it was “awesome!”

 Until next week…

A quick note: Don’t miss Castle/Beckett Radio hosted by Lisa, a fellow fan of the show.  All you Castle & Beckett fans out there are encouraged to call in and share your thoughts about the show. 

Susan Haderer is a graphic designer who likes to keep it old school and still utilizes the VCR to watch her favorite TV shows.