Castle Flowers for Your Grave S01E01 (ABC)

Stana Katic on the left and Radha Mitchell, über-hotness

[For more about the incredible Radha Mitchell]

I’ve been a Nathan Fillion fan for quite a while. Ever since Firefly, I was really impressed by his acting. Since he is starring in a new series which premiered Monday, I took it upon myself to watch it. Unlike most of my other recaps, this is one that I did the day after, by memory. I believe that this way, you get a distilled version of the show.

Anyway, what do I like about Castle? Well it stars an obnoxious, womanizing novelist. Detective Kate Beckett is a closet hottie, played by Stana Katic. Her hotness is kind of hard to explain. The actress is quite hot, but in Castle, she toned it down. She doesn’t wear much makeup and favours a natural look, kind of like “Oh I’m hot, but I could be the girl next door, BTW, FYI, I’m still smoking hot.” That’s how I described her in my mind. She’s kind of got the ex-catwalk model look going for her, which is quite good.

So that’s a good point. Plus she’s Canadian and a good actress. That’s always a good combination. Molly C. Quinn plays Alexis, Rick Castle’s 15-year old daughter. I don’t really know how old she is, but she’s a striking looking young lady. She reminds me of my wife, who’s a redhead as well. So I have a bit of a weakness for them.

The show centers around a novelist who is brought in to help deal with a string of murders which seem to be taken from the pages of his novels. At the same time, Castle has hit massive writer’s block after killing off the hero of his mystery book franchise, Derek Storm. Through Beckett, he is able to write once again.

Halfway between a drama and a romantic comedy, Castle is a fun show to watch. The characters play around a lot, making the viewer wonder when or if they will ever get together. It didn’t take Castle long to find out

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Castle tells the story of Rick Castle, a world famous mystery novelist who’s killed off his hero in his latest novel. Since then, he’s had writer’s block, a fact that he is trying to keep from his publisher, who’s also his ex-wife.

Enter Detective Catherine Beckett. After looking at a new murder scene, Beckett grasps that a killer is trying to make murders look like the ones from Castle’s book. She has a talk with Castle and takes some of his hatemail. She is a fan, but doesn’t want to admit it to Castle, who’s a womanizing arrogant bastard in her eyes.

The Mayor of NYC is a fan, which makes Castle someone good to know. He helps Beckett during her investigation. In total, there are three murders that they are looking at. From the hatemail, they lift some prints which lead them to someone who has an OCD-like disorder. Castle is convinced that he’s innocent and has been framed.

He investigates the Alison Tisdale murder more deeply and finds out that her brother stands to inherit a lot of money if she died. Their father is dying, so the money is coming soon. The brother is losing a lot of money because of his business and needs a few million in order to bail himself out.

Castle ruminates over the murders and conceives that the other murders were done just to hide the fact that Alison was the main target. The brother has a cast-iron alibi ready for him when they question him. They get a search warrant, but it doesn’t arrive soon enough, as he is busy destroying evidence. However, Castle goes after him and Beckett is able to make the arrest, even after she cuffed Castle to the steering wheel of her car. Castle has the annoying habit of getting everywhere she doesn’t want to.

In the end, Castle arranges to continue consulting on Beckett’s cases thanks to his friendship with the Mayor.