Review: Castle - "A Murder is Forever"

Diamonds can be a girls best friend… but not if they get you killed.

****SPOILERS BELOW****

Alice Clark, relationship expert to the rich and famous, releases her new book, “Mating Rituals: A Field Guide to Relationships” as we start. Unfortunately for her, she’s dead in her car with a crazy taking a knife to her upholstery. Meanwhile, Castle and Beckett focus on Linus, the giant B&W print of a hungry lion that watches you while you sleep. Castle loves it (“He always keeps me on my toes.”), but Beckett is less fond of being constantly on “alert.” Thus the nesting “tug of war” begins between two alphas.

Digging into Alice’s movements, the team finds out that she had chartered a plane to wait for her (no questions asked) for $50k, asked a billionaire hotel tycoon client for a favor of a room with total anonymity, and in that room was the mother of all diamonds. Almost 100 carats and estimated at $60 million. Her boyfriend doesn’t know anything about it. A legendary “fixer,” Barrett Halke isn’t talking, and there isn’t any evidence to hold him. Why would a primatologist have such a huge rock? While checking Alice’s client list for any clues, a photo of one of the couples gets their attention. In the picture of Steve and Janet Warner, Janet is wearing the diamond around her neck at a charity function. Questioned, they deny everything and say the diamond in the photo is just a costume diamond of crystal. Then they exit stage left, unwilling to answer any more questions. Finally, after getting a little dirt to stick to the fixer, he spills everything necessary put all the pieces together (off the record). It was the “boyfriend” not actually “Matt Lanchet,” but really a fellow Rwandan aid worker (real name Leo Wyngaard) whom Alice met in the jungles helping others and studying primates. Steve Warner had accidentally perfected a man-made flawless diamond technology, which he had sold to the diamond cartels (not fully functioning at that time, but still the tech was owned by them). Steve made enough diamonds to float his investments during the economic downturn, but was keeping the tech a secret so he wouldn’t be ruined by the cartel. Those few diamond got the attention of a few diamond experts, but there wasn’t enough proof that the diamonds were truly man-made.

Alice and Leo were planning to heist the diamond and fly it to a secret lab to test it. That test data would show the world that conflict diamonds didn’t need to spill anymore blood in mining areas. The only questions left is who killed Alice and sent a clown-masked strike force to try and take the diamond from Ryan and Esposito while they were transporting it back the precinct after it was tested at the American Genealogical Foundation in NYC? The husband is dumbfounded at all the accusations of murder and gun-play, but he sees all the calls the NYPD are accusing him of making. They couldn’t have happened as he wasn’t even home during the time those calls were made from his homes land-line. Then they all have the “Oh” moment. As you can see in the picture below of the wife with her sheepish demeanor… she’s the perpetrator. All she could say was, “I DID IT FOR US! SHE WAS GOING TO RUIN US!” With that, Steven slaps her hand away. Case closed.

As for the trouble in paradise at Chateau de Castle, Castle has released Linus the Lion from Castle and Beckett’s bedroom and replaced it with an aesthetically mounted collection of shells they collected on their first walk in the Hamptons (Episode 05.04). Way to go “Mr. Keeper” material.

This episode brings us back to Castle and Beckett and some questions Castle fans have probably been wondering about. How are they shaping up/working as a couple not just superficially? I thought mid-season five, it was a bit up and down how they were relating. At this stage of the game, I feel its awesome that they have pulled the proverbial trigger (metaphorically speaking for this ever increasingly popular humor-procedural) and decided to get married. Yes, that did happen way back at the premiere. But this episode is where- to me- demonstrates there will be upcoming nuptials. No matter how big (Washington, D.C.) or small (a framed picture) they will work it out, while still making us smile as they play fun games with each other, coquettishly and caringly pushing each other’s buttons.

Memorable lines:

Castle: But Linus the Lion (the giant lion picture in his bedroom), is part of my identity. You don’t wanna strip me of my identity, do you?
Beckett: Um..no. You know what your right. I’m sorry. I can just stay at my own place (said as she walks toward the crime scene).
Castle: Thanks..wait…NO..that’s not…

Castle: See, I’m honoring you by inviting you into my territory, and Linus is part that territory.
Beckett: And if you want to be invited into my territory again, you should probably rethink that.
Castle: [pauses with great pensivity]

Castle: Because as a therapist she would be privy to their deepest darkest secrets, secrets so explosive, that simply hearing them ensured her demise.
Beckett: All right, what kind of secrets?
Castle: Well…nuclear launch codes, that the moonwalk was a fake, that Roswell wasn’t the secret location of the cryogenically frozen body of Wal…(cut off by the Captain).

Castle: A trusted therapist to “A”-List Clientele- she was in the perfect position to work her way inside. She Ocean’s 11, minus 10,..she’s Ocean’s one.

Castle: What if it’s because they couldn’t afford to? Because the diamond has some kind of sordid past. Perhaps it’s like the Hope Diamond, it’s cursed. Or maybe it’s a – an occult gem. It has great power, smuggled out of Nazi Germany shoved up someone’s…
Captain Gates: Thank you, Mr. Castle.

Next Week: “Disciple” (06.09)

Who is showing up next week…dead. Some familiar faces, don’t get too attached.

(Note: The clip has some of the end of this episode and the promo for next week’s Castle).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5SikpICjG0

To catch this episode and/or the earlier episodes for this season, check out ABC’s website or app: http://abc.go.com/shows/castle