Halloween really lends itself well to the Castle style, and the writers really pulled out all the stops when given the chance to run with it. The big surprise of Nathan Fillion in his Mal costume from Firefly was given away long ago, but it was still great to see. As a bonus, it wasn’t just Castle wearing the costume. That was a full on Mal entrance he made … before being shot down by Alexis. She even got the line of the night when she asked, “Didn’t you wear that like five years ago?”
Getting to the case, it wasn’t quite as crazy as “Fool Me Once“, but it was in the ballpark. Moving from the fangs, to the coffin, to Morlock, to the werewolf … I wouldn’t have been surprised to hear a “Best.Case.Ever.” from someone. The mystery of it was actually pretty good as well. We certainly had a nice selection of suspects to choose from. I decided on the wife, Janice (Anita Barone) about two minutes before Castle figured it out. Once Beckett revealed that she was the nanny, previous to the murder of the wife, it all made too much sense.
Getting to that point, they got a lot of great mileage out of the vampire underground. When they discovered Morlock’s lair, of course there was a coffin. And Castle’s reaction to opening that coffin was perfect. As was his reaction to the attack that followed. They really went all out with Morlock, didn’t they? That’s a scary looking dude. I thought Vixen was going to make something of a return at the end, in the form of Beckett’s costume for the party. Alas, that didn’t pan out, but the alien jumping out of her chest was still a great gag.
Of course, the case was only part of the story. Once again we were treated to another good story with Castle and Alexis at home. The show really does that relationship well. There’s genuine concern from Castle for her safety. And while he does err on the side of being the “fun parent” most of the time, he does put his foot down when he needs to. It does help that he’s blessed with the best kid ever, I suppose. Still, the show never misses anything by pausing to give some time to the two of them.
One final thing. So much was made of Fillion dusting off the browncoat, but he wasn’t the only one recalling past roles. I can’t be the only one that watched Seamus Dever as the diabolical Dr. Devlin on General Hospital? Jon Huertas got into it as well, as a soldier, ala Generation Kill. I guess recalling his time on The Joe Schmo Show would have been too inside baseball. It all made for another very fun episode. I’m thrilled that we will be getting a full season of this.
Clacked by Brett Love 
on Oct 27, 2009 @ 00:23 EST5EDT
“Didn’t you wear that like five years ago?”
“But I like it!”
I loved the look on his face when he said that line.
Plus, there was the Dr Horrible bit when they were craving pumpkins.
Again, a great case and mystery, plus that fun that is Castle.
Don’t forget the Buffy stuff, too: the egg-baby and (of course) the vampires and staking. Nathan’s tweet last night said that the Mal costume wasn’t the Firefly Easter egg. I’m thinking it was the “two by two hands of blue” scene with Castle and Beckett when they were going over evidence at the desk.
Um, Castle, you can keep the Mal outfit on for the rest of season. I think we’d be ok with that.
I did not know about the Mal costume bit coming up. Needless to say, I pretty much lost any semblance of a sane, reasonable person for the full cold open. It was AWESOME.
…then I put in Firefly and didn’t watch the rest of the episode :)
There was also reference to Beckett being a Frank Miller fan, after playing a role in The Spirit.
Isn’t the dress and the trench of Beckett’s costume at the end the one she wore as the vamp in The Librarian: Curse of the Judas Chalice? Could just be similar I suppose, but very coincidental if she is the only one not in a previous role’s costume.