‘Castle,’ “Famous Last Words”

image courtesy tvovermind.com

On this week’s Castle, a singer speaks from beyond the grave to solve her own murder. Solving crimes: there’s an app for that! Not really.

Case of the Week: A rock star named Haley is found dead, the body staged in a manner oddly similar to one of her music videos. The song in that music video was about an obsessed fan, so Beckett & Co. suspect a crazy fan of the crime. Haley’s producer revealed that Haley had gone missing prior to her being found dead, and that she has a sister named Sky who’s a junkie. Haley had been on drugs but had gone to rehab and emerged sober. But the stalker fan she got a restraining order against says that after a concert at which she debuted her new death-baiting song, Haley was arguing with her guitarist, who has multiple priors. Evidently her former band-mates were holding auditions for a new lead singer, but her management sent them a cease and desist letter, and the guitarist was ticked. When Sky comes to identify Haley’s body, she insinuates that her sister was still a deadbeat and still using. But Sky and Haley’s dealer confirms that Haley bought a gun. The M.E. claims she used the gun before she died. At home, Alexis alerts her dad that online message boards are claiming that Haley’s band is getting back together with her sister, Sky, as the lead singer. Castle posits that since Haley died, ownership of the band name would pass on to her sister, and that her ex-manager would have the most to benefit from the band reuniting. The manager, who has multiple priors for possession and dealing drugs, is unapologetic–he’s going to make a lot of money and doesn’t really care about much else. When the manager’s phone records come in, it appears he called the guitarist the day before Haley was killed. The guitarist spills his guts; he saw Haley the night of her death and she was panicked by a phone call from Death. But, as Alexis explained to Castle, Haley was into Tarot, and in Tarot Death does not mean mortal doom, but change. The woman representing the biggest change in Haley’s life was her new manager, who encouraged her to get clean. The manager bought a tube of the same lipstick used to paint a smile on Haley’s dead face. Castle and Beckett confront the producer and Castle finds a bullet hole in the wall of the studio. There was a confrontation, but the producer refuses to admit to killing Haley. Back home, in listening to Haley’s final song with Alexis, Castle realizes that Ian, Haley’s new manager, killed Haley to cover up the fact that he had sexually assaulted her. It was a rather chilling conclusion.

Character Arc: Really not much here. Castle has some nice interactions with his daughter as she grieves the loss of one of her idols, but there’s not a whole lot else.

Random Thoughts:

• The promotional materials for this episode touted as one in which Alexis got to be involved with the case, but her involvement really didn’t cut it for me. I think her idea of shadowing Castle on the job in an earlier episode sounds much better. She and Beckett would get along so well.
• That pithy quip from Castle about Alexis’ text messages was pretty funny.
• Kind of a boring episode, no? Leave your thoughts in the comments!