As a generally negative person, I find myself nitpicking, criticizing and downgrading shows that I enjoy watching when I write my reviews.
And while I could complain about a few tidbits from the 'Castle' Season 5 premiere, 'After the Storm', I'm not going to dwell on the little things when an episode hit this big.
This was an excellent follow-up to last season's finale, which was good enough, but the stakes were lowered in that one because we knew Beckett wasn't going to be shot again (not gonna do that in consecutive finales) and that her resignation wouldn't last long.
I actually think that Monday's premiere was more intense than that finale, because we really had no idea what to expect from it. The scene at the end between Beckett and Senator Bracken was pretty chilling. I knew she wasn't going to kill him, but at one point I had no idea what she would do. The way she took control, fooled him, threatened him and pistol-whipped him was a better and more-earned moment than anything we saw at the end of last season and perhaps any in the series.
After four seasons of dragging it out, we finally have an answer as to who killed Kate's mother. It's nice to finally know and I like where they are going with it, I just hope they don't go too overboard with it. An episode here or there that touches on the Senator Bracken storyline would be good, but if I were him, I'd be scared shitless of Beckett after their encounter.
It was amusing how scared Castle was at the beginning of the episode when his mother almost walked in on him and Beckett. I feel like his mom would have picked up on that something was going on, but nevertheless, that was a fun moment with Kate hiding in the closet and sneaking out of the house. While cliche, it had the fun dialogue and goofiness that we like so much about this show.
QUOTES OF NOTE:
--CASTLE (to Beckett): "We shoulda done that four years ago!"
--SMITH (to Beckett): "I owed Rob, not you."
--ESPOSITO (to Ryan): "Put that phone away or I'm going to break your freakin' arm."
--SENATOR BRACKEN (to Beckett): "Who are you? You're a disgraced cop obsessed with her mother's murder."
--BECKETT (to Bracken): "I am done being afraid. It's your turn now. [Pistol-whips him] That's gonna leave a nasty scar, every time you see it -- think of me."
RANDOM RAMBLINGS:
--UGH. If she's such a great cop, how come she didn't realize they were being tracked to the demolished building?
--Is Kate ever going to call Castle by his real name? Now that they are sleeping with each other, one would think she would call him Rick.
--Seriously, how cool are the gadgets that criminals use?
--Poor Castle, always looking for a weapon.
--I totally called that safe being booby trapped ... yet somehow I still jumped a bit in my seat when the bomb went off.
--I know lives are on the line and all, but is it even worth putting that puzzle together? I think I'd rather just die.
--Call me crazy, but NONE of that file would have survived that explosion. It looked like it went through a shredder and not, you know, fire and shit.
--Feisty Beckett, I like it!
THE SCORE: 90 out of 100
