TV GUIDE: Matt's TV Week in Review
Jan 28, 2011
by Matt Roush
Much of the TV landscape is, and has always been, devoted to comfort-food formula. Some of us, though, live for those moments when a show breaks formula and delivers the unexpected. This week gave us some excellent examples of that in the most popular formula of the moment: the crime/police drama.
... We get a chemistry lesson on ABC's Castle, as a deadly new twist in the cold case of Beckett's murdered mother forces Beckett and especially Castle to take a long, hard look at what their partnership is all about. Leading, naturally, to a long, hard kiss. Which isn't real, except it's really real. In a rare somber moment early on, mama Martha advises Castle, "You can't charm your way out of a bullet. Be honest with yourself about why you're doing this." Castle admits, "It's not about the books anymore." Unless we're talking The Book of Love, I suppose. When Beckett is kicked off the case, and Castle joins her to go rogue, he cockily boasts, "Fear does not exist in this dojo." (This is why we love this guy.) Beckett tells the would-be Karate Kid that this isn't his fight, but he argues, "I don't hang around you just to annoy you." Which is when we get to the meat of the matter: "Then why do you keep coming back, Rick?" When Beckett calls Castle anything but Castle, that gets our attention. As does the long, lingering smooch they perform in front of the bad guys who've taken Esposito and Ryan prisoner. It's a mock-drunken decoy kiss that turns into something more when Beckett initiates a second round, and there is serious heat here than has nothing to do with Nikki Heat. Castle is taken aback, but not so flustered that he can't save the day in the violent showdown that ensues. More of this, please...
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