Castle: The Complete Second Season

One of the strengths of CBS’ primetime line-up is its slate of procedural dramas, almost all of which are composed of closed-ended episodes which don’t require weekly viewing to keep up with a running storyline and all of which can repeat with strong ratings because of this. ABC, on the other hand, has a primetime line-up of mostly serialized dramas and dramedies which draw poor repeat ratings because the viewer can’t jump into the stories without some very necessary background information gained from having watched the program every week. One of ABC’s smartest moves in years was to invest in a breezy whodunit series with self-contained episodes, and Castle is the show. It’s brash, fast paced, and utterly charming and features a male and female lead with the same kind of kinetic sexual chemistry and tension that has kept Fox’s Bones a popular hit for so many seasons. The second season of Castle continued the brisk pace and tone from its successful midseason launch the year before and ratcheted up the sexual tension between its two leads into a satisfyingly frustrating experience for viewers. We all know these two people deserve to be together, but while they’re figuring it out, we get to see them operate as a delightfully sardonic team as they investigate murders together.

Richard Castle (Nathan Fillion) is a successful mystery writer and charismatic man-about-town (the town being New York City) who is granted permission to shadow one of New York’s top homicide squads. It’s run by Detective Kate Beckett (Stana Katic) with Detectives Kevin Ryan (Seamus Dever) and Javier Esposito (Jon Huertas) as additional team members. The quartet has a brash camaraderie that makes investigations of the murder-of-the-week interesting and entertaining. At home, Castle is surrounded by women: his actress mother (Susan Sullivan) and precocious honor student daughter Alexis (Molly Quinn). The home scenes were rather weak elements during Castle’s first season, but Susan Sullivan has been toned down a bit (she’s still a road company Auntie Mame but less pushy about Castle’s romantic life), and Molly Quinn is an adorable TV daughter who, naturally, is wise beyond her years, a big help when dealing with a father who’s oftentimes more juvenile in spirit than she.

One of the most interesting aspects of the cases in this show are the unusual ways bodies are initially discovered. This season bodies are found hanging in trees and off fire escapes, dangling from monkey bars in a park, lying in a fountain, mangled down a manhole, staked in a cemetery, falling out of the sky, crushed by a stone gargoyle, and frozen with liquid nitrogen, among other gruesome sights. A couple of story arcs also distinguish the season. In one, a serial killer out to destroy Nikki Heat (the fictional detective that Castle has written in a new best seller based on Detective Beckett) keeps the squad continually playing catch-up as an FBI unit headed by guest star Dana Delaney is brought in to assist. Beckett also begins a serious flirtation with robbery detective Tom Demming (Michael Trucco) in the season’s final four episodes which spikes Castle’s jealousy a bit more with each episode up to the typical cliffhanger in the season finale.

The cast plays together with a joyously delicious sense of fun which makes the episodes, even with the most ghastly of crimes, a pleasure to watch. Recurring characters like medical examiners played alternately by Tamala Jones and Ayre Gross interact entertainingly with the regulars. The producers also are not above playing tongue-in-cheek with the audience. In the Halloween episode, Nathan Fillion dresses in his space cowboy outfit from his fondly remembered cult series Firefly, even as his daughter casually mentions, “Didn’t you wear that about five years ago?” Overall, it’s not great drama, but it’s among the most pleasurable time passers on the current network rosters and a tremendously addictive mystery series once the viewer buys into the outsider-helping-insiders premise (something CBS’ The Mentalist also specializes in).

Here are the twenty-four episodes contained on five discs in the season two set:

1 – Deep in Death

2 – The Double Down

3 – Inventing the Girl

4 – Fool Me Once…

5 – When the Bough Breaks

6 – Vampire Weekend

7 – Famous Last Words

8 – Kill the Messenger

9 – Love Me Dead

10 – One Man’s Treasure

11 – The Fifth Bullet

12 – A Rose for Everafter

13 – Sucker Punch

14 – The Third Man

15 – The Suicide Squeeze

16 – The Mistress Always Spanks Twice

17 – Tick, Tick, Tick…

18 – Boom!

19 – Wrapped Up in Death

20 – The Late Shaft

21 – Den of Thieves

22 – Food to Die For

23 – Overkill

24 – A Deadly Game

Video Quality

The program is broadcast on ABC at 720p in 1:78:1, and these downconverted 480p transfers look very, very good. The program has a very warm color palette, and the DVD conveys this quite well with close-ups especially registering at near-HD quality when upconverted. Otherwise, sharpness is generally well done, and color saturation and flesh tones are well above average. Black levels are generally excellent. Only the New York City flyovers and an occasional patterned shirt reveal some slight aliasing and moiré patterns. Each episode has been divided into 8 chapters.

Audio Quality

The Dolby Digital 5.1 audio track makes a better than average use of its surround opportunities. Music is always an immersive element in the show, and the sound designers make sure that ambient sounds get placed around the soundfield in almost every episode. Of course, the show’s primary element is dialogue, and it’s well recorded and accurately placed in the center channel.

Special Features

All of the featurettes are presented in anamorphic widescreen.

“On Set with Seamus and Jon” is a 7 ¾-minute tour of the interior sets  both at work and at Castle’s home by actors Seamus Dever and Jon Huertas.

“On Location with Nathan” features star Nathan Fillion introducing us to behind-the-scenes crew members who make the location shooting more pleasurable for the actors. It runs for 6 ¾ minutes.

“Manhattan’s Most Unusual Murders” is an 8-minute collection of interviews with some of the shows producers, stars, film editor, production designer, and special effects coordinator talking about their work to make the show’s mysteries weirder and more audience-grabbing.

The program’s season two blooper reel runs 2 ½ minutes.

There are three deleted scenes which may be viewed separately or in one 2 ¼-minute collection.

There are two music videos culled from an episode of the series revolving around the music industry. “Here Kitty Kitty” runs 1 ½ minutes while “Threshold” runs for 3 minutes.

There are trailers for ABC-TV programs as well as individual ones for Desperate Housewives, Grey’s Anatomy, and Flash Forward.

In Conclusion

A clever and entertaining detective series stressing the camaraderie of its squad as much as the murders being investigated, Castle: The Complete Second Season comes with a firm recommendation from me.

Matt Hough

Charlotte, NC