'Castle' Review/Recap: "Child's Play"

Devika Syal ‘18 / Emertainment Monthly Staff Writer

Monday’s episode of Castle brought back the humor into the show when Castle (Nathan Fillion) enters the second grade classroom of Mrs. Ruiz (Michael Hyatt) as part of a murder investigation where he needs to find a student who witnessed the crime. With the sentiment that he is 90% kid himself, Castle is seen as the most fitting person to enter the classroom, win the trust of the kids, and get the witness to confide in him.
Nathan Fillion is known for being a silly, lighthearted actor, so fans were overjoyed to see him, as Castle, on the playground playing with toy soldiers. Or even better, dressed as a fairy princess with a little girl having a tea party. Upon hearing the words “Castle” and “kids” in the same sentence, many would assume that the episode would emphasize Castle in a fatherly role towards the young class. Seeing him become one of them was a nice twist.
Speaking of twists, last week’s episode of Castle was rather predictable, focusing more on the science fiction and fantasy aspects rather than a solid plot. This week’s episode led the viewer to believe they knew exactly what was coming for most of the episode before leading the story down a totally different path.

To explain this, throughout the episode Castle tries extremely hard to find the young witness, getting several leads only for them to fall apart once pursued. However one student, Jason (Quinn Friedman) always stands out in the episode, constantly getting on Castle’s nerves. Viewers just know that Jason’s the witness and towards the end of the episode they are proved right. Or so they think.
It turns out Jason’s older sister, who happens to be a close friend of the murder victim, is the witness they’ve been looking for all along. Given all the information needed to solve the case, Castle and Beckett (Stana Katic) ultimately end up with the murderer in Mrs. Ruiz’s classroom. It was endearing to see Castle defeat their villain using a trick he had learned from the second grade students.
The best part of Monday’s episode was, hands down, Alexis (Molly Quinn). Throughout the episode she shows an extreme concern for Castle, going so far as to put a GPS tracker into his phone, pack him a school lunch, and essentially treat him like the child he was pretending to be. Both Castle and Beckett agreed that it was getting out of hand, however Alexis’s behavior in the episode was admirable and really did good things for her character.

Throughout the entire span of the show, Alexis has seen her father go through some terrible things while solving murders, and she has been part of a good deal of them. However, she seems to get over these incidents and move on in little to no time at all. This episode even touched on this, referring to season five episode “Hunt,” in which Alexis was kidnapped and taken to Paris in order to lure Castle’s father to the scene. There was little mention of how Alexis coped with this at the time, so it was nice to see the past being brought up. It gave the television show a sense of realness.
Seeing the usually strong young woman show real human weakness in worrying about her father after his kidnapping led to a beautiful scene between the father and daughter where Castle reminded Alexis that she doesn’t always have to be the adult of the household and that it is okay to be concerned as long as she is able to move on. It reminded the audience that this show isn’t only about solving mysteries and murders. It is about family, friends, and the love surrounding them.
Overall Episode Grade: A