'Castle' Review/Recap: "XX"
Devika Syal ’18 / Emertainment Monthly Staff Writer
Monday night’s episode of Castle completed the show’s two-part season premiere. Following the suspenseful part one, ‘XX’ was anticlimactic, to say the least. Part one worked because it had the viewers and Richard Castle (Nathan Fillion) asking, “Where is Beckett?” Part two, the same story told in Beckett’s perspective, was just her responding with “Here I am!” Obviously fans wanted these answers, but they were told in such a straight-forward way that it became a bit uninteresting after a while. Couple this with the incredible information overload thrown at the viewers, and it can safely be said that ‘XX’ was a confusing hour of television.
Kate Beckett (Stana Katic) has always been a complex character; there is no doubt about it. There’s the Beckett who is a superhero, knows exactly what she wants, and solves any problem that comes her way. Then there’s the Beckett who is wary, scared of accepting Castle’s love a few years ago, caught up in her mother’s murder for most of her life, and has had to handle every bout of PTSD that inevitably comes her way throughout the history of the show. Both those Becketts were shown in Monday’s episode. One moment we see her literally sew her gunshot wound up in a dry cleaners, and later on we see her leaving her husband and going out into the world alone to catch the person responsible for the murder of her team when she worked in Washington, D.C.
Photo Credit: ABC/Richard Cartwright
If there’s one thing the episode should be proud of, it’s the conscious decision to cast Sunkrish Bala as Vikram Singh. Although he played the character extremely well, it’s not his talent that made the character so monumental for Castle, but the way he was written. Like most shows that try to show diversity, the seemingly “diverse” characters, usually Asian or Middle Eastern, are portrayed stereotypically. When an Asian guest star has appeared on the show, he had a thick accent. When a Middle Eastern characters were involved, they at one point either were a terrorist or were accused of being a terrorist.
Photo Credit: ABC/Richard Cartwright
In watching ‘XX,’ it is obvious that the new show runners know how to create a good story. It had the right amount of suspense, yet let the audience have their answers. Unfortunately, they haven’t quite mastered the relationships on the show. Since Castle and Beckett’s relationship is the main protagonist, with it gone, the show loses its backbone and what makes it special.
Overall Grade: B-
“Just shut up and kiss me”- A Castle clip courtesy of whipclip