Well, what do you know! Castle delivered yet again. I’m going to be really honest and admit that I was terrified that ‘Close Encounters of the Murderous Kind’was going to be another failed attempt at a light episode, like ‘Almost Famous’. I have to say, though, that I was very pleasantly surprised. The episode was downright hilarious at some points, but it didn’t feel forced like ‘Almost Famous’. The plot, the banter, the twists and turns were all spot on, which just proves that Castle can handle funny and lighthearted just as well as serious and dramatic.
A homage to classic TV show The X-Files, ‘Close Encounters of the Murderous Kind’presented the murder of an astrophysicist, whose cause of death was quite literally out of this world: She suffered an explosive decompression, which can only be achieved in a zero atmosphere environment aka outer space. You can imagine how Castle’s imagination went wild with this one.
Turns out that the victim intercepted some kind of classified information and was killed because of that. To get to this conclusion, however, Castle and Beckett go through all those wild theories and even get abducted themselves, but not by aliens. The federal government’s very own MIB kidnapped them to try and get information about what the astrophysicist had found. Lyle Lovett, one of the agents who abducted them and later helped them solve the case, was just right for the part. Serious and creepy all in one package.
All in all, amazing episode. It was just the right balance between humor and suspense. Definitely top 3 of the season easily. It was a great way to leave us for this mini hiatus for the next couple of weeks because this episode is definitely the watch over and over again kind of thing.
A+, Castle. You make me proud.
did any one else catch the firefly reference. I jumped off the couch in excitement with that one.