I’ve been slacking on posting my most recent recaps here, so here they are! I think I’ll get back into the blogging groove soon, I feel it.
Well. That happened. This week’s Arrow threatens to turn the show in a whole new direction. I can’t even begin to guess where they take things next.
Getting to the episode itself, after watching it, I (and trusty Flarrow sidekick Christelle) went back to see a Facebook post Stephen Amell put up earlier in the week to describe the episode.
With this template, let’s break down the episode using the Captain’s own words.
Read the full recap here: NOC Recaps Arrow: The Frustration of Justice | thenerdsofcolor.
This week’s episode of Castle is a bit Alien, a bit Asimov, and a bit Agatha Christie. The theme? Enclosed spaces. While Castle and Beckett struggle with a crowded apartment, their latest case drags them into the deadly dynamics of a crowded space mission.
More of the recap here: Castle Season 7 Episode 16 Review: “The Wrong Stuff”
Also:
– “There goes my rise of the machines theory.” Looks like you were almost right, Castle! MIRA DID do it, though under heavy influence from each member of the team.
– One of the coolest Castle title cards ever!
– “Hey, Castles.” Oh Ryan, I love for you for that.
– When Rick and Kate fight, they dream of being literally as far away from each other as possible…
– “If you think that’s how I’d get pregnant, we need to talk.”
– I know some science fiction, but definitely didn’t catch all of the references made here. Anyone got a list of science fiction tropes and reference in the episode? List them below in the comments!
Check out this week’s Arrow review! It’s long but I just have so many feelings about Oliver and Thea!
What was immediately fascinating about this episode is how the flashbacks were in Starling City and the present time was on Lian Yu, a cool contrast from seasons 1-2 where it was the reverse. Especially while in the direct middle of the five-year journey. I also noticed that the present and past were a bit more even this episode, as opposed to majority present, minimal past. The focus of both sides of this episode is Oliver’s relationship with his sister. I am so glad that Oliver told Thea the truth once again. As she said, now they truly have no secrets from each other (well, Oliver always has a few up his sleeve).
More over here: NOC Recaps Arrow: No Longer My Sister’s Keeper | thenerdsofcolor.
This week’s Castle explores the lengths Castle will go to in order to get Beckett back. We’ve gotten glimpses of Castle’s darkness and desperation before, but this is the furthest he’s ever gone. I think that if the show had to change its premise to Castle becoming a killer in order to save Kate, it could have been believable. But we’ll get there later.
Following the cliffhanger from last week, Castle, Ryan, Esposito, and the police head to Beckett’s last known location before she went missing. It’s the street where Amy Barrett called her; her car is still there and a note’s been written in the car dust: “Help Her.” With ‘Michael Boudreaux’/Jerry Tyson and Dr. Kelly Nieman at the precinct, the cops can’t pin Beckett’s disappearance on them in any kind of tangible way. Ryan has to prevent Castle from jumping on Boudreaux in his apartment, knowing that Castle’s anger isn’t helpful to them finding any answers.
Read the straight up recap here: Castle Season 7 Episode 15 Review: “Reckoning”.
This was a fantastic two-parter, and I loved the tension from Nieman’s ability to make anyone look like anyone else, how convincing Tyson was as Boudreaux, and Nathan Fillion’s anger, deadly nature, and grief when he thought it was Kate who was shot. Usually at least one episode of a two-parter is a bit of a let-down compared to the other, but this is my favorite two-parter since Season 3. With the end of the 3XK arc, as I’ve said before, it seems like the show is tying up loose ends. Will we get more mysteries to go along with the disappearance arc or are they preparing to wrap things up for good? We’ll know by May, I suppose.
Also:
– So now we officially know that 3XK had nothing to do with Castle’s disappearance. I suppose that leaves his father as our number 1 already established suspect.
– Castle’s back at the 12th! Will he continue his private investigation business or will he drop it to work with Kate again? I could see another couple of stories pulled from the PI storyline, but I’m glad Castle will be able to sit in his chair at Kate’s desk again.
– What would have happened to Castle if he’d gone through with killing Boudreaux? His confidence in it being Tyson doesn’t take away from our tension that it might not be and our concern of what would happen had things gone another way. What would Beckett think about all of this? Him killing a possibly innocent man for her.
– The Harry Potter nerd in me yelled for Castle to not “split his soul,” but then I immediately wondered what he’d choose as a horcrux.
– What if the show had decided to change its premise from a typical police procedural to a revenge show where Castle went around killing people responsible for Kate’s death (Taken-style probably), while Ryan and Esposito “looked for him” while covering up his crimes? This episode could have been the start of that very AMC/FX turn.
– I wondered why Castle pulled the same gun move on Jerry when we know Tyson would anticipate something like that, but knowing Esposito was listening and that they needed enough evidence to prove he was really Tyson before killing him explains the repeat move and the slow reaction time.
– I’m glad it was Tyson in the end and not Boudreaux, because typing Boudreaux repeated is like a typing-tongue-twister. I spelled it wrong on the first try every time. I started to copy it to my clipboard just so I wouldn’t have to type it anymore. You’d have gotten a lot of accidental ‘Boudreauz.”
– There’s a Nieman/Marcus joke to be made somewhere…
The end of this week’s Arrow gutted me (and Oliver) more than the literally torso-piercing mid-season finale did. As I write this I am still in shock and can’t really move. We’ll get to that later though.
More here: NOC Recaps Arrow: The Magician and the Monster | thenerdsofcolor, but here are my thoughts on Malcolm, as the main character of the episode:
With regard to the title and the Malcolm-ness of the episode: I mostly just liked the alliteration of the recap subtitle, but both epithets were used for Malcolm in the episode and I think it represents the two parts of him. The Magician is the man he was before the League. He was flawed and scared but he cared about his family and still chose to show Nyssa his trick even when he saw that she was a tweenage bad-ass. The Monster is who he became. The League didn’t erase his anger or despair, it suppressed it until it drove him insane. Insane enough to think that destroying the Glades was helping the city (I am still thrown by all of the logic-adjacent support he got from Thea and Roy in this episode).
Malcolm has to rectify both sides of himself, as does Team Arrow. I agree with Felicity that he is a monster, but in contrast, he listened to Oliver and didn’t kill Brick. Hedoesseem to care about Thea (well, to a certain extent; he did still put her inthe crosshairs of Ra’s al Ghul). And if redemption and changing your ways is a theme of the series (which is what Oliver’s character development has been about so far), then Oliver is the person who can best help Malcolm redeem himself. Just like Canary was the name for Sara that she felt was beautiful but didn’t really represent who the League turned her into, Malcolm struggles with the same with his own name. Maseo also became someone else when he joined the League. This season is about identity and all of these characters must reconcile the different parts of themselves, including the different names they go by. Malcolm must stop being the Monster and return to being the Magician.
Check out the rest for my Olicity thoughts, because of course I have some.
This week’s Castle was a bit of a miss for me. Not because of the PI storyline, but maybe it relied too heavily on a sort of Lifetime movie meets Hitchcock kind of thing. Too many twists and back and forths.
Check out the straight up recap here: Castle Season 7 Episode 13 Review: “I, Witness”, but here are some of my thoughts as usual:
Little Things
– The scene with Castle at Whitfield’s house doesn’t make sense considering the end. Cole says “You’ll never prove a thing” but it turns out he wasn’t involved at all. What was his reasoning for saying such a thing, then? He was truly innocent and had no reason to further antagonize Castle in such a way. This is one reason why I felt there were too many twists and turns that even the writing couldn’t keep up with.
– In the side story, Ryan, Jenny and Espo were supposed to go on a trip together, but since Espo isn’t with Lanie anymore, they now need a 4th person to go with Espo. Ryan and Jenny set Espo up with someone on match.com, creating a profile for him, which upsets Espo who says he can find his own dates.
– I did enjoy the amount of time spent in the kitchenette. Since they weren’t working on an official case, they kept a lot of their investigations before it was an official murder to the more social areas of the precinct, even in Gates’ absence.
– Kate was very wonderfully affectionate towards Castle this episode, lots of snuggling. He was going through a lot so it was nice to see her be so supportive. Not that she isn’t typically, but it was more noticeable here.
– The actress who plays the lawyer, Haskins, also plays a recurring character on the show Arrow. Her character on that show works with a special division called the Suicide Squad. Looks like her character on Castle was also looking for suicide squad recruits.
Read more at http://www.tvovermind.com/reviews/castle-season-7-episode-13-review-witness/#pzhdXh2CXU2D52Sd.99
My NOC recaps are back! Arrow was my favorite show to binge this summer, so recapping it for The Nerds of Color has been awesome. I can write and write and write about this show for pages. It’s also fun teaming up with fellow NOC writer Christelle, who writes the Flash recaps.
Arrow returns with a resurrection, and while the episode featured a lot of the appropriate resurrection keywords and images: a “three days” mention, Oliver lying stretched out kinda Christ-like as Maseo brought him down the mountain, I guess Tatsu is kinda Mary Magdalene? Not really, that’s a stretch, but the point was to say that Oliver’s story is a bit more The Lion King than anything else. Click through to get a bit more context on that…
Where do I even begin? There’s the remains of Team Arrow (or whatever it may become without the Arrow to guide them — oh, haha, get it?); the future of both the A.T.O.M and the Canary; Malcolm, Thea, and everyone’s inability to disclose important deaths; the whitewashing of Brick; and of course: the revival! I think I’ll just go in that approximate order, and throw some flashback plot in there too (sorry, for now, they’re not my favorite thing).
We start with a car chase. Read the rest here: NOC Recaps Arrow: Pulled Apart, Brick by Brick | thenerdsofcolor.
This week’s Castle takes a telenovela twist (just minutes after I watched Jane the Virgin, no less!). A telenovela star is murdered and it’s up to Kate to find the killer and Castle to find… the purse?
Click through for the full recap, but here are some things I loved from the episode:
– Another nice moment between Kate and Martha, but once again no Alexis in sight…
– Castle’s pencil dropping from the ceiling at just the right time.
– “I thought you were a writer. What happened?” “Nothing happened. I’m just expanding my brand if that’s alright with you.”
– Castle learns that the number one skill a private investigator has is dropping $20s for information.
– Esposito’s frustration and Beckett’s amusement with Ryan’s “Castling” makes me laugh every time. Oh Baby Castle.
– I loved the detail of Castle being unable to get Beckett’s top button undone.
– I figured I’d be the only review to not mention the “private dick” line, since it was all over the commercials anyway, but here’s an obligatory mention.
– I loved Castle using Ryan’s badge number to get info from the DMV. Ryan’s the least likely to kick Castle’s butt if he finds out.
– I was glad for Kate’s concern when they find Castle with Mathis: “We would have had no way of finding you.” Obviously, it’s because they’re married, but also his disappearance is still weighing on her mind, and it shows here right beneath the surface. I hope that storyline is returning soon.
– “So you’re saying I solved my case, and your case, and I apprehended the killer… Hm.” “Yeah. You disarmed a 110lb woman. Must’ve been a tense moment.”
– Javier speaking Spanish. ::heart eyes emoji::
Full recap here: Castle Season 7 Episode 12 Review: “Private Eye Carumba!”
The winter TV hiatus is slowly ending and one of the first shows back is Castle. I’ve realized, however, that I never posted the link to mid-season finale recap here, so you get two for one: review what happened in the finale and get into your funny feels over the midseason return.
From my “Bad Santa” Review:
It will definitely be an interesting run of episodes for however long Castle is banned from the force. Seems like he’ll have to do something major to get back in,which we know will probably happen since the precinct and the Castle/Beckett partnership is the bread and butter of the show. But I appreciate the writers injecting new life into a season that has already resolved so many longstanding things. It’s hard for a procedural do that without killing off their existing cast and hiring new blood. Without a constant revolving door of new cast members, it’s important for the show to find other ways to change things up. I’m excited to see what they do with this twist.
From “Castle P.I.”:
This episode was such a fun return from the midseason finale and a fresh new direction for the show. I worry it can’t last too long — how many episodes can we have of them running parallel or opposing cases? But I doubt it is meant to. It’s something fun and new for the show to try and I can’t wait for the conflict it provides between Castle and Beckett in the future — it can’t all be friendly competition and case put together foreplay. The episode left me with a smile on my face — partially because I really like saxophones and all the noir background music included a lot of it. I can’t wait to see what else Castle, Private Investigator, has in store for us.
Clearly the midseason premiere didn’t disappoint. It was a fun episode with some potential stories down the road. We’ll see where the rest of the season takes us. Want to recap the first part of the season? Just check the Castle Recaps under the ConStar Recaps menu up at the top!
