C: Here’s your weekly Castle review, coming in a little late thanks to a minor catastrophe in the E household.  (All’s well now, only one bone broken.)

As if the show gods heard us last week, this week’s episode treated viewers to a bit of Beckett and “Little Castle” one-on-one time (E: thanks guys!), as Alexis volunteered for three days at the station as part of a school initiative.  Cleaning out the room where victims’ belongings are stashed she stumbles on a little mystery of her own.  In the meantime, Big Castle and the gang are investigating something twistier: the death of a man with a wife and a fiancee. (E: Castle to corpse: “Dude, you are so busted.”)

Of course the whole two-wives-who-don’t-know-about-each-other thing’s been done elsewhere, such as the Bones episode “The Truth in the Lye.”  But the Castle writers add their own spin – the dead man’s motivation in creating a second identity for himself went far beyond the desire to juggle two women.

E: I don’t know about you, but there was a point where the women were throwing guilt at each other, and I started to think, wait, don’t tell me they’ve killed him together. Thankfully (since I’ve already seen that plot) that was not the case.

M: Yes, They added several twists with the man himself, the fiancee, and it all centered around corporate espionage.  The episode itself seemed to be either in honor of, or in response to, NBC doing “Green Week” last week.  We had a battle between rival recycling companies, with the two-timer (who turned out to not be much of a two-timer) really being under cover for the Connecticut recyclers, trying to steal the industry-revolutionizing battery sludge removing secret formula from the New York recyclers.

As always, there were little give-aways, like the New York Recycling Company having a posh downtown office, but this wasn’t the kind of “obvious twist” that they had been going with for several weeks that we’ve complained about.  So apparently, like with the Beckett-Alexis bonding time, the writers are reading us and responding quickly.

E: And they know that I love Buffy, so they hired the hot principal from the last season – the year Nathan Fillion was part of the cast – to play the CEO of the NY recyclers!  Totally awesome.

They also had lots of fantastic exchanges this week.  To wit – Castle, after Beckett taunted him (along with the wonder twins):

“She’s baiting us. Just ignore her and she’ll lose her witchy powers.”  Beckett’s response?  She starts looking for something, deadpan serious, and when asked what, replies “Where’s my broom?”

Also, after Beckett tells Castle she just can’t stop thinking of the fight between the two women, he replies “would you think less of me if I said me too?”

Oh. And how awesome is it that this week Castle makes an off-hand remark which enables Alexis to solve her mystery?  Loved it!

C: Fun to see that cliche in the reverse.  This was overall a fun episode, with Alexis solving her case, Castle getting another chance to glow with paternal pride (something Fillion does very well), and the murder plot avoiding the predictable (I suspected the correct killer from the start, but how they got there held some surprises).  A solid, enjoyable episode.