When a museum curator is found dead from having a stone gargoyle dropped on him, Beckett, Castle, and the team must answer the question of whether the killer is a jealous colleague, a jilted lover, the publicity-hungry museum director, or the curse of an ancient mummy whose tomb promises death for anyone who looks upon its face, as Castle couldn't resist doing.
- Adventurer Archaeologist: Medina the victim is described as "a modern day Indiana Jones once waking into a rain forrest with just a backpack and coming out a month later with a priceless artifact." That being said, he wasn't above tricking natives into leading him to a sacred burial chamber, or selling a mummy that wasn't going to be displayed on the black market.
- Contrived Coincidence: Out of all of the mummies the museum brought back, the one that Medina tried to sell on the black market just happened to be the one which was really a modern murder victim whose body was hidden by being disguised as a mummy.
- Death by Looking Up: The last thing the victim sees is the stone gargoyle being shoved off the roof to fall on him.
- Didn't Think This Through: The alleged curse of the mummy is initially used by Bentley to attract more visitors. Castle points out to him that any visitor who gets into a car accident or slips and falls after seeing the mummy might try to sue him for it as a result of him spreading posters urging people to come see an artifact that's advertised as cursed.
- If I Can't Have You…: Stanford murdered Nicole for refusing to sleep with him.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: As is often the case, it's vague whether or not Castle really was cursed. Montgomery spells out his attitude to this trope as "Don't screw around with things you can't explain." He backs this up with a story where he and his partner were cursed by a gypsy for breaking her smoke shop window while catching a suspect, then his partner died of a heart attack. Montgomery is fairly sure this was due to the man eating bacon with every meal but he still went back and fixed the window because, well, why risk it?
- During the short chase at the end, Stanford slips and falls down a flight of stairs. Was it an accident, or the mummy's curse?
- Non-Protagonist Resolver: Rachel, Medina's girlfriend, is the one to figure out Stanford is the killer after hearing that he'd claimed Nicole and Medina were sleeping together when she knows that they weren't. Rachel also knows that Sanford had the skill to mummify Nicole's body and would have left DNA behind.
- Noodle Incident: We never find out what Castle had to do to break the curse, only that he didn't want to tell Alexis.
- Parental Substitute: Castle asks Beckett to look after Alexis should he die from a possible curse. And since she has a gun, Castle hoped Beckett can shoot any boyfriend should they get any ideas.
- Shout-Out: When they catch Stanford, Castle quips "And I would've gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for you meddling kids," followed shortly thereafter by Beckett quipping "Ruh-roh."
- Take That!: Castle insults the latest (at the time) Indiana Jones movie.
