allmyfriendsarefictional

“Well, your mother and I decided that if someone was going to screw you up, we wanted it to be me.”

-Richard Castle, Castle S1E2: “Nanny McDead”

Brief synopsis: A young nanny shows up dead in a dryer in the building she works, breaking open a world of torrid affairs.

Title significance: “Nanny McDead” is a reference to Nanny McPhee, a movie about a magical nanny who teaches rebellious children to behave. The only real connection here is the fact that the victim is a nanny. At one point, Castle actually refers to Sarah as Nanny McDead. The fact that he is referencing a children’s movie is interesting. A decent portion of this episode is devoted to Castle’s adoration of his daughter, Alexis. This knowledge of a children’s movie connects him once again back to his child (Though she probably would have been eleven (maybe?) when it came out in 2005).

IRL and the Story: The case Castle was working on caused a good amount of discussion within his household. However, instead of little aspects of his home life giving Castle insight into the case, it instead brings up conversation which in turn characterizes Castle much more than any of his creepy little statements. He was essentially his daughter’s nanny, and as we can see at the close of the episode, as he looks at the picture of the two of them, he loves her very much. He becomes a douche with a soul, and that soul is a wonderful daughter.

Success of story-mystery parallelism: The connection between the case and Castle’s life was not truly parallelism this week, which I liked. It was more naturally integrated in the story and made more sense than the connection sometimes does.

What “Nanny McDead” does right:

• Improvement – I am talking about one very specific thing that has been improved upon since the last episode: Kate. In my review of “Flowers for Your Grave”, I mention that Kate’s initial characterization as a woman who has men problems rubbed me the wrong way, and her bitter little statements made me dislike the character a lot. While this characterization as not completely gone the way of the dodo (Her little statement about what Ian, the adulterer, deserved sounded less like concern for the girls whose lives he played with, and more of her being bitter again), it has greatly improved. She’s more feisty and sassy. This comes across especially in her line: “I have a case. You have paperwork. Oh!” She is starting to become a character I can possibly like.

• Misdirection – Sometimes misdirection bugs me. Sometimes it makes me smile. This is one of the latter times. The moment I saw the husband in the first interview, I figured he was totally sleeping with the nanny. He (or the wife) didn’t kill her, since that would be too obvious, but he was so hitting that. Guess what? He wasn’t. Instead he was having an affair with someone else, and Sarah was covering for him. This was an interesting spin on the stereotypical husband-babysitter relationship.

• The Ending – The case ends on an incredibly creepy note. I have to give props to Sarah Drew, the girl who played Chloe. She was fantastically creepy at the end, and I found her performance to be very believable. I shuddered as she dug into herself with that knife, I jumped when she lifted it to demonstrate a point, and I felt for her and the way these delusions coupled with her naive belief in a man’s love and pregnancy caused her to break. It was a beautiful and emotional scene, and it also helped Beckett as a character, as she looked beyond the killer and saw the scared little girl.

What “Nanny McDead” could have done better:

• Cliche – The first time I watched this episode, I really hoped they weren’t going to go with the whole sexy babysitter thing. It’s obvious. It’s cliche. You can’t have a babysitter without them having an illicit affair with the father. I appreciate that Castle didn’t use the father of the child Sarah was babysitting. However, both babysitters present in the episode were having an affair with an older man. Both were stupid enough to believe his lies. Sarah broke up with her boyfriend for him. Chloe was convinced that he loved her. The idea of a younger, nubile woman taking the role of caretaker in a man’s home is a sexual image. However, I don’t see why both these girls need to be overly-sexualized and naive.

• Unprofessionalism – Castle is a distraction. At least I hope this isn’t how NYPD runs all of their operations. Instead of being concerned about getting to the family as quickly as they could, preventing a potential murder or three, they dick around outside the building, discussing if Castle should come along or not.  I understand that this is a comedy. It is also a drama. Having people’s lives at risk and taking the time to joke about how annoying Castle is. You don’t have time to wait for emergency services. This is not the time to discuss whether Castle should be allowed into these sorts of situations. Though maybe Kate wanted Chloe to succeed, seeing as she doesn’t think Ian is getting what he deserves.

• Sex jokes – Don’t get me wrong. Jokes about sex can be hilarious. But sometimes, they can be the stupidest jokes there are. The encounter with the old man on the fifteenth floor was more obnoxious than funny. The old man coming on to Kate after Castle leads him to believe she’s looking for sex is actually more sad than anything else. It’s also used to drive home the idea that Kate is bitter and hasn’t had sex in a long time. Not buying it. They stray away from this image of Kate after a while, and I’m really hoping it’s soon. It doesn’t do her any favors.

Overall: This was a fun episode, and showed quite a bit of improvement over the first. There were some cliche bits that rubbed me the wrong way, but the parallelism was actually done better than it is in later episodes.