Castle
A Dance With Death

Original Air Date: Mar 19, 2012

Divina F – TwoCents Reviewer
divina@thetwocentscorp.com

Yes, we’re very obviously getting this episode as an homage to the 14th season – Jesus take the wheel, 14 – of Dancing With the Stars. I must confess that I love when Castle does this with other abc shows. Parody on, Andrew Marlowe. Parody on.

We open up on a disco ball, sequins and hardwood floors. (Sitting next to me, my mother was confused. She thought DWTS was already over.) But A Night of Dance is has a unique setup. Instead of having permanent partners, dancers wiggle their hips up the ranks. After each dance, half of the pair is eliminated. And tonight, sweetheart Odette Morton has been permanently eliminated. The prime suspect is the contestant who got booted off before her, Eddie Gordon, who not only brought the drama on and off the set, but also raged about the unfairness of his exit, blaming Odette. Plus he was spotted lurking around the studio the afternoon she was shot.

Predictably – as he is the first suspect – Eddie’s alibi checks out. After talking to Odette’s brother, Castle and Beckett discover that Odette went through a rough patch after her grandfather died, partying and getting into drugs. But a brush with death – surviving a train wreck – changed her, getting her clean and back on track. Even her wild spending toned down. Until a month before her death. Beckett talks to her business manager and finds out where Odette was spending all of her money lately. It turns out that she was buying off the show’s secretary, who had heard her arguing with the show’s host. This is suspicious, especially since other contestants on the show claim they saw her meeting with a man in an alley, giving him money.

The twist comes up when Ryan and Esposito search Odette’s apartment and find nary a trace of her fingerprints. Instead, they get a lot of data from one Barbra Landau, who reportedly died a year ago. But she looks eerily like Odette…

Ryan and Esposito track down the strip club where Barbra used to work and learn that the man she was meeting in the alley was most likely her ex boyfriend. (They also learn that Ryan reeks of Honeymoon bliss, which means no woman is ever going to flirt with him again, even if he asks Esposito to wear his wedding ring.) The boyfriend says Barbra uncovered a family secret of Odette’s, and it is all so clear. Odette’s grandfather did not die of natural causes. Odette and her then boyfriend – her business manager! – smothered him in order to get Odette her inheritance. Sadly, Odette dumped the man rather than marry him, and it was he who found out Barbra was posing as Odette, serving her jailtime and then taking over her life when she didn’t survive the train wreck. He kills her to cover up the grandfather’s death.

Once again, I anticipated more of a gimmick feel but got some good drama out of it. And Martha’s subplot was interesting, too. I absolutely loved Millicent Martin’s guest role as the critic who once wrote a scathing review of her performance and is now Martha’s ticket to a good referral in the theater community.

Next Week: 47 Seconds
Lord, the promo for this episode killed me dead. I commend my spirit to thee.