photo: abc

Original Air Date: Nov 5, 2012

Divina F – TwoCents Reviewer
divina@thetwocentscorp.com

I’m just so grateful for a fun, fan-fueled murder episode after the heaping plate of drama I scarfed down last week. We open up on a fan experience for the show Nebula 9 at a science fiction convention. Everything goes off smoothly until a couple of fans open up the Oracle pod and discover that not only is the Oracle real, she’s dead. Castle is at the convention already, signing copies of his Derrik Storm graphic novel. As soon as he and Beckett make their way to the fake set I know this is going to be a fun episode peppered with plenty of little shout outs to all of my favorite shows and movies.

The victim is Annabelle Collins, a diehard Nebula 9 fan who did whatever she could to keep the fandom alive after its tedious brief 12-episode run. She was the master behind organizing the fan experience, contacting one of the original actors to get in on the action. She even managed to buy the rights to the show (which allowed her to make webisodes continuing the show’s storyline). Her best friend revealed that there were fans who thought very badly of Annabelle, even sending her death threats.

Lanie is out this week, sticking us with Pearlmutter. According to him, the unusual wound in Annabelle’s chest is from a high intensity laser beam. At a sic-if convention, no less.

Ryan and Esposito get to work canvassing to find anyone who saw Annabelle disappear into the spaceship set before she was killed. After several hilarious attempts, they get a witness who is able to confirm what time Annabelle walked in and who was with her: another original cast member. (Beckett’s personal favorite character and the object of her cosplay.) The actress is famous now and not willing to stain her image by being part of the fan experience, as Annabelle asked her. Apparently Gabriel Winters was giving her a hard time, often showing up late and/or drunk. Annabelle was threatening to fire him.

Gabriel is sort of what I imagine Zaap Brannigan from Futurama to be in real life, but for that I peg him as innocent, even though the blaster he wears attached to his hip certainly has enough firepower to commit murder. It was obviously planted on the props table especially for him. All he’s able to drop is the implication that Annabelle was seeing someone. Ryan and Esposito go to the bar where she supposedly was, but all they can find out about her date is that he left her crying, wore a costume, and had a VIP pass.

Castle and Beckett, meanwhile, track down the guy who made the laser gun. He claims he sold two “fully functional” laser guns, one to a man in a costume that fits the description of Annabelle’s date. Using the license plate, they manage to track him down. He claims that he and Annabelle had a conventional once a year love affair and he bought the laser as a gift for her. He says that at the bar she was crying because her best friend’s boyfriend tried to make a move on her. She also said she wanted to sell out the rights to the show.

With her death, the rights went to her best friend. And the morning after the rights were effectively sold for 2.5 million dollars. Not a good coincidence.

However, Castle inadvertently solves the mystery by worrying about mutating because of having fired the laser when he first liberated it from Captain Max. Apparently it leaves a residue on the hands that glows under UV light for several days after. Stephanie Stern, aka Lt Chloe on Nebula 9, is the real murderer. And quite a head case since her motivation was wanting to bury the show for fear of it defining her acting career.

The episode ends with a fun bit of cosplay in the bedroom, which is Kate’s way of doing the payback for Castle making fun of her Nebula 9 love.

All in all an awesome episode, though I’m a bit disappointed that no one had a bad feeling about anything.

What was your favorite shoutout? I personally loved Esposito’s nod to The Princess Bride.

Next Week: Swan Song