ABC’s ‘Castle’ season 5 spoilers: The saddest Christmas photo ever

When you typically have a holiday episode of your favorite show, it is stuffed full of cheerful things including carols, smiling faces, and hot cocoa. On “Castle,” you instead have Santa Claus lying dead in a pile of snow.

There’s not too much known just yet about this upcoming season 5 episode, at least outside of the obvious fact that we have a dead Kris Kringle on our hands. The episode itself is entitled “Secret Santa,” though it is hard to say whether this is a clue or just a clever way of saying that it is a secret as to who killed off the jolly elf. (Maybe they spiked the eggnog.)

The idea of a murder involving Santa is hardly new on a murder mystery show, and there are probably more instances of this happening than we could count on both of our hands. However, what makes Castle a little bit special, and has made it special over the years, is that their traditional mysteries have that extra punch of humor to go along with the slick mysteries that need to be solved. This Christmas may be extra special for the characters, as it is the first one for Castle and Beckett since they became a couple at the end of season 4.

Our initial detective work here suggests that this Santa was obviously left in a public place on purpose, almost as some sort of a statement; and what makes this even more interesting is that the two Santa in these photos seem to be different ones. The first one has his feet together, while the second’s feet are apart and seems to be covered in more snow.