ABC’s ‘Castle’ season 5, episode 17 review: American horror mystery

“Castle” made an interesting move with their new episode Monday night: acting in some ways like the entire story regarding Rick’s father and Alexis getting kidnapped never existed. You could tell in some ways that “Scared to Death” was an episode tailor-made for syndication, as it had a standalone plotline that could be watched any day of the week, without really knowledge of anything except for the fact that Castle and Beckett are the couple.

Even though this structure was somewhat frustrating, at least the show made up for it somewhat by giving us a pretty interesting mystery for the week. It was a far different sort of murder case than usual, and one that delved very deep into the realm of asylums, horror stories, and even an homage to “The Ring.” There was even a brief cameo from Wes Craven through in here to boot.

Of course, the show had a much more scientific explanation for their tape that “kills” people after a few days. and it also had a culprit in a young, mentally unstable woman who was hell-bent on creative revenge even when there was one. Most of the other characters this week weren’t particularly memorable, but this was largely made up for thanks to watching Castle constantly panic over the course of the episode that anything and everything was capable of killing him.

Overall, “Scared to Death” was a nice little diversion, and there was at least a little moment at the end of the episode that brought Beckett into Castle’s world, as she found out that he had wrote “be with Kate” on his bucket list years before they started dating. This is something that Meredith warned her about earlier this season, but who knows? Maybe our mystery author is changing.

What did you think about this episode, and were you happy to see the show go in a little bit of a different direction after a more dramatic two episodes last month? Be sure to share what you think below, and you can also read up about the show’s upcoming 100th episode over here.

Photo: ABC