'Castle' recap: Food for thought

Image Credit: Ron Tom/ABCBy now, we all know that Beckett is going to have to make a decision between Castle and Demming (recurring guest star Michael Trucco), so I appreciate Castle‘s writers not playing coy. In between our usual moments of Rick adorableness (i.e. using liquid nitrogen to freeze fruits and vegetables, then dropping them to watch them shatter), the lines were drawn: The victim was a playboy chef who was trying to grow up so he could propose to his foster brother’s girlfriend, who was carrying his child. The girlfriend stayed with her boyfriend because unlike the chef and Castle, he didn’t sleep with every woman who walked by. “You have no idea how hard it is to love someone knowing they’re gonna break your heart,” she told Beckett and Castle. Castle thought she should have gone with the chef — the heart wants what it wants. Beckett said she understood why she played it safe: Some men make you feel alive, but if you know they’re gonna let you down in the end, why risk it?

Of course, for the women’s scenarios to be vaguely similar, Demming has to be Mr. Wonderful. So far, he is. When paperwork threatened to derail his dinner date with Beckett, he ordered in Chinese from a place that doesn’t deliver (he helped the owner get back a Ming Dynasty medal, so the man makes an exception for him). He also lit a candle. I assume the candle was Tom’s, it doesn’t feel very Beckett. Two things: 1) A man who can get delivery from a place that doesn’t deliver = hot. 2) Why are they allowed to light candles in their office when I’m not?

The writers are doing a decent job of keeping Beckett on the fence: You saw the regret on her face when she told her old high school friend Madison, owner of the restaurant where the corpsicle worked, that there was nothing going on between her and Castle. We found out that Becks and Madison had a falling out when they liked the same guy back then. Maddy said work was the reason she couldn’t see Castle again after their date at some Rocco DiSpirito restaurant, but I suspect it was because all Castle talked about on said date — besides the food — was Beckett. When Madison suggested she introduce Rocco to Beckett, Castle asked if Rocco was her type. Turns out, Beckett doesn’t have a type: She’s dated a guitar player in a grunge band, a med student, and a Frenchman who was possibly royalty. When Beckett interrupted the date to bring Madison in for questioning, Madison accused her of “wanting to have little Castle babies,” which, naturally, Castle overheard and made sure Beckett knew it. After hearing that Madison wasn’t going to date Castle — and that Castle was going to be a good boy and go home and tell Alexis she couldn’t go to the Hamptons with her friends because she really wanted to stay home and study — Beckett told Demming she needed to postpone their dinner. For a second, I thought she was blowing him off, but she made a date for the next night. Then she went to catch up with Madison. A part of me wishes that Beckett hadn’t yet known that Madison wasn’t going to date Castle so we could have debated whether Beckett’s visit was a sign of maturity or of her deciding that she wasn’t going to fight for Castle. As it stood, Madison was the only one who got to show growth.

Your turn. What did you think of the episode? Were you surprised it took Beckett and Castle so long to figure out that a man who sits at the same table every day in a café and stares is probably looking out the window at something? Which was your favorite reveal: That Beckett used to watch hours of Saved by the Bell reruns (I don’t buy it) or that Castle proposed in a hot balloon in February? Are you warming to Demming? And how nice is it that Esposito and Ryan clearly know how Castle feels about Beckett?

Read more: Michael Trucco on storming Nathan Fillion’s Castle