Castle followed up last week’s cliffhanger with a pretty action packed episode as Becket and the team – assisted by the always great Adrian Pasdar – tried to find a dirty bomb before it could explode causing mayhem in New York. Last week’s episode left Becket and Castle locked in a freezer, and things looked dicey for a while as they almost froze to death. However, if the episode had one big problem, it was that you KNEW they weren’t going to die, just as we KNEW there was no way the huge bomb would indeed explode, destroying half of New York. They were never going to go so far on the show, however both events got pretty close, with Becket passing out with hypothermia and Castle only defusing the bomb as the timer ticked onto zero.
Sometimes – most of the time really – Castle is a pretty light hearted jaunt, but these two episodes were more serious drama and I enjoyed the storytelling, despite the ultimate outcome never really being in doubt.
Similarly on House, I was kind of glad to see the patient of the week die. No I am not horrible, but the House cliché is that House’s brilliance always saves the patient at the last minute. It is pretty unrealistic for a medical show dealing with life threatening illnesses not to lose a few patients. There was some nice interaction between the team as Foreman and Taub struggle to get along as roommates, while Chase and Amber Tamblyn (can never remember the name of her character) disagreed on whether it was right to lie to patients relatives, leading to a debate about lying in general in relationships.
Meanwhile, House and Cuddy are due to attend a charity dinner which House backs out of. Was he really upset over losing a patient? He claims that being in love has made him a worse doctor. Have we seen any evidence of that? I remain a big Huddy fan, but I still am not sure how happy Cuddy looks about being with House. He lets her down by not attending the dinner and turns up drunk, seemingly to break up with her as being happy isn’t good for his doctoring skills, only to reveal she is worth losing patients over. Aw..! Is that going to be enough for her though? I’d still like to see some evidence of what House brings to this relationship. Last week we saw the annoyances – won’t help out at home, toothbrush abuse etc. I don’t want to see him bringing her flowers or reading poetry, but something apart from hiring a Mariachi band perhaps.
Pretty Little Liars had a strong episode this week, focussing on the girls’ love lives. Aria came clean to Ezra about her part in Jenna’s blindness (which I’ve forgotten. Did the girls throw a firework into a shed or something? I’m sure it was all Allison’s fault anyway.) Spencer was investigating with Toby which involved sleeping in his motel room..erm, why? Hannah and Caleb did the deed – which was rather unexpected in the way the show has unfolded. Like Glee, there is the ‘how old are they supposed to be again?’ problem with actresses in their twenties playing 16 year olds. However, we’ve not seen any of them sleeping with partners so far I think. I kind of like Caleb, but the end of the episode showed us that he too is hiding a deep dark secret. Well, it wouldn’t be Pretty Little Liars if he didn’t!
Meanwhile, Emily and her former swim team rival Paige almost got together! After a surprise kiss in the car a few weeks back, Emily meets up with Paige at an out of town karaoke bar and later for a middle of nowhere picnic. While the girls seem to be heading for a rather sweet relationship, Paige says she can’t be out. Not sure why. Is it a family thing? I seem to remember her dad being a total prat when he claimed Emily got the spot on the swim team for being gay. While Emily’s mum wasn’t supportive at first, last we saw she seemed to be coming around. Poor little Paige isn’t quite there yet, so Emily backed off, not wanting to head back into the closet. Very nicely written and Emily is just the coolest!
As always, PLL ends with high drama – Spencer is in the frame as a suspect after her super sleazy brother in law Ian, who was sleeping with Allison when she died, manages to come up with a good alibi, and Spencer is under suspicion due to her own dalliance with the slimeball. Duh duh duuuuh! Good stuff.