Here we go again. A nice, sunny day, highs in the fifties. Not summer weather by any stretch of the imagination, but I can go outside without needing a jacket. And then tomorrow we get hit with an 80% chance of rain and temperatures as low as 25°. Parts of north Texas are under a winter weather advisory again. I doubt we’ll see anything here—just depends when the rains come and when it freezes.
House was convoluted this week. Cuddy’s supposedly hypochondriac mother is hospitalized and the family connections make her treatment far more complicated that it might be otherwise, especially when the mother (Candice Bergen) fires House from her case. Which means that he has to resort to bugging the patient’s room and surreptitiously (and illegally) switching out medications because the new doctor refuses to cooperate, and hiding everything they do from Masters, the goody two shoes. Meanwhile, Taub goes into business with his soon-to-be-ex-brother-in-law, a man who punched him in the nose and called him the worst husband ever when he found out that Taub had been cheating on his sister (“he shouldn’t have punched you,” his estranged wife said, letting the indictment stand on its own). By the end of the episode, Taub’s nose is once again the center of attention.
So that’s how authors do cover blurbs. On Castle last night, Rick gets a bunch of copies from his publisher for blurbs and he holds each book up to his head and issues a Carnac-like quotable pronouncement about it. It was inevitable that there should be a story with a butler just so Rick could do a “the butler did it,” but the story wrapped around until it started looking like that might be the case. And then it seemed like it was going to be the exact antithesis of that, the dreaded suspect we never heard of until the very last minute. And then the wheel turns once again and the moving finger points at the original suspect, which was much more satisfying. The plot was all about how windfalls can change people. Rick wrote a bestseller in university, his mother just inherited $1 million from a man who died before she had the chance to break up with him, and the murder victim had won over $100 million in the lottery. Money doesn’t change you, it just magnifies your personality, Rick says, and is bemused and flattered later to hear Beckett quote him anonymously to his mother, who’s trying to figure out what to do with her windfall.
The notion of what someone might do if they suddenly fell heir to $1 million is the story’s ongoing gag. Everyone has an idea, even Captain Montgomery, except Beckett. Rick bought a Ferrari (as fast as any other car in rush hour traffic) that Beckett insists on driving when they go undercover. He bought property on the moon. (“When the earth is a desiccated husk, you’ll be begging to come live with me in the Nectaris basin.”) When he sketches out his progression, saying that the money ultimately allowed him to write, spend time with his daughter and live life on his own terms, Beckett says, “You grew up.” Rick’s not quite ready to cop to that, saying that the moon purchase was only a month ago. The murder victim had also purchased moon real estate. “Get out of town,” Rick said, “He’s just down the crater from me.”
Two of the suspects (and there was no shortage of them in this episode) were burgeoning rap singers. When the cops break in during a recording session, Rick says, “Three armed cops and writer makes four…you’re under arrest, so get on the floor.” The next suspect is arrested during a scene that gave Beckett the chance to put on her party dress and flirt with Rick. Someone has already intercut the rap with that scene and posted it on YouTube. While Rick was off getting them drinks, Beckett downs the suspect and kicks his bodyguard in the ‘nads. She extends a hand to Rick, who tries to hand her a martini instead of the cuffs she wanted!
In the end, Rick decides what Beckett would do with a windfall and rushes over to her place to tell her. “You just can’t stay out of my private life,” Beckett says, and it looks for a moment like she’s going to be mad, but she softens and says “Thank you.” That’s progress for the couple. They still banter with each other (“Detective Beckett, did you call to tell me a bedtime story,” Rick teases) but there’s no question they like each other now.
