
- Beckett and Castle share some heat in the freezer. Three seasons in and the two have never been closer or more in sync. First in the freezer; then they worked side by side all episode long; and then they managed to save New York City together near the end of the suspenseful hour. This show makes it hard to be patient when all I want is for them to get together. In the freezer, they were huddled close, on the edge of severe hypothermia and certain death. Beckett thanked her partner for “being there” and he replied, “Always.” She started to say how much she loved him when she fell unconscious. Boo. I really wanted her to finish that thought.
- Adrian Pasdar. Big guest stars aren’t always integrated into a show very well. And often, they’re the ones playing the characters that did the bad deed. Thankfully, there was no chance of Pasdar’s Agent Mark Fallon being the homegrown terrorist. And much like Dana Delany in last year’s two-parter, the former Heroes star blew me away. In “Setup,” he was more of a one-dimensional douche. But, in “Countdown,” they were able to flesh his character out more — we found out his wife died in 9/11 (kind of like Gary Sinise’s Detective Mac Taylor on CSI: NY). The added layers were a welcome touch and Pasdar just rocked the badass Homeland Security dude to no end. But what touched me most is when he said goodbye to Beckett and Castle: “Listen um…what I do is not who I am. It’s just how I have to be. I hope you both understand that.” The guy has some serious rage issues and takes his job to the extreme, but putting him in this Castle universe kind of spiced things up. I hear there are rumors of a spinoff, I don’t know for sure. What I do know is that someone needs to give this guy a series pronto.
- Ryan and Esposito. One of my favorite things when writing about Castle is I get to talk about how much I love the Ryan/Esposito partnership. They’re so comfortable with each other and there’s another level of comfort they now share with Beckett and Castle too. It’s pretty wonderful. The detectives quickly realized their friends were missing (well, it helped that Alexis called looking for her missing dad. Josh called too.); and they ended up discovering where they were. It’s great how even in serious moments they can have a little fun. Their explanation for how they found Castle and Beckett: “We thought you must be out there doing something incredibly stupid against orders. So we sent patrol units everywhere we figured you’d be moronic enough to go; found Beckett’s car; searched the area until we found the light from the storage container.” And they managed to slip in a fist pump during that exposition as well. Seamus Devers and Jon Huertas are simply awesome.
- Stopping the bomb leads to big hug. After Beckett and Castle discovered the bomb in the black van, they held hands as the clock wound down. There was that moment when they both realized they might die right then and there. Beckett whispered desperately, “Castle!” And then as the clock ran out, the famed novelist pulled all the wires successfully detonating the bomb. What a great moment. Beckett and Castle thought so too because they immediately started rejoicing, and more importantly, hugging. The hug was brief but so complete and much more genuine than the hug Beckett had with Josh a little later (sorry, Josh). By the way, loved Castle’s huge, celebratory, “Yes!” after their hug was over. That moment needed something like that. It was a perfect reaction to saving the day. That was my Moment of Goodness of the entire “Countdown.”

- Nathan Fillion. Yes, the man’s easy to worship when he’s being funny author guy and solving cases based on his instinct and inspiration. In “Countdown,” Fillion got to show a more serious side along with utilizing instinct and inspiration to find the bomb. In this episode more than any other, he really showed Castle’s true feelings for Beckett. I am convinced now that he’s completely and utterly in love with Kate. At the end, when he seemed like he was going to suggest he and Beckett get a drink or something, he spotted Josh and immediately backed off. How heartbreaking was that? When he got in the elevator, you could see all the feelings he was trying to hold inside. Maybe it was just me, I don’t know. But I felt so bad for him. However, Fillion got to play more than that. There was the scene with Martha and Alexis where he told them to go to the Hamptons because something bad was going to happen in the city. Only he couldn’t tell them specifics. They just had to trust him. You could see the desperation on his face. And you could see how much it pained him to tell Alexis she couldn’t call her boyfriend Ashley to warn him. Castle knew if she did a panic could erupt and that wouldn’t be a good situation. When he told Beckett how it felt for him to have to tell his daughter she couldn’t give her boyfriend a heads up, he said he felt like a monster. So as much as Castle tends to make me laugh in any given episode, he breaks my heart just as easily too. And that’s a testament to the great performance Nathan Fillion gave us in “Countdown.”
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