Castle “An Embarrassment of Bitches” 

That was a fun episode of Castle, although the mystery was quite predictable. I had Justin Hartley’s Reggie pegged as the whodunit dude from the second I saw him. Some thoughts on “An Embarrassment of Bitches”:

• I liked the fact that it took place around the dog show world. They sort of mixed USA Network’s Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show with Cesar Millan’s Dog Whisperer and I was okay with that.

My favorite parts other than the Castle/Beckett moments were the guest stars in this one:

• Hilarie Burton as reality TV star/socialite Kay Cappuccio. The ex-One Tree Hill star, who can currently be seen on USA Network’s White Collar, did a whole Paris Hilton meets Kim Kardashian thing for her role. Usually she plays smart characters so it was fun to see her in this different light. She had a really great scene with Jon Huertas‘ Esposito when Kay wondered if her way of life may have gotten the trainer killed. It was nice to see that she may not be as much of an idiot as she projects. I got the sense she realizes she’s famous for all the wrong reasons and it’s a lonely world she lives in. I know, boo hoo. Even though Castle’s a scripted show taking pot shots at reality TV (and deservedly so), I really like the job Hilarie did in that scene.

• Justin Hartley as Reggie the murderer. Reggie was pretty a much a hanger on; he was with Kay just because she’s famous. He got in good with some South American drug cartel and that led to disaster and a prison sentence. I love me some Hartley from his Smallville days (as Oliver Queen/Green Arrow) and his Passions days (as Fox Crane). But if any of his recent guest star appearances (Castle, Chuck) has taught me anything, it’s I think he’s woefully underused as a guest star and would like for him to be back on TV in his own series pronto. Unfortunately, he won’t be in the Green Arrow pilot that the CW greenlit (just the pilot not the series). Hopefully, he’ll book a show soon. Preferably something with lots of action.

Nana Visitor as the canine therapist. She was only in “An Embarrassment of Bitches” briefly, but she was pretty funny. Nana rocks for a couple of reasons. 1. She’s part of the Star Trek legend, having starred in the underrated Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. She was so great as Major Kira — she was such a strong personality on that show. I loved that. 2. She was on FOX’s Dark Angel back in the day too. She’ll forever be awesome for being Renfro.

Scott Lowell was the bitter dog show loser. Lowell has guest starred on a million different series but he’ll always be one character to me: Ted Schmidt from Showtime’s Queer as Folk.

Some other thoughts/favorite moments:

• I totally fell in love with Royal the dog in like every scene. He was expressive. What? He was.

• The Castle-Alexis scene at the end of the episode. He wants to get her a dog all of a sudden and she sees right through him. She knows it’s incentive for her to come home from college more often. She promises to come home as often as she can. I still think they’re the cutest father-daughter on TV. Love them.

• So I take it Lanie and Esposito are just friends? The wedding conversation didn’t lead to anything more I guess. Because Lanie was snapping at him at the beginning (although she did it with a hint of a smile); and Esposito was crushin’ on Kay Cappuccio big time. The crush would have been cuter if I wasn’t such a fan of Esposito with Lanie. However, I liked Huertas’ scenes with Hilarie Burton.

Moment of Goodness: The dog exchange between Castle and Beckett. First, they played roshambo to determine who would get the dog. When that didn’t work (actually it did work, Beckett won all three times), they split dog sitting duties. Rick decided to show Kate how to get all cute and cuddly with Royal and he does it by rubbing the back of her hand with his thumb:

“And I bet you let him sit on your couch didn’t you?” “Um…” “No, that’s okay, you can be the fun one. I’ll just be the bad guy because there’s no way that you’re shedding all over my couch.” “Oh no, he’s perfectly happy right there. Oh and he loves it when you rub him right between the eye, just little circles with your thumb just like this not too hard…” (Castle demonstrates on Beckett’s hand) “Castle.” “There…you get it.”

Just goes to show that any little thing — no matter how innocent — can turn into a sizzling moment between Beckett and Castle. And did you see how Rick got out of there as quickly as possible? Boo. I still loved this brief flicker of something fierce, however.

Did you also check out the previews for the next episode? I know the whole ’40s thing has been done to death on TV (the CW’s Supernatural most recently) but I’m very interested to see how this show is going to put its own spin on it. So far they all look ah-may-zing in that style — especially Castle and Detective Ryan.

Castle airs Mondays at 10/9c on ABC.