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Castle S05E14: "Reality Star Struck"

It's nearly Valentine's Day here in the real world, which means that most of the shows on television right now are fumbling all over themselves trying to offer up the most love-laced plots possible for their viewers. Last night's Castle was no exception. With that most forcibly romantic of days looming, Castle and Beckett were almost assured to get into some kind of hilarious relationship misunderstanding for the sake of thematic appropriateness. Fortunately, that misunderstanding didn't force them to hash out any personal issues or get into any seriously heated arguments. In fact, for the most part, Castle and Beckett just got to enjoy each other's company this week amid a surprising amount of in-house character comedy. So much so, in fact, that I damn near forgot about the mystery for long stretches of the episode.

Granted, the mystery itself wasn't the most well-reasoned thing Castle's ever done. The show opened with one of the more ludicrous scenes I've seen on a police procedural in a while: A reality TV producer, the figurehead behind the enormously popular Financial Channel series The Real Housewives of Wall Street (I know... I know!) was chatting idly with a marketing executive over the show's new opening credit sequence when a sprightly assistant burst in and exclaimed, "Sir, there's been a murder!" with all the shock and dismay of a man forced to report that there's no more coffee in the break room. Things did improve once Castle and Beckett arrived at the murder scene to find the most hated Housewife lying peacefully in a bus stop with an expensive knife in her back. Symbolism, much?

The woman, a former assistant to one of the Housewives who'd recently begun an affair with the Housewife's husband, had apparently come to New York to make it big, a fact that her family did not necessarily approve of. As Castle and Beckett dug deeper and deeper into her life, it became clear that this woman had spent as much time trying to find a way out of the show as she had digging herself deeper into its manufactured drama. Her apparent distaste for the ugliness of it all possibly created several motives for killing her, as did her apparent interest in another cast member.

The details for the mystery were suitably labyrinthine, seemingly disconnected from one another for extending periods of time before finally coming together in a relatively hurried, unsatisfying conclusion. It's safe to say that the harried, utterly spat-out confession from the killer felt like a scene filmed in about 20 minutes as a last minute pick-up shot. I assume the writers always intended make our eventually revealed culprit the killer, but it didn't seem like anyone really felt much like focusing on the reveal.

Maybe that's because so much of "Reality Star Struck" was heavily focused on Castle, Beckett, and the rest of the team at home. Castle and Beckett spent large chunks of the episode musing to one another about how much better each of their Valentine's gifts to the other was going to be. Castle was particularly proud of the expensive earrings he'd bought for Beckett, but was unsure of the best way to give them to her. Leave it to Castle's mother to suggest something a little bit sneaky, like hiding them in her coat pocket and waiting for her to find them. Castle loved the idea... until he mistakenly left the baubles in Captain Gates' coat.

Let's back up a second. One thing that I am beginning to learn now is that any episode in which Captain Gates and Castle connect, even in the most frivolous ways, will end with their relationship further scarred and battered than it was at the outset of the hour. In this case, we learned early on that Gates is an obsessive Real Housewives viewer, and when she discovered that nobody else in the precinct watches the show, she outright demanded that everyone go home and watch it as a sort of horrible homework assignment. Except that Castle loved it. He stayed up all night watching episode after episode, and suddenly he and Gates had something to gab about. Great! Their relationship was saved!

Until, of course, he dropped those earrings into the wrong coat.

After a few failed attempts at taking the earrings back, Castle witheringly confessed his mistake to Beckett. Beckett was less livid than mortified. Did he leave a note? Yes. Was it a romantic note? Oh yes. Did he put her name on it? Castle couldn't recall, but he knew he'd put his own name down. Oh dear.

Eventually, Gates discovered the earrings, read the note, and summoned Castle to her office. Was their cover blown? Would Castle and Beckett never work together again?!?

Of course not. Castle, to his benefit, failed to put Beckett's name on the note, so Gates just thought that Castle was hitting on her! A married woman! Oh, that's much better.

Anyway, he thankfully managed to play it off as just a bad attempt at currying favor with the Captain, while Gates left under a cloud of her usual huffiness. Meanwhile, Castle and Beckett returned home to a glass of wine and Beckett's gift to Castle, which Castle had been giddy to receive all episode. So Beckett had him open up a drawer in her bedroom dresser, and in it he found... nothing! Wait, what? Why an empty drawer? Because it's now Castle's drawer. Beckett has cleared a permanent spot for Castle in her apartment, a sort of solidifying gesture on her behalf to show Castle she's serious.

You know, you can talk all you want about Valentine's Day's crass commercialism and TV's complicit role in it, but that little gesture genuinely brought a little smile out in me. Kudos to the Castle writers for taking what should have been another throwaway holiday-themed episode, and turning it into something honestly sweet. These days, that doesn't happen nearly often enough.

– So are we finally pulling the trigger on Esposito and Lanie getting back together? I'm fully okay with that, mind you. I just don't know if I have the stomach for any more will they/won't they out of them.

– Ryan is being called home regularly to attempt to impregnate his wife during ideal breeding hours, and he is apparently exhausted by this. There is a secret hope in me that Ryan's wife will just remain off-camera from now on, and that she will continue to make him do crazier and crazier things, effectively turning her into the show's Maris Crane. Anyone else on board with this?

– Thank you, Castle writers, for resisting the urge to offer up a "He went to Jared!" joke during Castle's earrings unveil. I don't even want to see that godawful advertising campaign made fun of. I just want it to be shunned and ignored until it returns to the grotesque hell-mouth from which it emerged, never to bother us again.

– How weird is it that Castle has been nailing, of all things, the holiday episodes this season? First that great Christmas episode, and now a totally solid Valentine's episode? At this point, I can't WAIT to see what they come up with for Easter!

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The Big Bang Theory S06E16: "The Tangible Affection Proof"

Ugh, Valentine's Day, right? It sucks when you're single because it's just a big pink-and-glittery slap in the face to remind you of your lack of desirability. It sucks when you're in a relationship because of the intense pressure to wow your other half so thoroughly that he or she forgets how apathetic you are as a partner the rest of the year. And that's before you account for complicated relationships like Leonard and Penny's, where one half is getting his romantic ninja action on and the other is binge-drinking red wine like she's at a VD mixer at Delta House.

Still, change is in the air over at The Big Bang Theory, and has been since the show returned from its winter hiatus. There's always the chance that the show's current storylines are all just some experiment gone horribly wrong, but at the moment, their effects on the core characters are plentiful and generally awesome. So awesome.

But first, a bit more of the same. Enough of the same that I was ready to write off the first half of "The Tangible Affection Proof" as typical Big Bang Theory tropes jazzed up with some candy and hearts for the special occasion. Amy was stoked about the holiday while Sheldon enlisted Alex (HI ALEX!) to do his boyfriend work and buy Amy a gift. One of Penny's exes almost ruined everything. And Raj and Stu threw a singles party at the comic book store for "people who don't have dates," codespeak for "nerds." Cuz you know, nerds NEVER have dates on Valentine's Day.

Raj talked himself into an awkward hole when he pointed out that he and Stu would have "solved all their problems" if only Stu was female because they do awesome stuff like read comics and go the movies and play video games and we all know that women NEVER do those things. Ever. Under any circumstances. The payoff to Raj's storyline was pretty great, though. He's TOTALLY "that guy." You know, the one who rallies the troops to reject the holiday, preaching solidarity and positive self-worth beyond a romantic relationship, only to bail as soon as a girl agrees to get coffee with him. Typical Raj.

Typical Penny and Leonard, too, with Leonard like an eager puppy in his enthusiasm to take Penny out and Penny kind of bored and irritated by the whole thing. It must be so hard to be so desirable, Penny. Really. A nice dude is eager to buy you dinner on Valentine's Day. Your life is so hard. Though the idea that overeager Leonard could whip out another ill-timed marriage proposal was probably plenty to deflate that heart-shaped balloon floating over Penny's head.

But then The Big Bang Theory made fun of Leonard's penchant for proposing and it was glorious. And THEN, for a show that occasionally gets some flack for how it treats its women like plot points, TBBT handed the keys to the Leonard and Penny's relationship over to Penny. After an honest discussion about Penny's commitment issues, Leonard promised to never propose to her again and for a second there, I thought we had another break-up on our hands. Instead, he insisted that the next proposal must come from her. CRISIS AVERTED.

Sure, if we are so inclined to rage about how the whole system of the guy asking for the gal's hand is antiquated and sexist, we can. It's there. But at the moment, I'm not so inclined. It was such a great moment for Leonard and Penny, understanding each other on an intimate level and for once, rather than letting their insecurities tear their relationship apart, they just laughed about it. When Penny hopefully eventually gets to the point that she wants to marry Leonard, Leonard expects to be DAZZLED by the display. I'm thrilled that Penny's fake-out question, "Will you be my Valentine?" was just that—even if the line was kind of lame—because I can't wait for the eventual ACTUAL proposal episode... if TBBT sticks to its guns and goes there.

Please go there?

Across the hall, Amy and Sheldon also connected in a way that we don't often see with those two... or rather, haven't seen much of until lately. I mean, wow, when this show decides to stop screwing around and advance its characters already, it just dives right in and does it. Knowing that Amy would be putting her everything into V-Day—and I'm assuming she made sure there was a Valentine's Day clause somewhere in the relationship agreement—Sheldon assigned poor Alex to go shopping for the perfect present. Probably not the best approach, but still, good effort. At least he bothered, right? Right.

Sheldon hilariously dismissed each of Alex's gift suggestions crap, except for the awesome one he kept for himself, and faced with the dire prospect of not having a present for Amy, Sheldon actually managed to give her something sweet, personal, and very Amy-appropriate all on his own. Oh, it totally backfired for Amy because of course it did, but OMG her face when Sheldon told her he'd changed his employee paperwork to make her his emergency contact. HER FACE. The creepy oversharing about her sexual desires for Sheldon aside, all the woman really wants is to be a valued part of his life, and on some level, Sheldon got that. So much Sheldon-growth lately, you guys. I don't know what to do with it all.

But unfortunately for Amy, Sheldon is kind of a hypochondriac.

– One-liner of the night: "I know, I propose a lot." —Leonard

– I'm starting to realize that Howard and Bernadette are kind of boring now that they're married.

– Poll time! Who gave the best Valentine's Day gift?

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