Over eight season of investigations, Castle covered some serious stuff. Everything from baby abductions to averting global war was crammed in. But the weird had a place as well (and not just in Castle’s bizarre theories). Despite going about as a crime-comedy-drama, some fairly strange plots made it to air.
Time Travel
The season six episode Time Will Tell introduces a murder suspect with an unbelievable story – he’s from the future. But he also happens to have been in an institution. Two different interpretations of events come up in the episode – suspect Simon Doyle is actually from the future or merely insane.
Some minor ‘proof’ is:
- Doyle ‘disappearing’/escaping from police holding after claiming he will shortly be ‘recalled’,
- Claiming to have knowledge from the future – Doyle claims that Beckett will become a Senator and end up married in New York with Castle and three children. The final episode does show three children and Beckett was offered a Senate seat at least once,
- Vanishing after turning a corner mere seconds before Castle.
Beckett is unbelieving of his stories until the last scene. The real murderer had a photograph of a letter. She and Castle had recovered the original but she later spills coffee on it whilst alone. The stain left of the formerly pristine letter perfectly matches the stain in the photo.
Alternate Realities
There are two ways that events can unfold differently than they have – parallel universes and alternate timelines. Neither would dare to make an appearance in a serious crime series – luckily, Castle is not serious.
The Time of Our Lives throws Castle into a life very different from the one he knows. In this life, Castle never met Beckett in what would have been their first case. This prevented him from meeting the rest of the NYPD, writing the Nikki Heat novels and moving on from his party days. Imagine It’s A Wonderful Life with all the zany antics of Castle.
Everything is reversed when he finally encounters the Incan artifact that sent him into this new world and he resumes his old life mere moments after leaving it – the old ‘it was all a dream’ escape. But all the normal escapes from dreaming – pinching, water and others – didn’t ‘wake up’ Castle. Maybe being knocked out prevented him from waking up as he would normally but – let’s face the facts – Castle obviously body-jumped into an alternate life.
Invisibility
In case of invisible assailants, who’re you gonna call? Castle! Clear and Present Danger focuses on the murder of a man stabbed by his own pool cue. CCTV was trained on the entire incident but the tapes seem faulty – nobody else is seen on the footage. Evidence later disappears from the station and Castle is seemingly attacked by an invisible entity.
It turns out that a secret faction of the government has been working on perfecting personal cloaking technology. None of their prototypes ever succeeded until one suit was stolen and made it to the outside world. Not strictly impossible but definitely beyond the normal boundaries of crime drama.
Phasers
Fans of the much missed Firefly will love to see The Final Frontier. There are plenty of references to Whedon’s former work and plenty of other sci-fi as this episode is set at a sci-fi convention. Set your phasers to kill.
The murder isn’t the weird part of this episode but the weapon is. A genius working from a garage has somehow perfected a working phaser weapon. Gone are the days of gunpowder tests. This baby is completely untraceable and the only evidence it has been used is a light epidermal burn on the hand that fired it.
Telekinesis
Fandom has already covered the best instances of telekinesis in cinema but Castle has also shown the ability to move objects with the hidden powers of the mind. Smells Like Teen Spirit has the unusual change of showing the murder at the start. A girl on video-chat is suddenly tossed around her room and later turns up murdered.
What is originally believed to be a supernatural murder is actually being covered up with an elaborate prank carried out by a genius in similar pranks. He also moved several chairs and tables in a crowded dining hall and chased several mobsters out of their house. The pranks supposedly involved fishing line and magnets.
But both areas were investigated by trained NYPD officers. No evidence was found that either event was staged. And how would they have been arranged anyway? A crowded school hall has too many variables to plan out where everybody would be and assure nobody tampers with anything. And who would invade a mob house to set up a prank?
Ninja
Castle seems to have strayed from the weird ven diagram of crime/comedy/drama into the realms of science fiction an alarming rate. Let’s get back to a world of reality – ninja.
The Way of the Ninja is – surprisingly – all about the ninja. A few details are wrong – such as the black cloth – but there is no doubt about it – the Castle world is inhabited by ninja. Throwing stars, katana swords, and other stuff you could find in Naruto. Obviously, ninjas don’t exist in the real world anymore. Right?