Lucky Stiff. Yep, the victim was indeed fortunate in that he didn’t have to listen to the hocus-pocus gobblety-goop uttered by Lanie Parish, the voodoo M.E. on this show. Why, oh why, won’t the writers take five extra minutes to write this stuff correctly? It’s beyond me why they’d want to make Tamala Jones look foolish when the rest of the characters are pretty believable. Even though a writer—Castle—would never be allowed to do the things he does in this show, at least what he does and says is sort of correct. Lanie, on the other hand, consistently babbles mostly nonsense. More on that in a second.

Before I get into the fantasy forensics and police stuff, I’d like to welcome author Melanie Atkins to the Castle review this week. Melanie writes romantic suspense and she’s a devoted Castle fan, so I thought it might be fun to have her review the non-cop, mushy stuff while I do what I normally do—point out the right and wrong police procedure. So, welcome Melanie, and off we go.

Lanie says, “Single gunshot wound to the chest. From the stippling and bruising I’d say there was a struggle.”

Well how in the world could she have seen either since the victim’s shirt was still on, covering the entire area where stippling and bruising would have been located. Of course, she could have been referring to the gunshot residue (also stippling) that could have been found on the shirt. Who knows. But she certainly could not have seen bruising near the wound site.

Oh, she also said the shot vaporized the victim’s heart. Good one there. All Beckett needed to do at that point was find Evil Spock and his ray gun. I’ve seen a lot of shooting victims in my day and all of them still had a heart. Sure, the old ticker may have had bullet holes in it, or even missing chunks, but it was there. And not in a gaseous state, either.

– Beckett says the gun found at the scene was too big to make the entry wound in the guy’s chest. No way she could judge that without seeing the wound. Even then it would be a guess.

– Lanie chimes in, “The victim was shot with a 9mm automatic. The bullet went straight through and the techs dug the slug out of the pool table.” So now she’s an expert on firearms and ammunition examination and comparison. And on the scene, too. That’s impressive.

No way she could offer a positive without testing in the lab, a lab in which she DOES NOT work. Lanie is a medical examiner, a pathologist who performs autopsies on the dead, not as a scientist or technician in a firearms lab. I don’t believe bullet comparison is taught in medical school.

– Even though NJ cops had already done so, Beckett tells Ryan to re-search the car driven by the murder suspect. Good practice, even within your own department. Never trust anyone else’s word when it comes to a search.

– Beckett did a decent job of plotting the timeline leading up to the death of the victim. Start with the completed puzzle (a victim) and work backwards, unraveling the clues and evidence as you go.

– Someone said the bad guy brothers were in prison serving a nickle. Decent use of slang. A nickle translates into five years.

– Beckett and group enter the studio while convict brothers are recording a rap song. The scene was okay, but I liked Castle’s impromptu rap best.

“Three armed cops and a writer makes four.

You’re under arrest.

So get on the floor.”

– Beckett questions the convict brothers and one says, “You got it all wrong, shorty.” That’s another great use of prison slang. Some inmates use the word “shorty” when speaking about, or to, any female.

– Another slightly humorous use of street slang was when Esposito, when referring to a bad guy, said, “One whiff of bacon and he vanishes into thin air.” Bacon is street slang in some areas for “cop.”

– The scene in the bar where Beckett wiggles and seductively charms her way up to Oz was a little silly. There’s no way a drug dealer, one who’s as “off the grid” as this guy, would ever make a deal that quickly to someone he didn’t know. Not even to someone who looks like Beckett.

– Beckett threatened to charge Oz with possession with intent to distribute, and she threatened to get him federal time, which is much harsher with longer sentences than state time. Still, I don’t believe what I saw in his hand would have been enough cocaine to warrant a 20-year sentence. But I’d have to check the federal sentencing guidelines to be sure. I have a copy (You do to if you have a copy of my book. It’s in the back).

Castle made another funny when he referred to the charge of blowing up a car as, “Felony blowing crap up.”

So enough from me. Melanie, how’d they do in the mushy-stuff department?

Lee, thanks for inviting me to contribute to your blog. I love this show. Some people would even say I’m obsessed, but I just can’t help it. After years of searching for the perfect mix of crime and romance, I’ve finally found it – in Rick and Kate’s slow dance.

And now… on to my take on the romance parts of “Lucky Stiff”, Season 3, Episode 14:

• I wasn’t surprised that neither Kate nor Rick mentioned last week’s kiss. Episodes are sometimes shot out of order, and the powers that be don’t know exactly which one will air first. So they leave stuff like that out, so they don’t have to worry so much about continuity. I would have loved a mention of it, but I have a feeling that it’ll come later. It’s obvious, though, that Kate and Rick are growing much closer.

• Case in point: Kate taking Castle’s quote to heart when he said, “Money doesn’t change who you are; it just magnifies your personality.” Later, she questions him about what he did when he got his windfall, and he says that the after letting his inner child take control for a while, he realized that what the money really gave him was freedom – freedom to write, to live the way he wants, and time to spend time with Alexis. Kate must have bought this, because much to Castle’s delight, she quotes a paraphrased version to Martha later when Castle’s mom is trying to decide what to do with the money Chet left her.

• Anyone else notice that Kate always drives? She always has to be in control – like with the Ferrari in tonight’s episode. My guess is that when they finally do get together, she’ll toss him the keys. Anybody agree with me?

• Castle was enthralled with Kate while they were undercover at the dance club. This isn’t surprising if you’ve watched the show at all. But unlike in earlier episodes, especially in the first two seasons, he didn’t make any smart comments. He simply couldn’t take his eyes off her. This time it was Kate making the sarcastic remark, when the target of the undercover operation asked her if Castle was her boyfriend, and she said, “For now” with a roll of her eyes.

• And last but not least, after questioning Kate at every turn about what she’d do if she won the lottery, Castle finally knew when he heard Martha say the word “legacy”. Too excited to keep it to himself, he went to Kate’s apartment, invited himself in, and announced that she would do honor her mother’s legacy – such as starting a scholarship in her mother’s name. Turns out that on his way over, he’d called the professor at her mom’s old law school and asked about doing just that, and he wants to host a fundraiser to fund it. Kate’s walls are still up to some extent, so her first reaction is to mention how Rick can’t stay out of her personal life… but she can’t help but be touched. His excitement is contagious, and they sit down to plan the fundraiser.

They’re making progress, one tiny step at a time. A slow dance, as I mentioned before. I like that way. What do you think?

* You can learn more about Melanie Atkins here.

There was certainly a plethora of magic in the air this week. Yes indeed. And the show had some really nice scenes, including one where Castle slips on a pair of x-ray specs to check out Beckett’s hidden assets. So let’s get right to the review before the smoke clears, revealing the concealed mirrors and secret doors. And just so you know, there’s nothing up my sleeves, nothing under my hat, and…x-ray specs, huh? I wonder where you buy such a thing? Strictly for research purposes, of course…

Now, are you sitting down? I ask because I have something to say that’s both important and shocking. So here goes…I didn’t hate the Lanie Parish character this week.

I know, even Barney can’t believe I said that. But, (dare I say this too?) I actually thought the M.E. came across okay this week. Not perfect by any means, and I’ll certainly point out the bad stuff, but overall she was okay. And I’ll go so far as to say she was believable, at times. For example:

– Lanie said, “If I had to guess I’d say the victim drowned, but I won’t know for sure until I get him back to the lab.” Well, this was sort of okay. A medical examiner performs autopsies in a morgue, not a lab, but, at least this time she knew she had to do an autopsy before determining the final cause of death. Normally, she does this in the field. So, this scene was good. An improvement.

Lanie said that the petechial hemorrhaging was present around the victim’s eyes and on his face, which was a good indication that he’d drowned. Normally, in an unnatural death, petechiae is an indication of strangulation or trauma to the neck. It’s even present due to autoimmune problems. But, petechial hemorrhaging is not normally a positive indicator of drowning. Instead, she’d be looking for things like foam in the airway, evidence of clawing with the hands as the victim struggles to survive, wrinkled skin, and others. An autopsy would usually reveal water in the airways. Also, diatoms found in the body can be compared to diatoms in the water where the body was found. If they match then the body was alive when it entered the water. If they don’t match the victim was dead prior to the body entering the water, meaning he was killed elsewhere and his body was later dumped into the water.

Anyway, Lanie’s petechiae diagnosis was weak. But, later in the show she tells us the cause of death was asphyxiation, not drowning, which the presence of petechiae indicated. So, after making a full circle she ended up making sense. And she looked good when she did. The problem with her looking so good was that she was dressed to the nines while in the morgue playing with dead bodies. This was totally unrealistic.

Oh…Lanie mentioned that there was no water in the lungs, meaning the victim could not have drowned. Well, there is a condition called dry drowning, where a victim can actually asphyxiate at the time of hitting the water (a muscular paralysis brought on by the shock of hitting the water, for example). Dry drowning victims present little or no water in the lungs.

– I suppose I should mention that a woman who knew the murder victim was allowed to walk around inside the crime scene.

She also stood near the victim’s body while speaking with detectives. Nope. Not in real life.

– Beckett and Castle arrive at the magician/victim’s warehouse and while walking toward the doorless building, Beckett exclaims, “Look, look, look. Footprints!” What? Did the person who made those prints step on a totally wet ink pad before walking across the ASPHALT pavement? How else would someone make a perfect set of footprints on that type of surface. Ridiculous. And I won’t even mention Beckett’s uncanny ability to locate the brick/switch that opened a secret door in the exterior wall of the building. I know this…the next time I come across a solid brick wall I’m feeling for the loose brick instead of walking around to the front door. Beats waiting in line at the post office.

And then there were the wheelchair tire marks on the concrete floor. I’m guessing the person in the chair also rolled across that mysterious ink pad before entering the building, because the tire prints were quite clear and went on forever. This was a Three Stooges moment, folks. I say that because, well, if wheelchairs made marks like this one did, wouldn’t the floors of each and every assisted living, retirement village, etc., be totally covered in skinny tire prints, like a NASCAR track for the physically challenged?

Esposito said he matched the wheelchair tire prints and was tracking them down to a manufacturer. I know there’s a database, or reference, for footwear and vehicle tires, but one for wheelchair tires? I’m not so sure about that one. I guess it’s possible.

– Lanie backslid for a moment when she said she discovered traces of some sort of chemical in the victim’s nose and throat. She even went on to say that the chemical is used in jet oil, nerve gas, and hydraulic fluids. Well, she’d have to be specifically looking for this stuff in order to test for it. Now, if the stuff was obvious to her, then she may have ordered a test for it, but it would take quite a while to learn the results. And she wouldn’t run the tests herself. Nor would she compare fingerprints as she stated elsewhere in the show.

But, I’ll have to give Lanie P. a pass this week, since she was so obviously distracted by her new sleepover buddy, Esposito. For me, this will take some getting used to. And, I agree with Castle when he said, “Never sleep with someone you work with.”

Okay, enough of the cop stuff. Again, this show disappointed those viewers who like to help the characters solve the mystery. Those mystery-solving TV-watchers don’t like to have the killer (characters we’ve never seen until the end) simply tossed at them at the end of the show. It would have been nice to at least seen these folks walk through a scene, or something. And this is not the first time we’ve been cheated by the writers of this show.

In this episode, it was as if the writer reached a point in the script and realized that she had run out of time and needed to wrap it up. So, she reached to the sky, pulled a killer out if thin air, and then typed THE END.

Still, the show was cute, funny, and viewers, in spite of the flaws, can’t seem to get enough of it.

You know, the chemistry between Castle and Beckett simply oozed from my television set this week. And that’s great, BUT…something’s got to give. Sure, there are plenty of hot coals burning, but even the most dedicated firebug/looky-loo will eventually lose interest and go home if they don’t see a flame sometime. I think it’s coming, though. Yep, I think lips will touch lips, soon.

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Scott Williams is the writer who set this episode of Castle in motion. Williams, who has also written for Bones (see comment at the end of this post), Miami Medical, and Without A Trace, brought a new voice to the show, one that was obviously different than the others. However, a new voice didn’t stop us from hearing Lanie’s dribble.

The murder victim of the week (nicely posed in image above with hands placed on his lower chest) was snagged by a fisherman who bravely won the battle over a dead body that fought like a LIVE great white shark. Seriously, the guy was fishing with a bobber attached to his line, a line that suddenly began to peel off the reel so hard it caused the drag to squeal as if he’d hooked a monster catfish. Dead weight on a fishing line is exactly that…dead weight. Snagging a dead body is more like hooking an old tire, or tree limb.

So, with the body on deck, Lanie (again with the lividity – “Based on lividity and water temp the TOD was between 4 and 6 hours ago.”) at first says the time of death was 12 hours at most. She later changed it to the 4-6 hour time frame listed above.

Well, we all know that lividity is caused by gravity. When the heart stops pumping, blood begins to settle in the lowest areas of the body. Sort of like when it rains and you see water collecting in small ponds in the lowest areas of your yard. Anyway, the blood collects in those low areas and continues to do so, staining the tissue a deep purplish color, for approximately 6-8 hours. During that time blood remains in a liquid to semi-liquid state, becoming less fluid as time passes. At the end of the process (6-8 hours) lividity becomes fixed, which could only tell Ms. Parish that the stiff had been that way (dead) for at least 6-8 hours. HOWEVER…when a body is in water the rules change. In fact, lividity could be absent in a floater because of the water’s buoyancy. If lividity is indeed present in a body found in the water, then chances are he was killed elsewhere and later dumped in the river, lake, etc. On the other hand, lividity can be manufactured by fast moving currents. Picture the body lying on the bottom of river with rushing waters tugging at the victim’s limbs. That fast moving water can cause blood to be pulled to the downstream portions of the body, creating the purplish discoloration in those areas. But a good investigator/M.E. will know those details. Lanie does not.

Lanie – “The victim has a nasty crush injury along the temporal line.” The injury she was describing certainly didn’t match the huge laceration on the guy’s scalp. And a body in super cold water as long as this one would not show all the bright red blood around the wound. Blue, blue, blue!

Lanie Parish, V.D. (Voodoo Doctor) says something like, “Classic indicators indicate the injury was caused by blunt force.” What classic indicators? I guess the Voodoo Guide For Television M.E.’s spells those out in details we’re not privy to.

Lanie – “I’m going to zip his prints over to the precinct for an ID.” This was a good line for Lanie, much better than what she normally does—run the prints herself.

Lanie was able to look at a lead pellet and automatically determine it was a double-aught (00) pellet from a shotgun shell. That’s pretty good guessing. Actually, someone in firearms would need to make that determination. Must’ve been in her book. So was the information she used to know the pellet had been in the guy’s arm for 2 to 3 weeks.

Okay, enough about Lanie. No, wait. One more thing. She does seem to be delivering her lines in a more realistic manner—more M.E.-like. Not so cutesy. I like that. She’s at least delivering those dumb lines in a professional manner. I know, the writing is not her fault, so at least she’s attempting to make up for it by acting like a real M.E. So good for her!

Esposito is definitely emerging as a the tough guy, and I loved the takedown/clotheslining of the fleeing dockworker. And his line, “Man said don’t move,” was classic.

– Beckett undoing a button on her blouse at Castle’s request was humorous. Castle’s expression afterward was hilarious.

– Castle confronts the bartender about “skimming” money from the cash register. He knew the bartender was doing it because he was placing cherries and limes in a container as markers—cherries represented five dollars and limes ten. Crooked convenience store clerks have been known to do the same. However, instead of using fruit as markers they use coins—pennies for dollars, nickles for five dollars, etc. Each marker represents the amount of money they can safely remove from the cash register at the end of the shift without being caught (they’ve faked receipts throughout the course of the day and the extra is what they take). Anyway, good information from Castle.

And this brings up a good point. Who’s the cop here, anyway. It’s getting a little old seeing Castle know EVERYTHING while Beckett and crew slowly become keystone cops.

– Beckett and Castle head down into the basement. The suspect brings up the rear. No way this would happen in real life. Cops never allow a suspect, or anyone else for that matter, to follow behind, especially into a situation like this one. Police Safety 101.

– Beckett examines a tiny hole chipped into a concrete wall and declares, “These are buckshot holes.” WHAT????? How in the world would anyone know this merely by looking at a hole. Could’ve been caused by someone trying to drive a nail in to hang a picture…anything. Ridiculous comment. Not believable at all. Besides, the soft lead pellets she found on the floor were still intact…perfectly round and not flattened at all after striking the very hard concrete wall.

– Beckett mentioned the suspect owning a Remington 870. Just an FYI…the 870 pump (Remington 870 Wingmaster) is a popular shotgun for law enforcement officers.

– Again, Beckett and crew enter a public gathering and hold up their badges to get the attention of the speaker so they can place him under arrest. And again, this is not a safe way to arrest someone. The crowd could turn on the officers; the suspect has any number of hostages to grab, etc. Police Safety 101, page 2.

Is it just me, or is every episode becoming more and more predictable? I pegged the killer the second he appeared on screen. And the obvious clues throughout this episode were, well, obvious. And they were poorly planted. And Beckett explaining them info-dump style was sort of annoying.

The final scene where the team fades out while singing Piano Man was a nice touch.

By the way, here’s what TV Guide had to say about this season:

“Castle”: “The first season was really fun. The second was fun, but some of the writing started to lag. This season seems to be very formulaic. It’s like you can tell who the murderer is within the first 10 minutes. It’s also starting to pull a Bones, with giving the main characters other main squeezes while the fans scream at the TV set wanting Kate and Rick to get together.” — qweely Source: TV GuideABC/Karen Neal – Tuesday, November, 30, 2010, 7:30 PM

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Another episode of Castle has come and gone and now it’s time for the review. Along with the commentary will come the usual small mountain of hate mail from die-hard Castle fans who read this blog every week and then declare open season on me for the comments I write about their beloved characters. I’ve tried to explain to the haters that I actually like the show. I like the characters. I like the actors. And I like the stories…for the most part. Oh, and I really don’t take it personally when the writers butcher the world of forensics and police work. I know that Tamala Jones is an actor. I know she’s not really the worst medical examiner in the world, even though her character is. You know why the horrible portrayal of cops and pathologists doesn’t bother me? Because the show is fiction and, for the most part, it’s a comedy.

The purpose of this blog post is to educate anyone who’s interested in learning about what’s real and what’s not (about police procedure and forensics) on Castle. For example, this show frequently uses lividity to determine the time of death. That’s not real, and I’ve pointed it out several times.

One can forgive an error if it’s close to the truth, but this one is so far off base they may as well have used something from another field entirely to determine TOD. Hmm…speaking of field, why not use something from the farm in place of lividity? It would sound just as dumb to those of us in the business of crime-solving. So let’s substitute “pig’s snout” in place of lividity each time Lanie incorrectly uses the term.

Okay, that’s out of the way. So off we go…

This week’s body find was a double play—two stiffs in one casket. Now that’s a brilliant way to dispose of a body, isn’t it. Well, it is if the killer is a mortician. Anyone else would have a hard time sneaking a body inside the casket after it was sealed by the funeral home folks. And I think the embalmers would notice an extra corpse prior to sealing the box.

I figure the best two places to commit a murder would be a funeral home (then you could easily incinerate the evidence) and a morgue (tough place for CSI to sort out DNA, huh?).

Did you know there was a third murder this week? That’s right, a third victim was brutally killed off screen and M.E. Lanie P. should be charged for repeatedly stabbing me with her stupid babble. And one of the first words out of her mouth was lividity (I wrote the first section of this post BEFORE I watched the show). That’s how predictable she is.

Again, let’s get Lanie’s goofiness out of the way:

– So (remember, we’re substituting words here) Lanie says, “According to the pig’s snout the time of death was between 7 and 9 last night. See how ridiculous that sounds? Well, that’s what it sounds like to me when she uses other terms and procedures incorrectly.

– Lanie P. also said she found a bruise on the back of the victim’s neck, but it wasn’t the cause of death. The only way she could possibly know that is because she’d already read the script. Anyone else would have to wait until the autopsy was complete.

– She said she found gray nylon fibers on the body. How’d she know they were nylon? They hadn’t been tested yet. BUT, she did say later that she’d sent the fibers to the lab for testing. HOORAY! She finally sent something to a lab instead of doing it all herself. Castle writers…that wasn’t too hard, was it? That’s all you had to do to make this character more believable. Doesn’t take any more time or space to have her say things like that. Lanie even sounded more credible (for that one split second) when she mentioned it.

– She told Beckett that she’d found a needle mark in the victim’s neck. She then said the person who caused the needle mark to be there had inserted an empty syringe into the carotid artery and then pumped an air bubble into the brain, which caused the death. How’d she know the syringe was empty? No way to tell. Besides, it was far too soon to have any tox results back. Cause of death could have been any number of things.

Okay, enough of L.P.’s nonsense. Let’s move on…

– I like it when Beckett and Castle bounce ideas back and forth. Good way to come up with theories.

– Beckett tells the guy (an investigator) who was last seen with the victim that he’d better cooperate or she’d have to arrest him. For what?

– Beckett tells one of her partners to have a prison fax her a list of everyone who’d visited an inmate during the past six months. I’m sure the prison officials are still laughing at her request. And they had even more reason to bust a gut when she told her cohorts to go to the prison and tell the warden to search an inmate’s cell and then bring that prisoner back to the police department. An officer has no authority at a prison. None. And a prison would never allow a police officer to simple drive over and pick up an inmate. If officers need to speak to a prisoner they go to the facility. Prisoners aren’t allowed outside without a prison escort, and only then for court or medical reasons (unless they’re on a work detail).

– The whole “fake a stroke using morphine and other drugs” scenario was totally unbelievable. Apparently, no one from the show did any research about prison procedures. Where were the mandatory prison guards/officers during this entire silly scenario? What about how the nurses obtained the drugs? Narcotics have to be accounted for. They’re kept in a locked cabinet that requires a code or key to be opened. And the requirements for documentation are tough.

And someone from the morgue released the body of a prison inmate before prison officials were able to confirm the death?? No way…just plain silly.

At the end we see the suspects (the male nurse and the prison escapee who faked her own death) sitting in the same cell. That would never happen. Male and female prisoners are segregated for obvious reasons. And these two offered double the reason for separation—they’re lovers and they’d just pulled off an escape.

And wasn’t it sweet that Beckett was able to report that charges would be dropped against the two because of a lack of evidence in the female inmate’s original trial.  Well, I’m sorry, but that has nothing to do with the escape, the illegal drugs, document falsifying, abuse of a corpse, and the dozens of other crimes she and her boyfriend had just committed. Those charges would stand.

The rest of the show (the lovey-dovey stuff) was pretty believable, and good, with the exception of one major point. Someone said Taylor Swift could…well, you be the judge. Here she is with Stevie Nicks.