Castle Season 5 Review “Scared to Death” – Three Days to Live

When Castle gets it right, it really gets it right, and this week’s episode, “Scared to Death,” got it absolutely right. Both intriguing and funny, it gave us an engaging mystery, a good dose of humor and a cameo from Wes Craven. What’s not to love?

It could have ended up being, as Mr. Craven said, derivative, as the case involved two victims who were seemingly scared to death after receiving a creepy video that foretold their deaths. Hello, Ringu! But as Beckett refused to believe an evil spirit was responsible, or that Castle would be the next victim after he unknowingly watched the video, she doggedly pursued a real-life human being, rather than a ghost. That left Castle to consult his buddy, Wes Craven, on the pretext of writing a horror film. Craven told them to look to the video for clues about the killer, which led them to a dead serial killer who promised to live beyond death.

Being dead put him off Beckett’s suspect list, but not Castle’s. They ended up turning to his brother, a mental patient who set off all the creepy alarms, but being locked up sort of put him out of the running, too. It seemed like Castle might be right, especially when they discovered that the serial killer’s body was missing from his grave.

Castle and Beckett could only try to protect the killer’s next victim, the third person to testify in the serial killer’s trial, but when they reached his cabin, they found out that the victims/witnesses had been coerced into identifying the wrong man, and a gross miscarriage of justice led the daughter of the wrongly accused man to snap and start murdering the people who had put her father away and driven him to death.

Okay, when I tried to explain it, I realized that this case was a lot more complicated than I’d thought, but I enjoyed the twists and turns, probably because I just enjoy watching Nathan Fillion work. It was a good episode, even though no mention was made of the trauma of Alexis’s kidnapping. It was back to business as usual, complete with sexy innuendos between Beckett and Castle. I’m totally fine with that. As you know, I wasn’t a fan of the kidnapping special, so I was more than ready to get back to normal.

But what did you think? Let me know below! And remember you can always follow me on Twitter @krieli1 so you never miss a review.