Castle: Secret Santa (2012)
I haven’t been keeping up with Castle this season, so I don’t know whether this is normal now, but this was heavier on the melodrama than I really like. Now, there was also plenty of charm in this episode, particularly at the beginning. Castle and Beckett investigate a dead man in a Santa suit who, predictably, fell mysteriously out of the sky. The case is interesting, and the banter is fun, but all the little sad subplots about the various characters got a bit tedious. Not every named character needs angst! Plus, I am really tired of Beckett having only the one character trait for every occasion. (Best line of the night: after Beckett explained how the long-ago death of her mother keeps her from enjoying Christmas, Erin leaned over to me and whispered “So she became...a BAT.”) All of that said, I did still enjoy watching this. I don’t know how much fun it is in total for someone who isn’t familiar with the show, but Erin seemed to really enjoy the first half or so, although by