Castle: Last Action Hero Review

Warning: Spoilers Ahead. 

Though there are parallels between Rick and the actor who gets in over his head while trying to play out his action hero fantasy in the latest episode of Castle, they are never exploited or examined. Instead, Rick is, to put it mildly, as annoyingly eager as a child when he gets to meet the heroes of his youth in his role as a novelist pretending to play out his gumshoe fantasies — the problem is, one of those heroes is very dead. 

Lance Delroca is the victim. The star of cheesy 80s action films, a recovering drug addict, and a leukemia survivor who was poised for a comeback in the Expendables-like old bro team-up film that is being helmed by his former co-star and longtime friend, played by Ted McGinley – aka Mr. Scream in Wayne’s World 2 and Jefferson in Married with Children. Stan Gable is basically playing Sylvester Stallone. 

Since it’s a police procedural, I naturally assume that McGinley’s character will be the eventual killer and that he and Lance were lovers in the nighttime, before Mr. Scream had to silence his secret lover, but that turns out to be untrue.

So does Lance’s story about being a member of Spain’s CNI (it’s like the CIA, but with more matadors). Apparently, he was a mere goat herder (half as hard as being a nerf herder, especially in the high rain season) who lied to advance his career, but while Lance isn’t really an assassin, he still possess ass kicking skills that he unleashes on the henchmen of El Jeffe, a former co-star who went from playing drug dealers to being a drug dealer. 

Clearly, the killer is El Jeffe (who has a real name that I am ignoring because El Jeffe is more fun), right?

Wrong, but that doesn’t mean that he isn’t a shady character right at the center of Lance’s mission. And to extract proof of El Jeffe’s involvement, a Double Dragon-attired Rick, Mr. Scream, and the rest of the faux-Expendables get into a ninja party van and break into El Jeffe’s office at his nightclub to steal a slot car that Lance had put a microphone into. 

Why would Lance bug El Jeffe? He apparently did that and traded his soon-to-be ex-wife half of a beach house for $200k in an effort to free Trey, Mr. Scream’s son, from the grasp of El Jeffe’s drug organization. Something he felt he had to do because Trey was really his son. Turn down for… WHAT? I know!

So, Mr. Scream is the killer and I’m a liar, right? Wrong again. It’s his wife, played by Krista Allen, who also appeared on Married with Children once, and THAT is a fact that lived in my head.

Apparently, Mrs. Scream (again, that name is more fun for me) had an affair with Lance the goat herder back in the day and the result was Trey. She would have gotten away with it too, if it wasn’t for Lance’s leukemia and the results of a bone marrow donor profile.

So, case solved, everybody’s happy, right? You’re terrible at this. Apparently Kate has some sour feelings over getting rid of her apartment and Rick’s complete lack of sentimentality over the place. Which is odd considering how much he cared about a dead action star and a movie poster from his past.

All in all, this was a thoroughly forgettable episode with a “who cares?” twist ending a lot of smirky reaction shots from Stana Katic as she watched Nathan Fillion highlight the worst parts of Rick Castle while Esposito looked cool, Lanie offered a line of BFF advice, and Ryan tried out silly catchphrases. This is what the worst possible timeline version of Castle is, so hopefully next week’s Christmas themed episode puts us back on the road to wellville. 

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