At the beginning of season 2 Kate Beckett is still upset with Castle for looking into her mother’s case, which she had closed a while back as it was taking over her entire life. She feared that she would drown in it and left it. While she is still stewing in anger Captain Montgomery makes her sit with a journalist who is writing about her crime-solving partnership with Castle. Kate reluctantly sits for the interview while Castle poses with two hot models in skimpy cop outfits for the photographs. They are called to investigate a dead body found up a tree, which gets abducted on the way to the morgue, leaving them drawn into the world of drug smuggling, the Russian mob and high stakes poker in Chinatown.

Castle also apologizes to Kate for butting in and she forgives him. Next Castle & Beckett make a bet with Esposito & Ryan on who solves their murder first but find that the two deaths are connected. Then we have a model who is killed by her boyfriend who thought that she was cheating on him. While on the case Castle runs into a young model who used to babysit Alexis and he brings them together for a reunion. Castle’s first book featuring Nikki Heat is out as they investigate a conman’s death. Castle & Beckett must next solve the death of a promising young comic book writer who also was into the vampire culture. One of my fav episodes is the death of a rising music star, singer of a rock band and how she gave hints of who killed her in the lyrics of her last song.

Castle and Beckett have their hands full looking into the death of a man whose body is found stuffed in a garbage chute when two women arrive to identify the body – one claiming to be the victim’s wife, the other his fiancée. Meanwhile, Alexis volunteers at the precinct as part of a civics class project, and works to track down the owner of a packet of photos left over from a case gone cold years ago. Another great episode is of a man who has amnesia might have been a witness to the murder of a art gallery owner. Castle reconnects with a former girlfriend on her wedding day when one of her bridesmaids is found murdered, causing sparks to fly between them once again, and Beckett to have to deal with the possibility of being jealous. Castle tries to hide from Beckett the fact that a newspaper that ranked him as one of the city’s most eligible bachelors also linked them romantically.

The duo also investigate the death of a college student who moonlighted as a dominatrix. Beckett and Castle team up with experienced FBI Special Agent Jordan Shaw in the hunt for a serial killer with an apparent obsession for ‘Nikki Heat’ and later it turns out that Beckett herself in the next target. Her apartment is blown up but Beckett finds shelter and when the killer kidnaps Shaw to get to Beckett Beckett finds herself relying on Castle’s instincts as a mystery writer to save Shaw and herself. Then a talkshow host, who interviewed Castle on his show is dead the next morning and the investigation finds that his sidekick did it. Meanwhile Beckett starts a brief relationship with a robbery detective Tom Demming who assists on a few cases. Castle begins to feel like the third wheel even going so far as to compete with Demming in solving cases but at the end of the season he invites his ex-wife Gina, who is also his editor.

Against this backdrop, Castle and Beckett struggle inwardly with their feelings for each other, even though Beckett is officially dating Demming and Castle is severely behind in his writing for the second Nikki Heat book. Castle tells Beckett that the case will be their last for a while as he is going to his house in the Hamptons for the entire summer, finish his book and Gina joins him. Beckett is stunned as she had realize that she has feelings for an broke things off with Demming. Montgomery, Ryan, Lainey, Esposito & Beckett have a send off for Castle at the station before he leaves.

Holy crap! I love this show! Watching episode 2 of the new series The River at night was awesome, it did give me the creeps! Fucking awesome, we all need a good scare like this without gore & blood.

Our crew trudge on in The Mabus and look through the backup of recordings for clues to Emmett’s whereabouts. Lena hits on the idea that a bite infection that Emmett had mention to her before his disappearance would be key – they look for the bite in the tapes and as the infection grows that must be the later videos. They find a destination in the forest and decide to leave the next morning to search around for any signs of Emmett. That night a dragonfly containing the spirit of Emmett, through some means of the black magic he has been experimenting with, comes to the boat and enters the mouth of Jahel while she is sleeping. She immediately awakes and goes to Tess and starts talking to her in a deeper voice & in English (which Jahel doesn’t speak). Emmett through Jahel tells Tess to abandon the search and to leave the Amazon and go back. Tess disagrees and while asking more questions, Jahel falls into unconsciousness.

The others decides to leave Jahel in the care of her father Emilio and head out to the forest. And that’s when the fun starts. As they walk through the thick forest, they find a grave site with the buried remains of a few people who had come here before. Then they see a figure lying among some fallen trees and the sound of a little girl sobbing sadly. Tess approaches the figure thinking that to be a little girl and asks her in the native tongue is she is lost and where her mother is. As the camera pans closer we first see a face and hair of a small child, but as it turns it turns out to be a monkey that was wearing the mask of a girl’s face! When it turns and we see that the face is that of a doll and the monkey shrieks – holy fuck!

That was enough to make me sit up and press rewind (I’m downloading the series) and watch it 2 more times! Stunned & a bit creeped out, the team move on and find a site with a ton of baby dolls & other toys tied to a couple trees, looking creepier than hell. This shakes the team but one of them tells of a legend in this area of a small girl who drowned in a nearby pool of water while her mother was busy. It seems that the spirit/ghost of the little girl haunts the area and she is crying for her mother. The dolls are tied to the trees by people as a tribute to her and to appease her spirit. As it is late the team pitch their tents and try to get some sleep. They fix cameras on the trees to capture themselves settling down for the evening & sleeping. A creepy doll is caught turning it’s head to get a good look at the people in the tents. At night after some wind picks up, Lincoln is dragged out of his tent by an unseen force. They decide to leave the camp and go back to the boat only the spirit has other ideas. Lincoln is told to keep a bear that he found, Marberley which was his as a child and which Emmett possibly tied to the tree, back in the tree.

Lincoln grudgingly does so but it falls down twice. A third time later many dolls come falling down and the team runs away but Tess is missing. They search for her and find her being dragged by something into a dirty pool of water. When they jump in and can’t find her the only option they can think of is to find the little girl’s mother’s grave, which is nearby, dig up her bones and place her skeleton in the pool. The skeleton sinks down and a few seconds later, a dirty & disheveled Tess climbs out – from the grave the skeleton was dug out from. She is taken back to the boat where Jahel has also recovered. The team moves on.

Absolutely awesome & creepy, without lots of blood & gore. The River has a lot going for it. Its central premise is strong and there are plenty of opportunities for thrills, both mystical and mundane. Good acting as well. Whew! can’t wait for the next episode although it stinks that they only have 8 for the first season. Or is it a one season thingy? I don’t know but I will follow the show and keep updates here.

I heard about this tv series yesterday and downloaded their pilot episode (the show premiered on the 7th of Feb, two days ago) and will later tonight watch the second episode as well. The River is a spanking brand new paranormal/horror/adventure series created by Oren Peli (he of the Paranormal Activity franchise) and Michael R. Perry. Steven Speilberg is attached as on of the executive producers of this series (is there anything he isn’t involved in?) In continuing Peli tradition, the show is on found footage, a tv shown within a tv show type scenario.Veteran character actor Bruce Greenwood, Leslie Hope & Joe Anderson star in an ensemble cast.

What’s the show based on? Well famed nature explorer & tv show host of ‘Undiscovered Country’ Dr. Emmett Cole went looking for magic in an uncharted part of the amazon jungle in an expedition and went missing. After 6 months of searching for him and having no contact, he & his crew are given up for dead. 6 months after he vanished his emergency beacon goes active and his wife Tess Cole convinces their estranged son, medical graduate Lincoln to join the team she’s setup to go find him. Although he is skeptical, Lincoln agrees as the network funding the search & equipment won’t do so until he joins up. Along with mother & son we have Emmet’s long-time friend and Undiscovered Country producer Clark Quietly, mechanic Emilio Valenzuela and his daughter Jahel; Lena Landry, daughter of cameraman Russ Landry who disappeared along with Cole; and Captain Kurt Bryndilson, head of the expedition.

They find the beacon after a couple of days but no boat or the passengers. The proceed on and find the boat, abandoned or so they think at first. A scary sound emanates from below deck, inside the panic room, which is welded shut. When the finally open it up they find a carved wooden object underneath a blanket. When Lincoln turns it over, something rushes out and injures Lena. Jahel tells Lincoln that the thing from the wood isn’t an animal but a spirit who wanders looking for blood until it’s whole. The wood is a coffin to catch an angry soul and they fed it with Lena’s blood & now it’s strong enough to kill again. Lena finds the backup tapes in the boat and a shocked crew watches as the tapes show a wild and craze-looking Emmet immersed in dark magic and panicking as he tells the camera the engine’s dead and half the crew is dead. Despite that he wants to keep going.

Later the creature attacks and kills cameraman Sammy but it gives a signal to Tess that Emmett is still alive. Tess believes that the creature is the spirit of one of Emmett’s crew. Her resolve strengthened, Tess tells the crew that they are going to find her husband.