'Castle' Review: 'Significant Others' gets scandalous and soapy

After taking a few weeks off for the holidays, “Castle” returned tonight with “Significant Others.” The new, super fun episode was filled with some high-profile guest stars, good, old-fashioned soapy twists and turns and plenty of awkward, funny and cute moments for Castle and Beckett as they explored a new aspect of their relationship: temporary cohabitation.

While Beckett’s apartment was being fumigated, Castle had invited her to stay with him. Alexis was supposed to be in Paris with her mother, but she came down with mono and was forced to stay home. Beckett insisted that she didn’t mind at all that Castle had to take care of his daughter, but then his ex-wife Meredith (“Scandal’s” Darby Stanchfield) showed up on his doorstep and declared that she was going to stay there too and take care of her daughter.

Beckett was NOT amused by Castle agreeing to let his ex-wife stay there while she was there, a sentiment that Laney adamantly backed up as she warned Beckett to guard her territory from the “deep fried Twinkie” Castle always seemed to fall back into bed with. Ryan and Esposito were also quick to point out that Castle was making a huge mistake. Castle tried to remedy it by booking a luxury hotel room for him and Beckett since he couldn’t bring himself to ask Meredith to leave, but Beckett was not having that and told him that they were going home.

The next morning, Meredith came downstairs in her underwear and helped herself to some coffee while Beckett suggested that she put on some pants. Meredith was confused since she wasn’t going anywhere and then Castle appeared and poor Beckett was left out when the two shared a private moment over how Meredith always put nutmeg in Castle’s coffee. Later, Beckett was at work and Meredith called to ask her to have dinner with her. Castle was completely against it, but Beckett agreed. When the two women came home, Kate told Castle that her opinion of him had changed while Meredith nodded solemnly. Castle became flustered and the two burst out laughing; they’d been playing a joke on him.

Kate told Castle that after spending time with Meredith, she understood that the woman was impossible to say ‘no’ to. But she also warned him that as long as they were together, Meredith was not allowed to have anymore overnight visits. Castle agreed. Alexis and Martha convinced Meredith to head to Paris solo and before she left, Kate asked her why things didn’t work out between her and Castle. Meredith admitted that Castle was great and everything she could want and he knew everything about her, but the problem was that she didn’t really know him. She pointed out that he never opened up to her when she asked how he felt about not knowing his father and that triggered something for Kate, making her realize that maybe she doesn’t know Castle as well as she thinks. Uh-oh…

By the way, while all of this redheaded drama was going on at Castle’s place, they were actually working on a murder case. A high profile female divorce attorney had been murdered in her car and had her throat slashed with an ice pick (gruesome). The attorney, Michelle, only represented the wives so the first assumption was that it was a husband who had murdered her. But as the detectives and Castle dug into her life, they discovered that she’d been acting strange lately and had wanted someone investigated, but they were having trouble figuring out who and why.

Castle and Beckett went to talk to her last client, Samantha (“General Hospital’s” Nancy Lee Grahn), whose case Michelle had lost. They found Samantha triumphantly destroying a lot of the priceless art and antiques that her husband had gotten in the divorce. He returned home in the middle of it and started breaking her stuff and then Beckett had them both arrested for annoying her, basically.

After that, they zeroed in on another suspect played by another “General Hospital” (and “Melrose Place” and a bunch of other soaps) alum, Jack Wagner. His character was a professional golfer, whose wife had gone missing and most people suspected that he killed her. Castle and Beckett assumed that he’d had Michelle killed because she’d been able to prove that he teamed up with Walter (Samantha’s husband) to throw his wife Leanne off their boats while they were sailing as rich people do, I guess. But then Castle noticed a resemblance between the wife of an account the detectives had questioned earlier about Michelle’s finances and Leanne’s picture. Some features were different, but they were one in the same.

It turned out that the golfer had been an awful husband, but Leanne didn’t want to be seen as the gold-digger ex-wife so she’d decided to fake her death in a way that would make her husband look like a killer. As far as revenge plots go, it was a pretty solid one, but then she fell in love with someone else and was hiding in New York in plain sight under her new identity (not a good idea). Michelle had found out and was planning on exposing her so obviously she had to die. Leanne was angry that Michelle had the nerve to side against her since they were both women and solidarity and all that. Beckett arrested her for murder.

I really enjoyed this episode and I cannot stress enough how much I love Darby Stanchfield. It was fun seeing her relishing in her role as the flighty Meredith. This was also a great way to introduce an unexpected bump in the road for Castle and Beckett. I’m looking forward to seeing where the story goes and whether we might be seeing more layers to Castle soon.

Did you enjoy the episode? Who was your favorite guest character? Hit the comments below and tell us what you think!