Murder Most Fowl

**Writer**: Matt Pyken

**Director**: Bryan Spicer

#### DUSTJACKETS BLURB

'Lightbulb' Lenny was a harmless subway maintenance worker and birdwatcher, so why did someone murder him? This puzzling case quickly becomes a matter of urgency when Beckett and Castle discover that Len's death is connected to the kidnapping of a 12-year-old boy.

### Guest cast

* Ken Baumann - ASHLEY LINDEN
* John Pyper-Ferguson - DEAN DONEGAL
* Ever Carradine - MIRIELLE LEFCOURT
* Rick Hearst - DR. ELLIOT LEFCOURT
* Carmen Argenziano - MARIO RIVERA
* David Dean Bottrell - BYRON H SINGER
* Claudia Choi - CSU PHOTO TECH
* Danny Downey - BMX RIDER 1
* Prescilliana Esparolini - TERESA DE LA TORRE
* Eddie Fiola - BMX RIDER 2
* Gattlin Griffith - TYLER DONEGAL
* Paul Jerome - ROBERT KINCAID
* Christopher May - ARTHUR SANSONE
* Al Pugliese - PRETZEL VENDOR
* Steve Rizzo - THOMAS MESTRICK

### Music

* "Infiltraitor" - CLIFF LIN (Teaser)
* "Salt & Spoon" - PAJARO SUNRISE (Tag)

### Literary and other references

* *Ben* was a 1972 movie about a boy's friendship with a killer rat.
* *The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3* is a 1974 movie about the hijacking of a subway train. A remake with Denzel Washington was released in 2009.
* *Money Train* is a 1995 movie about transit cop who steals a train full of subway fares.
* The Sherlock Holmes reference, which Castle explains.
* *24* was a television show about Jack Bauer, a counterterrorist agent. The show had a unique format, with the action of each season taking place in a single day.

### Memorable moments

* The feather scene.
* The purpose-of-the-subway discussion.
* Castle guessing what BHS stands for.
* Singer's interrogation.
* Alexis' elaborate rat trap.

### Quotable quotes

* CASTLE: You know, I understand ferrets as a pet. Snakes, spiders, even a hairless mole. But a rat?
BECKETT: Probably kids in this city who keep cockroaches as pets.
CASTLE: You're probably right. What's the strangest pet you ever had?
BECKETT: You.
* CASTLE: See, that's why you'll never be a bestselling novelist. No sense of drama.
BECKETT: I find that the dead bodies are usually enough.
* CASTLE: The man was an unsung hero. Cut down by the forces of big bulb.
ESPOSITO: Big Bulb?
CASTLE: The filament-industrial complex.
BECKETT: Lenny's buddy is delusional if he actually thinks Len was killed by a lightbulb conspiracy.
* BECKETT: The thing about murderers is they tend not to have solid alibis.
CASTLE: Usually because they're murdering somebody.

### Just the facts

* Alexis' boyfriend Ashley has a 5-year-old pet rat named Theodore that Alexis is babysitting.
* When Alexis was 4 she and Castle went Christmas shopping at a mall in White Plains, and she got bored while he was trying on a fedora. She crawled under a clothing rack and went to sleep, causing Castle to call mall security in a panic and search for an hour before they found her.

### Oops

* They do have a picture of the killer's face. It's not a very good one, given that it's obscured by a muzzle flash, but it could have helped.
* Not really a goof, but it's kind of strange that the two halves of this episode have basically no connection to each other; it would have made more sense if the kidnapper had turned out to be someone from Lenny's life.
* In 1x09, Beckett says that the FBI has jurisdiction over kidnappings. Why didn't the Feds get involved the moment they realized that they were dealing with a child abduction? The crew solved the murder. The kidnapping technically isn't under their jurisdiction.

### Branch libraries

* News
* Reviews
	+ CliqueClack - Castle--The strange case of Lightbulb Len (9 Nov 10)
* Promos