Slice of Death

**Writer**: Scott Williams

**Director**: Steve Boyum

#### DUSTJACKETS BLURB

There's Terrific Nick's and Authentic Nick's, Terrific Authentic Nick's and Authentic Terrific Nick's....but which one is hanging out with Keyser Söze? And who put that reporter in Terrific Ni--, er, Authentic, er, SOME Nick's pizza oven?

### Guest cast

* Darin Brooks – NICK JR.
* Beth Behrs – GINGER
* Liz Vassey – MONICA WYATT
* John Ciccolini – VINNIE DELFINO (TERRIFIC NICK)
* Gary Basaraba – RALPH CARBONE (AUTHENTIC NICK)
* Gregg Daniel – WALT SHAW
* Joe Guzaldo – LUCA SABALINI (AUTHENTIC TERRIFIC NICK)
* Peter Onorati – SAL MALAVOLTA (TERRIFIC AUTHENTIC NICK)
* Stephan Smith Collins – HARLEY
* Alton Clemente – SERVER

### Music

* "Anchor of Love" - LINDSEY RAY
* "Burn it Off" - BLUES EXPLOSION

### Literary and other references

* The pizza wars featured in this episode are loosely based (without the corpse!) on the competing "Ray's Pizza" businesses in New York.
* Angry Birds is a hugely popular smartphone game app.
* Film noir is a category of crime drama, particularly popular in the 1940s. *The Maltese Falcon* is probably the most famous example. A *femme fatale* was a beautiful but deadly woman in noir films.
* Herman Melville wrote *Moby Dick* about a white whale and Captain Ahab who goes crazy trying to catch him.

### Memorable moments

* Beckett stopping the elevator just before Monica Wyatt leaves.
* All the bad pizza jokes.

### Quotable quotes

* NICK JR: She was kinda throwing up a lot, so the paramedics had to take her in. Oh, but I kept her number. *(Castle tries to take the number from him but Nick won't let go)*
CASTLE: I don't think there's going to be a second date.
* MONTGOMERY: The wife loves Terrific Nick's. I didn't have the heart to tell her that it now came in full bodied flavour.
* ESPOSITO: It's like being a cop, bro. You survive a firefight with a dozen armed gangbangers only to get hit by a car while writing a speeding ticket on the LIE.
* BECKETT: You had a lot of imaginary friends growing up, didn't you?
CASTLE: Still do.
* RYAN: Did someone find naked pictures of you again?
CASTLE: It's not me, it's Alexis.
* CASTLE: Retaliation is not the answer. You get her back, she gets you back and then one day one of you ends up in a pizza oven. Is that what you want?
* SAL: Harley called me that night and said he needed to throw something in my oven overnight. He didn't say what it was.
CASTLE: Yeah, but you knew it wasn't a tray of lasagna.

### Just the facts

* Alexis was dis-invited to her friend Lauren's birthday party, and when she crashed it anyway she saw Lauren kissing Ashley. Castle tries to help by getting Ryan to have a friend take down the pictures from Lauren's website, but it backfires when Lauren and Alexis get into a fight over it. It turns out that Lauren was jealous of all the time Alexis and Ashley were spending together.
* In *At Dusk We Die*, Castle had the psychotic paralegal kill her boss and put him in a pottery kiln to get rid of the body.
* This episode marks the first time Montgomery has ever mentioned his wife. (He has previously mentioned having kids.)
* Esposito tears up when he mentions a cop who survives a shootout only to get killed when writing a speeding ticket; it has to have happened to a partner or friend of his.
* The Spolano crime family from "A Death in the Family" (1x10) is mentioned again - Terrific Nick's second cousin once removed works for them.
* Ryan was working in Narcotics in 2003.
* This is the second ep in a row that Beckett has given Castle parenting advice.

### Oops

* It is impossible to use a touch screen with gloves on (unless they are specially made gloves, which it doesn't look like these are). And why is Beckett wearing gloves inside anyway?
* 'You don't find him, he finds you' and 'I call him and he delivers more drugs' don't seem to dovetail particularly well. Also, if Harley is so high up in this organization, why doesn't he have minions to deliver the drugs for him?