CASTLE: Seamus Dever Talks ‘Dial M for Mayor,’ the ’40s Noir Episode and the Upcoming Two-Parter

In most of the pre-episode buzz for “Dial M for Mayor,” the focus has been on how the mayor being a suspect may impact the Castle-Beckett relationship. And, to be fair, that is a pretty big question.

But what does the potential loss of Castle mean for the other cops in the precinct? To try and get the dish on that, I talked with Seamus Dever (Ryan) about what fans can expect from the next batch of episodes…

In tonight’s episode, the mayor is considered a major suspect in a murder. Given that he was the one to get Castle into the precinct, how is Ryan dealing with the potential of losing Castle as a coworker?
Seamus Dever: I think Ryan is very fearful of that happening, because in the very beginning, we started off with Castle as an outsider, but then we realized that he helps us solve crimes and we can really learn from watching somebody go out of the box with their thinking. Even if it’s sometimes wacky and always involves the CIA or something. But a lot of times Castle is right about his instincts. A long time ago, we abandoned the idea that he was an outsider; he’s one of us. He’s one of our partners. So I think Ryan is a little nervous this is going to affect one of his partnerships. He’s doing everything he can to prevent that from happening.

Good to know. And you guys just wrapped filming on the 1940s episode. How was that experience?
SD: It was great. It was so much fun. It was sort of like opposites day — we get to play characters that weren’t Kevin Ryan, Javier Esposito, Kate Beckett. They were, personality-wise, very different than ourselves. Doing a different genre, so we get to play with some of that. It was nice to change things up. I call the episode, like in STAR TREK, this is our holodeck episode. It really does allow us to use some fantasy and see where else these people you do scenes with that are similar every episode, to see where that would go if you can imagine them in the 1940s. In 1947 to be specific. It was fun.

I also look at it as a little Christmas present to ourselves, because we get to dress up in these clothes from the 40s and our hair is all waxed down. And there’s a band playing around us, and we’re in this cool location and it looks just awesome. Tamala Jones (Lanie) gets to sing. She is a gorgeous singer and we get to see that. It was a lot of fun and I think the audience is going to really like the fact that we’re doing something different. It was fun for us to break out of something and do some things different. I didn’t think it would happen until the seventh or eighth season, so it was nice to do it so early for us.

They didn’t make you wait those extra years! On a much more serious note, CASTLE has a big two-parter coming up. What can you tease about that?
SD: It’s great, it’s a really well-written script. And Jennifer Beals is guesting as a CIA agent, which is interesting, because there is some information that gets revealed — that Castle knows her from the past. [Laughs] And may have, in fact, used her as an inspiration for one of his fictitious characters, as well. We get to see a little bit of that from Beckett. It was an interesting wrinkle, because I read it, and I thought, we haven’t had to deal with that aspect of Beckett and Castle [yet].

I think some fun stuff gets revealed in the pursuit of this case with the CIA. There’s a lot of stuff they’re not allowed to tell. They’re sworn to secrecy for confidential sake and they’re not allowed to tell Esposito and Ryan. [Laughs] There’s a lot of stuff we’re in the dark with in this episode!

But it’s big. Our two-parters are always big. There’s always an explosion, it feels like we’re making this big movie, usually. One of my favorite directors, Bryan Spicer is directing. He’s done some of our best episodes in the past, so it’ll be good to work with him again. And there’s a nice cliffhanger at the end of the first episode, so I think fans are going to look forward…it’s another classic two-parter for CASTLE.  We’ve done those well in the past and I think this will be no different.

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Which episode are you most looking forward to?

Related:

CASTLE: Seamus Dever Teases ”Till Death Do Us Part,’ Ryan’s Wedding and More
CASTLE Casts LOST’s Mark Pellegrino For Its Noir Episode
CASTLE: Andrew Marlowe Talks ‘Cuffed,’ Beckett and Castle’s Relationship, His Dream Guest Star and More

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