Okay, so this is kind-of a cheat because it totally seems from the title like I'm going to be ranting about Carly again, but actually I'm going to talk about something I really enjoyed instead (a novel concept around here, I know). Unfortunately for the Port Charles faithful, it wasn't something that happened on General Hospital. Luckily for me, General Hospital's very own Dr. Hottie, Jason Thompson will be guest-starring on an upcoming episode of Castle (which is now filming), so last week's Castle is totally fair-game for my blog about Port Charles happenings.
The episode opens at Sunfair Kennel's dog show where world-renowed trainer Francisco Pilar is about to make his ruling for "best in show". There's a disturbance in the audience as reality star Kay Cappuccio, and her manager/boyfriend Reggie Starr (
hiya Justin Hartley) take their front-row seats amid cameras flashing.
Mere minutes after making his controversial ruling, Francisco Pilar is found in his dressing room strangled to death by a dog leash 
. Duh-duh-duh. Beckett and Castle are first led to a disgruntled contestant who had filed an appeal of Pilar's decision just moments before his murder. The contestant shares his suspicion that Pilar was "on the take" and that his association with shady Vegas-types may have caused his death.
When Beckett asks for proof of his allegations, the gentleman replies "you want proof? 
THAT is who Francisco selected best in show (arching his eyebrows disdainfully in the direction of a lovely Afghan Hound). Just look at that mutt, now look at my Max, now the mutt, now back to my Max, that's all the proof I need". Ha! 
My description does not do the visual justice, but it was hysterical, the actor was perfect. Working in the Veterinary field, I have a fair amount of experience with show people and they can be a tad on the looney side***. Anyone ever seen Christopher Guest's Best in Show? Totally not an exaggeration.
***It goes without saying doesn't it, that I mean more looney than soap viewers who get irrationally angry when storylines don't go their way, imbibe Arbor Mist heavily and rant lengthily on their blog about the suck-i-tude of the head writer whilst the vein in their forehead throbs mightily?
Next on the suspect list, Kay Cappuccio herself, having been photographed leaving Francisco Pilar's dressing room during the time-frame for his murder. Castle wants to know why a celebrity would have killed a dog trainer. Beckett has a better question - - "how does this woman have her own perfume line, an army of paparazzi outside her apartment, millions of twitter followers, dozens of magazine covers, all with no discernable talent to account for it?" 
Say what you will about Paris Hilton and Kim Khardasian, I would argue that getting Americans to give a tiny rat's heinie what they're wearing or who they're making sex-tapes with, IS a talent in and of itself. And also, my fellow Americans, I'm disappointed in you.
As Beckett and Castle enter Kay's apartment, paparazzi start wildly snapping pictures of Castle until they realize he is not Jason Bateman (hilarious inside joke because Nathan Fillion once got out of a speeding ticket because the cop thought he was Jason Bateman and asked for an autograph for his wife). Upon questioning Kay, they discover that she had hired Francisco Pilar to train her chihuahua Lolita because "she has some minor aggression issues". The dog is hysterical in it's diamond-studded collar and cotour jacket, as Rick reaches down to pet her and she lunges ferociously at his hand. "I assume you asked for your money back" he deadpans.
It turns out that Kay Cappuccio actually found Pilar's body, but fled the scene because she "has to be really careful with her image, it's all she has". Rick replies "Yeah, no, we were just talking about that". Hee! 
Francisco had returned Lolita after only a few days at his facility, refusing to train her and cryptically demanding to know who Kay was "working with". Duh-duh-duh, cue ominous music 
Back at the precinct, Francisco's dog Royal has been swabbed for DNA, hoping for evidence leading to the murderer but to no avail. Castle plays the "please Mom, can we keep him?" card and Beckett caves, for now. They bring Pilar's therapist in for questioning and discover that she was Royal's therapist, not Francisco's. Ahh, Nana Vistor, how far you have fallen from Deep Space 9 days. Dr. Barker (I am not kidding) lays on the ground with Royal, pawing at the floor like a dog, certain that Royal is trying to communicate an important message about Pilar's murder (which the dog appears to have witnessed).
While Castle is attempting not to laugh uproariously at this woman, Beckett and Esposito follow Pilar's cell phone GPS to a warehouse filled with dog crates and two guard dogs who chase them down the hallway. The man they find at the warehouse tells them that Pilar was creating his own special breed of dog and that people were paying him $10,000 for unborn pups and that his competitors would have gone to great lengths to discover his training and breeding secrets.
Detective Ryan discovers a bug-sweeper at Francisco's apartment and it's memory card indicates that it was tripped shortly before Pilar returned Lolita angrily to Kay Cappuccio yesterday morning. This leads Beckett to summon Kay down to the precinct for further questioning. As Kay arrives wearing a skirt barely long enough to cover the topic, not only does she catch the attention of every guy in the place 
, she also sets off the bug-sweeper again. It turns out that Lolita's collar is wired for video, and that Kay may have been the intended target of the surveillance rather than Francisco. (Of course, this doesn't explain Pilar's paranoia)
Detective Esposito is given the task of sifting through paparazzi pictures with Kay, hoping to find one taken from the collar-cam, thus giving them a lead as to who planted the bug. They do not give Jon Huertas enough to do on this show, he's very appealing, as is the entire supporting cast. They find the paparrazo 
who was publishing the illicit pictures but it turns out he wasn't the one who planted the bug to begin with, he merely stumbled upon the feed accidentally and profited from it. He is able to point them back in the direction of the warehouse however, saying he overheard some sketchy conversations between Francisco and his friend.
As it turns out, Francisco was training drug-sniffing dogs for US Customs and drawing the ire of the Vasquez Argentinian drug cartel due to his success at disrupting their shipments. Kay's boyfriend/manager Reggie ( bye Justin Hartley) had gone to school with one of the Vasquez children and arranged for Lolita's trip to Pilar's in the hopes of finding out how his training operation worked so they could thwart it. When Pilar found the bug on Lolita's collar, Reggie got nervous and killed him to protect the cartel.
Overall, an entertaining and amusing episode. And can I also say that Hilarie Burton was really fantastic playing Kay Cappuccio. I never watched One Tree Hill, so I didn't have any preconceived notions (I did enjoy her brief stint on White Collar, but that may have been because it necessitated Neal taking his shirt off multiple times), but I wouldn't have expected her to be so funny and charming and she really was both.
