History Recap / CastleS5E6TheFinalFrontier

* ThreeWaySex: Gabriel Winters is reported to have had a threesome with two Lieutenant Chloe cosplayers. It got him 9in some pretty hot water with Annabelle, to the extent she threatened to fire him.

* BrainBleach: Castle is desperate to know how he'll erase Alexis's CosPlay from his mind.

* RebootSnark: A body is found inside a sci-fi convention interactive fan experience for CultClassic[[invoked]] show ''Nebula 9'', which featured one of the show's original stars [[LargeHam getting to relive his glory days]], playing the trope straight. However, PlayedForDrama since the murder victim was harassed after buying the rights for cheap and making her own ''Nebula 9'' web series reboot with her friends, and the murderer [[spoiler: was another original star who had achieved mainstream success and wanted to distance herself from the show by any means necessary.]]

* EmbarrassingAlibi: when the chairman of a convention for ''[[ShowWithinAShow Nebula 9]]'' is found murdered, one of the suspects is Gabriel Winter, the actor who played the Captain on the original show and reprised the role for the fan experience. His supposed motive was that the woman running the fan experience, Annabelle, was threatening to fire him after he was caught having a threesome with ''two'' Lt. Chloe cosplayers. His alibi, however, is that he was being treated by a doctor for an STD from incidents just like that.

* ThreeWaySex: Gabriel Winters is reported to have had a threesome with two Lieutenant Chloe cosplayers.

* ParentalFashionVeto: Castle is appalled by Alexis's skimpy cosplay outfit. When she protests that he's embarrassing her, he responds, "I'm wearing ''clothes!''" Beckett actually calls him out for it, noting that Alexis's costume is hardly any more revealing than her old Lieutenant Chloe cosplay he wants to see her in, though Castle argues there's a difference between his girlfriend dressing in revealing clothes for him in private, and his daughter dressing in revealing clothes in public.

* BrokenPedestal: {{Zig|ZaggingTrope}}-Zagged. Upon first interviewing Stephanie Frye, the actor who played Lieutenant Chloe on ''Nebula 9'', Beckett is obviously a little hurt when Frye refers to the show as an OldShame. However, after Frye turns out to be the killer Beckett explains she idolized the ''character'', not the ''actress''.[[invoked]]
** She also has to come to terms with the fact that Gabriel Winters, Captain Max from Nebula 9, is a womanizer and heavy drinker, though he does redeem himself somewhat by going from DistressedDude to freeing himself and flipping Stephanie Frye with an impressive judo throw.

* FanService:

* LastOfTheirKind: The premise of ''Nebula 9'' is that the ship's crew are the last survivors of humanity, MilitaryAcademy cadets who were offworld on a training cruise [[ButWhatAboutTheAstronauts when Earth was destroyed]].

* ParentalFashionVeto: Castle is appalled by Alexis's skimpy cosplay outfit. When she protests that he's embarrassing her, he responds, "I'm wearing ''clothes!''"
* RebootSnark: A body is found inside a sci-fi convention interactive fan experience for CultClassic show ''Nebula 9'', which featured one of the show's original stars [[LargeHam getting to relive his glory days]], playing the trope straight. However, PlayedForDrama since the murder victim was harassed after buying the rights for cheap and making her own ''Nebula 9'' web series reboot with her friends, and the murderer [[spoiler: was another original star who had achieved mainstream success and wanted to distance herself from the show by any means necessary.]]
---> '''Stephanie''': The fan experience was bad enough, but she was gonna sell the rights, and it was gonna start all over again - the movies, the product lines, Lieutenant Chloe bobbleheads! Do you know how hard I worked to make something of myself, to become a real actress?

*** Much like ''Firefly'', ''Nebula 9'' ran for only 12 episodes about ten years before the present day. And much like fan efforts resurrected ''Firefly'' into ''Film/{{Serenity}}'', licensed comics, and eventually ''VideoGame/FireflyOnline'' after Creator/{{Fox}} [[ScrewedByTheNetwork killed it prematurely]], ''The Nebula 9 Fan Experience'' done by Winters and Annabelle made the IP valuable again. Which turned out to be a plot point: a studio was trying to buy the rights from the BodyOfTheWeek, and the killer wanted to ensure that the victim died to prevent ''Nebula 9'' from being revived and "poisoning" her career.

The episode was directed by Creator/JonathanFrakes, who also {[[TheCameo cameos]] in TheTeaser.

* ActorAllusion: Castle is upset that he's dragged into a murder involving a tv show that [[Series/{{Firefly]] only had 12 episodes and wasn't even a Joss Whedon show]].

The episode was directed by Creator/JonathanFrakes, who also {{cameo}}s in TheTeaser.

--->'''Castle:''' So, who is our victim? [[Franchise/SpiderMan Did Doc Ock finally catch up with Spider-Man?]]\\

** 18-year-old Alexis in a [[BareYourMidriff midriff-baring]] FurBikini cosplay (though it's FanDisservice for Castle).

** Moments later Castle rattles off that he's a fan of ''Franchise/StarTrek'', ''Franchise/StarWars'' (he apparently has a life-size Boba Fett in his bathroom), and "that Creator/JossWhedon show", though he apparently considers ''Nebula 9'' too cheesy. For his part, Esposito favors ''Film/BladeRunner'', while Ryan is more of a ''Franchise/LordOfTheRings'' kind of guy.

** The ''Castle'' writers love to make ''Series/{{Firefly}}'' references in general, but this episode in particular has a lot of them.

* OldShame[=/=]StarMakingRole: InUniverse, ''Nebula 9'' was, by Stephanie Frye's own admission, her breakout role, but she hated the show. So much so that she killed Annabelle in hopes of killing the ''Nebula 9'' IP for good.

* BrokenPedestal: ZigZagged. Upon first interviewing Stephanie Frye, the actor who played Lieutenant Chloe on ''Nebula 9'', Beckett is obviously a little hurt when Frye refers to the show as an OldShame. However, after Frye turns out to be the killer Beckett explains she idolized the ''character'', not the ''actress''.[[invoked]]

* FanDisservice: Castle spends most of the episode trying to get Beckett to dress up for him in her old Lieutenant Chloe {{cosplay}} outfit. She finally gives in at the denouement (first extracting from him a promise to watch a ''Nebula 9'' marathon with her), only to turn up wearing the costume topped with ''a freaking Creaver mask'', at which point Castle runs and hides.
* FanService: 18-year-old Alexis in a [[BareYourMidriff midriff-baring]] FurBikini cosplay (though it's FanDisservice for Castle).

* {{Foreshadowing}}: The episode opens on a Nebula-9 scene, with Lt. Chloe turning on the Captain and killing him. Chloe's actress Stephanie turns out to be the killer (though the Captain gets a happier ending when the scenario plays out in reality life).