Spoilers ahead for the third episode of Fox's Murder in a Small Town, called "A Chill Rain."
The latest episode of Murder in a Small Town in the 2024 TV schedule brought in Stana Katic as a guest star, and Katic as Zoe Strachan was a far cry from her longtime character Kate Beckett on ABC's Castle. While Katic has obviously moved on from the show that she co-led with Nathan Fillion in the years since its end in 2016, Murder in a Small Town was her return to network television, and I loved her performance so much that I quickly checked to see if Castle is available to rewatch with a Hulu subscription. (It is.)
Here's why the Fox series put me in the mood to check out Stana Katic as Kate again despite being two very different characters on very different shows.
Who Stana Katic Played On Murder In A Small Town
The actress played Zoe Strachan for her episode of the new Fox series, which stars Rossif Sutherland and Kristin Kreuk as a different kind of crime drama. It was quickly clear that Zoe was keeping secrets from Alberg as he attempted to investigate the murder of her brother, and the mystery unraveled as he saw through her lies and attempts to charm him. As Alberg himself said of Zoe, "There's something missing" in her.
That involved attempting to burn a young boy and Alberg himself alive, and it was too close for comfort. Arson was her specialty, although she didn't succeed in killing anybody in an inferno this time around. The cops did manage to capture her alive, but it seems unlikely that Murder in a Small Town will have reason to revisit the case and bring Zoe back.
That doesn't mean viewers can't find Stana Katic on the small screen, though, and I don't just mean Absentia, which streamed for viewers with an Amazon Prime Video subscription for three seasons. On the whole, Absentia strikes me as a better showcase for Katic's skills as an actress, but seeing her on Murder in a Small Town had me thinking back to the previous crime drama that she starred on.
Why I Might Revisit Castle Now
Castle's legacy is somewhat tarnished by the events leading up to the abrupt cancellation in 2016 after eight seasons. When there was still the possibility of Season 9, only Nathan Fillion was reportedly invited back of the two leads, with Stana Katic cut from the cast. At the time, she shared a touching message with fans, and Fillion wished her well in his own message. Several years after she was fired and Castle was then cancelled, Katic opened up about being "confused by the entire experience" but still "so thankful to have been a part of that project."
All in all, I haven't really felt compelled to go back to Castle in the years since it wrapped, and Stana Katic's criminal character on Murder in a Small Town is about as different from Detective Kate Beckett as possible when played by one actress. Still, seeing her back on a procedural primetime TV show involving crime and chemistry between two leads (with the chemistry between Sutherland and Kreuk being part of why the former signed on for the show) has me flashing back to her Castle days, and she put in a lot of good work on that show even if it did come to an unceremonious end for her.
And luckily, it's not hard to find Castle nowadays. In fact, ABC's long-running drama is available on the same streaming service as Murder in a Small Town so far: Hulu. For more of Rossif Sutherland and Kristin Kreuk, keep tuning in to Fox on Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET.