While love may not exactly be in the air of Precinct #12 thanks to last Monday’s shocking season premiere that saw Castle and Beckett’s will-they-or-won’t-they hit a pretty nasty speed bump, fans — particularly those of the romantic variety — will be pleased to discover that romance isn’t entirely dead in the wonderful world of CASTLE. Take Medical Examiner Lanie Parish for instance, after two seasons almost completely devoid of a personal life, CASTLE season 4 will finally see Lanie and Esposito’s relationship take center stage. But just what does the talented Tamala Jones think about that, well, aside from the obvious adage, tough work but somebody’s gotta do it! We recently had the chance to catch up with the actress to find out just that. See for yourself after the jump.
What can you share about what is upcoming in Lanie’s romantic relationship with Detective Esposito, played by Jon Huertas?
TAMALA: There’s going to be some drama between Esposito and Lanie, a little hiccup. You know, in normal relationships, you have those little hiccups in there, but I think it is based on Esposito being sort of a “ladies’ man” and as in seen past episodes, he may be doing an interview at a crime scene and she decides he is not doing his job properly — like he’s eye-balling the body and it’s like Ryan’s got to come over and say, “Hey, dude, what are you doing?” So I think Lanie just happens to be at one of these crime scenes and sees it, and it doesn’t sit so nice with her. So that’s some tension there, but at the end of the day, it is a relationship and I think that we’ll end up okay, but there’s some bumpiness this season.
Lanie looks great and she seems to be evolving a bit more, can you talk about that character development?
TAMALA: Well, I personally thought that Lanie should start looking better now that she has a man. Sometimes as women, we are just so involved in our work, we don’t care how we look, we just want to get the job done. But here’s this guy, who’s a hot, handsome Latino, paying her some attention, and I’m like, “Can we get some more lipstick on her? Give her some Barbie-Doll/super-model hair, and start showing her body a little bit.” ‘Cause that’s what you’d normally do as a woman when you have someone interested in you. So I thought it was natural to a degree. I felt really good about that.
With Ryan and Jenny getting married now, how do you think that’s going to affect the relationship between Esposito and Lanie?
TAMALA: Again, I think that Lanie’s natural reaction to that is they’ve been dating for awhile and, you know, if you’re friends are getting married and you’re not there yet, you’re like, “What about us possibly?” And he may not get that ’cause he is a ladies’ man and he may not too comfortable with that and be like, “Let’s talk about this later” and Lanie’s like, “No, we need to talk about it NOW.” But it’s a great dynamic and I think that may cause some arguments, but nothing too damaging that it could kill the relationship. I don’t think.
Since the police department has been ripped apart with the loss of their captain and now there’s a new captain coming on board and there might be tension between Castle and Beckett due to his declaration when he thought she was dying, is that really going to effect Lanie’s world — the family that she works amongst and loves and trusts are going to start falling apart?
TAMALA: I think it will. Now you have this new person [Penny Johnson Jerald’s Iron Gates] who doesn’t have any connections with the Mayor and she does not care who Castle is, I think it is going to be a nice dynamic to see that “you just can’t do what you want to do because you’re a celebrity writer.” That’s how Penny’s character is — and she’s amazing! That woman — I’ve admired her strength in her character. As women, we’d be like “no, that’s okay.” Not Penny. She is strong. She’s like, “Don’t mess with me.” So I think that the audience will love her, but not like her at the same time. It’s like, “I love you, but I don’t like you.” She’s awesome! And she really does a great job in creating this new character.
But doesn’t it make Lanie feel a bit unsettled, like she doesn’t know what’s going on with everybody else now that the dynamic has changed from what it was before?
TAMALA: I’m not sure they are going to play off that. I think once Lanie meets her there might be a stare-down kind of thing happening ’cause Lanie too is a strong person and, again, she really didn’t have a strong relationship with Roy Montgomery, and so this new woman coming in trying to run things, I don’t think Lanie is going to be so quick to lay down under her rules. But I don’t think the new dynamic will affect her as much as it will the other people.
We’ve seen a lot of development of Ryan and Esposito’s friendship, but we haven’t really seen any personal friendship between Lanie and Beckett. Would you like to see that happen?
TAMALA: I would like to see Lanie and Beckett hang out a little bit more. Like maybe — and I suggested this to Andrew [Marlowe] too — maybe a girl’s night out and maybe find out that Lanie has a gun. I don’t know, I was just trying to figure out things to pitch to him. Hopefully, he takes it under consideration.
Would you like to see Lanie more involved in the police action on the show?
TAMALA: I thought Lanie should have a gun because the Captain [Montgomery] is now gone and there’s killers out there trying to kill her best friend and I’m hoping [Beckett] does survive, because if she does, I’d try to protect her as well as myself. So that’s why I suggested it to him and whether Andrew decides to go with it, that’s fabulous. If not, he’ll have some other way of showing that. I’m just excited! 
CASTLE airs new episodes Mondays at 10PM on ABC (CTV in Canada) and stars Nathan Fillion, Stana Katic, Susan Sullivan, Molly C. Quinn, Jon Huertas, Tamala Jones, Seamus Dever and Penny Johnson. Catch up with past episodes you may have missed for free online at clicktowatch.tv.
Tiffany Vogt is a contributing writer to TheTVAddict. She has a great love for television and firmly believes that entertainment is a world of wondrous adventures that deserves to be shared and explored – she invites you to join her. Please feel free to contact Tiffany at Tiffany_Vogt_2000@yahoo.com or follow her at on Twitter (@TVWatchtower).