Castle (TV Series) Trivia
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146 free Castle (TV Series) trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
This Castle trivia quiz is about the ABC crime dramedy that ran for eight seasons and 173 episodes from 2009 to 2016, following best-selling mystery novelist Richard Castle and NYPD detective Kate Beckett. (Looking for medieval fortresses, moats and keeps instead? Try our castles quiz.) The easy questions cover the things any viewer knows: who plays Castle and Beckett, the name of the precinct, the daughter and the actress mother in the loft, and the fictional detective Nikki Heat. From there it works through the whole run: the copycat killings of the pilot, Beckett's mother's murder and the conspiracy behind it, the Triple Killer, Captain Montgomery's secret, the sniper at the funeral, Senator Bracken and the tape hidden in elephant figurines, the D.C. job, the missing two months, the Hamptons wedding, LokSat and the flash-forward finale. There are behind-the-scenes questions too, on the Firefly in-jokes, the real Nikki Heat and Derrick Storm books that hit the New York Times bestseller list, the writers' poker game, the show's Emmy nominations, and the Canadian roots of its two leads. Every answer was checked against the encyclopaedia entries for the series, its seasons, its characters and its cast before publishing, and the supporting sentence is stored with each question.
30 of 146 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01According to his rap sheet in the pilot, what did Castle once steal while naked?
A police horse
A police horse is on Castle's record: when Beckett reads the charge aloud he insists he only borrowed it, and as for the nudity, he says, it was spring.
Q 02Who plays Lanie Parish, Beckett's best friend?
Tamala Jones
Tamala Jones plays Lanie Parish, the friend who tells Beckett in season four to act on her feelings for Castle before it is too late.
Q 03Which bar does Castle buy in season three to save it from closing?
The Old Haunt
The Old Haunt is where Castle says he wrote most of his first novel, so when its owner is murdered he buys the place to keep it open, and it becomes the team's regular.
Q 04Which Hitchcock film does Castle's housebound 100th episode echo?
Rear Window
Rear Window is the model for 'The Lives of Others': stuck at home with a broken kneecap, Castle watches the apartment across the street and becomes convinced he has witnessed a murder.
Q 05How does Castle stop the dirty bomb with seconds left in the episode "Countdown"?
He yanks out every wire
He yanks out every wire at once: with the bomb squad too far away and a second left on the clock, Castle grabs the lot, reasoning that one of them had to be the right one.
Q 06Castle is set in Manhattan, but in which city was the series actually filmed?
Los Angeles
Los Angeles stood in for New York: the series was shot at a Hollywood studio, so its Manhattan precinct and Castle's loft were standing sets.
Q 07Which long-running book character does Castle kill off at the start of the series?
Derrick Storm
Derrick Storm dies in the novel Storm Fall because Castle was bored: he says there were no surprises left, though fellow novelists tell him that killing off his hero was a mistake.
Q 08Whose friendship does Castle use to get permission to shadow Beckett?
The mayor's
Castle is a friend of the mayor of New York, who lets him shadow Beckett as research for his Nikki Heat novels; Gates later keeps him on at the mayor's behest.
Q 09Who plays Alexis Castle?
Molly C. Quinn
Molly C. Quinn plays Alexis, written as the grown-up of the household: the running joke is that the teenage daughter does the parenting and her father gets told off.
Q 10Which actress plays Castle's mother Martha?
Susan Sullivan
Susan Sullivan, once Maggie on Falcon Crest, plays Martha, who lives in her son's loft because an ex-husband ran off with all her savings.
Q 11Who plays Detective Esposito?
Jon Huertas
Jon Huertas plays Esposito, an ex-Special Forces soldier; the actor is a veteran himself, having spent eight years in the US Air Force before he turned to acting.
Q 12Who plays Detective Kevin Ryan?
Seamus Dever
Seamus Dever plays Kevin Ryan, the detective whose service weapon is stolen by a serial killer and later turns up as the murder weapon in a season-four case.
Q 13What is Kevin Ryan's police background before joining Beckett's team?
Narcotics detective
Kevin Ryan was a narcotics detective before joining Beckett's homicide team; that narcotics stint included going undercover inside the Irish mob.
Q 21What is Castle's second wife Gina Cowell's job?
His publisher
His publisher is a job Gina Cowell keeps after the divorce, so she still chases him for late manuscripts; the two briefly get back together at the end of season two.
Q 22Which agency does Castle's father, Jackson Hunt, work for?
The CIA
The CIA is Jackson Hunt's employer, though he works so deep that it later disavows him; he first shows himself to Castle to help rescue the kidnapped Alexis.
Q 23Which actor plays Castle's father?
James Brolin
James Brolin plays Jackson Hunt, who admits when they finally meet that he has been quietly checking in on his son's family for years and has read every one of the books.
Q 14What is Lanie Parish's job?
Medical examiner
Medical examiner Lanie Parish does the team's autopsies; her romance with Esposito was meant to be a secret, but the whole squad knew and politely played along.
Q 15Which rock star plays himself in the Castle episode "To Love and Die in L.A."?
Gene Simmons
Gene Simmons turns up as himself during the West Coast trip; afterwards Castle admits he once dressed up as the Kiss star for Halloween, and Beckett confesses that she did too.
Q 16What nickname does Captain Victoria Gates go by?
Iron
Iron Gates is the whisper that follows her around the precinct for her unbending, by-the-book command; she tells Beckett she knows exactly what they call her.
Q 17Which police division did Captain Gates come from?
Internal Affairs
Internal Affairs, the unit that investigates fellow officers, was Gates's former unit; she arrives as a stickler for the rules and has Castle thrown out of the precinct.
Q 18Hayley Shipton, the British investigator of season eight, formerly worked for which two organisations?
The Metropolitan Police and MI6
The Metropolitan Police and MI6 are both on Hayley Shipton's CV; by season eight she is a freelance security specialist who ends up working out of Castle's P.I. office with Alexis.
Q 19What is Castle's birth name?
Richard Alexander Rodgers
Castle was born Richard Alexander Rodgers; he swapped in Edgar as a tribute to Edgar Allan Poe, though he says he still thinks of Alexander as his middle name.
Q 20What is the name of Castle's first wife and Alexis's mother?
Meredith
Meredith is the deep-fried Twinkie of Castle's life: a guilty pleasure once or twice a year, he says, but one that would finish him off if he had it every day.
Q 24What is Jerry Tyson better known as?
3XK, the Triple Killer
3XK, the Triple Killer, is named for Jerry Tyson's signature: he strangles three women in a week and disappears, and he had been gone four years when the team first crossed him.
Q 25What was the profession of Johanna Beckett, whose murder drove her daughter to join the police?
Lawyer
Lawyer Johanna Beckett took civil-rights cases, and she was killed after an appeal she was preparing for a convicted mobster led her to a ring of corrupt cops.
Q 26What is Mr. Smith's role in the conspiracy storyline?
He holds files that keep the killer at bay
He holds files that keep the killer at bay: Montgomery mailed them to Mr. Smith before he died, and Smith bargains with them for Beckett's safety so long as she drops the case.
Q 27Which Star Trek actor plays Beckett's psychiatrist Dr. Carver Burke?
Michael Dorn
Michael Dorn, Star Trek's Worf, plays Dr. Carver Burke; Beckett is ordered to sit through his evaluation before she can return to duty, then keeps seeing him by choice.
Q 28Which Simpsons voice actor plays Judge Markway, one of Castle's poker buddies?
Dan Castellaneta
Dan Castellaneta, the voice of Homer Simpson, plays Judge Markway, a poker buddy who frequently signs Beckett's warrants.
Q 29Who plays Agent Rachel McCord, Beckett's partner in Washington?
Lisa Edelstein
Lisa Edelstein, Dr. Cuddy on House, plays Rachel McCord; the character's off-screen death at the start of season eight is what sets Beckett hunting the LokSat conspiracy.
Q 30What is Dr. Kelly Nieman's profession?
Plastic surgeon
Plastic surgeon Kelly Nieman can give one person another's face, a skill she puts to work for her lover Jerry Tyson, whom she met while working as a prison doctor.