Villainess Review: Naomi Duvray (Castle)

Castle has had its share of captivating villainesses, though I have to say, some of the best ones had to have been from the show's seventh and penultimate season. One example was Nicole Morris from "Castle, P.I.," (whose review is shown here), and another appears in the episode, "Last Action Hero," which begins with an usher at a movie theater discovering a body at a nearby alley. When Castle and Beckett arrive at the scene, the former quickly recognized the victim as Lance DeLorca, an action film actor.

Castle and Beckett later went to a movie set, where Brock Harmon (another action star) was filming his latest project. We are also introduced to Brock's wife, Naomi Duvray, who is also an actress but has a jewelry line on the side, with Castle praising Naomi's work as the henchwoman of criminal mastermind El Jefe, played by Henry Allen Booth. Brock reveals that the project that he was working on was supposed to include Lance, as he was on a comeback. He had fallen off due to drug addictions, and it was Castle who revealed that Lance had battled (and survived) leukemia.

Regarding suspects, a possible one was Lance's ex-wife, Kat Kingsley, who Castle had a crush on back when she was acting, but she had an airtight alibi. A main one was the aforementioned Henry Allen Booth, who was rumored to be puling a "life imitates art" method by becoming a drug dealing himself. This is followed by Castle joining Brock and his "Expendables-esque" group on a mission to nab Booth's slot car, which was later revealed as a recording device, and it caught Booth telling Trey Harmon (Naomi and Brock's son) to "take care" of Lance.

So Trey is interrogated, and he reveals that Booth helped him financially when he started out as a promoter, and that Booth used Trey's connections to push his drugs (so that's one confirmed reveal). Regarding Lance, he attempted to pay Trey's debt to Booth, who refused and gave the order to Trey, who called Naomi and was told by his mother to "lie low." Trey was cleared of the murder, but Detective Ryan revealed something surprising: the identity of Lance's bone marrow donor. The identity led Castle and Beckett back to the movie set and towards Naomi, who revealed that Lance's donor was none other than Trey, who was a match because Lance was Trey's biological father.

As it turned out, Naomi had an affair with Lance that resulted in Trey's birth, and it remained a secret until Lance received the bone marrow from his son. After a paternity test was taken, Lance decided to come clean to Trey about everything, only for Naomi to see this as a threat to her entire lifestyle, so on the night in question, Naomi strangled Lance to death with a garrote. The garrote matched the jewelry wire she used in her collection, and after denying everything, Naomi confessed, adding that Lance would "ruin everything" with his truthful revelation.

"Last Action Hero" is the ninth episode of Castle's seventh season, and aired on December 1, 2014. Krista Allen appeared as the episode's main villainess, Naomi Duvray; the reason why I loved this episode so much. Though Allen's time in the episode was brief, it was still enough for me to truly see Naomi's demeanor. As the reveal showed, Naomi was truly self-serving; all that mattered to her was her reputation and her status, with her marriage to Brock Harmon being part of that. She was willing to murder the actual father of her son just so she could continue to cover up the truth and not have her name and celebrity status dragged through the proverbial mud. That's an immensely high level of self-absorption, and in that reveal scene, Krista Allen acted out the depths of Naomi's evil and ruthless demeanor to absolute perfection.

So what else has Krista Allen done? A better question would be, "What else hasn't Krista Allen done?," as she has done it all. We all know Allen very well for her brief but memorable scene with Jim Carrey in Liar, Liar (hard to believe that was 25 years ago), and she's also known as a Baywatch beauty as well. She also made a memorable appearance on Married...With Children (Ted McGinley, who played Jefferson D'Arcy on the series, appeared in the Castle episode as Brock Harmon), and she also appeared in the 2003 Adam Sandler comedy, Anger Management. Naomi Duvray is one of eight villainous roles (that I know of) played by Allen, and it's a collection that also includes Lifetime; she played villainess Jackie Anderson in 2018's Party Mom--one of a number of Lifetime films she has starred in. As I said before, Krista Allen's done it all: big screen, small screen, Lifetime films, soap operas, you name it!

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Check out Naomi Duvray's profile on Villainous Beauties Wiki!