While Castle usually gives us a pretty good cliffhanger
every year in May, they don’t usually give us one for the winter break. Until
last night. And I must say, I’m very curious to see just what they
intend to do with this one.
But a cliffhanger comes at the end of the episode. And
good ones come from what has come before. That’s definitely the case
here, so let’s back up to the murder. The episode opens with a
man being chased through the streets by a car. Someone shoots out of
the car and the person being chased falls through a store display window. The
shooter gets out of the car – and he’s dressed as Santa. He fires
one last shot to make sure the victim is dead.
The victim is a surgeon at a local ER where he regularly
takes time off to help out a sick uncle. However, when they try to
track down that uncle, they learn that he doesn’t exist. Instead,
they manage to learn that the victim was a secret surgeon for one of the mob
families in the area. Even more surprising, the leader of his
particular mob family is someone that Castle used for research in a Derek Storm
novel.
When Castle and Beckett show up to talk to him (at his strip
club), he denies have any knowledge of the murder and is very upset by
it. However, Esposito and Ryan have found a bloody Santa suit in the
back of the car driven, and the car belongs to the mob boss’s number two. Case
closed.
Not so fast, my friend. We are only about 20
minutes in, so it can’t be that easy. And the mob boss calls in
Castle and asks him to keep investigating to learn the truth, even if it means going
against Beckett. He even takes Castle into the family and promises
that everyone will cooperate – with Castle. Castle says he will keep
looking into it, but he is going to be up front with Beckett on what he finds.
The first thing he finds is that the suspect has an
alibi. He was with the boss conducting “business” while the murder
took place.
The victim had some rock salt on him when he died, and
Beckett is able to figure out where it might have come from – a yard in the
area used to store the stuff for snow and ice in the city. Sure
enough, they find a backpack in the area with bloody clothes. A cop
who works the mob cases helps them track down the potential owner of those
clothes. He’s a member of a rival mob family. So why did
the victim have them? And did this rival family kill the doctor?
But here’s where things get interesting. When
Esposito, Ryan, and Beckett are able to track down where this other mob’s
member was shot, they learn find a piece of jewelry belonging to the daughter
of our mob family’s boss. When Castle confronts the boss with this
news, he almost gets shot, but fortunately, the daughter shows up in time to
reveal the truth. In a Romeo
and Juliette/West Side Story twist, she and this other family’s member have
fallen in love. When he got shot, they were going to use this to
disappear.
You see, he’s still alive and hiding out until she can join
him in running away. Beckett and Castle go to talk to him and almost
get shot for their efforts. However, they learn he was working on
finding out the identity of someone who was moving in on his family’s turf,
demanding protection money from people in the area.
Via some electronic wizardry, they figure out who owns the
account this encroacher was using. And it was…the mob police
officer. After years of watching them making money, he decides to go
crooked and make some of his own. And he
tried to kill the one man to keep this a secret and killed our victim because
he was a loose end.
Meanwhile, we had a fun sub-plot involving Esposito and
Lanie. Her parents are coming through town, and they want to meet
Esposito, especially since Lanie has lied to them and said they are
engaged. The real fun is how Ryan had to come through and share the
story of how Esposito proposed since neither Espo nor Lanie were willing to lie
like that. However, at the end of the episode, the two realized that
they didn’t love each other like Lanie’s parents or Ryan and Jenny or Castle
and Beckett love each other. It looks like they are on their way to
breaking up again.
But that’s not the cliffhanger. Just as the
precinct party is about to start, Gates enters the episode. She
pulls Castle aside and tells him that the killer was shot and killed on his way
to jail. This looks bad for the department, especially with Castle’s
ties to the mob. This has already gone through the mayor, and the
mayor has agreed that as a result of this, Castle can no longer be any part of
the NYPD.
I must admit, I did not see that coming, so I was shocked
when that final scene unfolded. I can’t wait 5 weeks to find out
where they are going with this. Although it looks like Castle is
going to go the PI route and strike out on his own, which should provide some
interesting plots for a few episodes.
Meanwhile, anyone else think that the mob boss’s offer to do
anything to help Castle is going to tie in to the mystery of his disappearance
somehow?
Oh, and they need to get Lanie and Esposito back
together. Why? Because I like them as a couple, therefore
they have to make it work. I have spoken.
Seriously, what did you think of the episode? Are
you as curious as I am where they are going with this latest snag in the show?
Even though there won’t be any new episodes until January 12th,
I do hope you’ll keep coming by the blog to see what else I’m talking
about. Either way, I’ll see you in the new year!
Good episode. I agree that the promise made by the mob boss to Castle is going to come into play later in the year and it will probably have something to do with his missing time. I am sad about Lanie and Esposito. I'm not sure I can see them progressing into something more than a casual couple now and that's too bad. I like that Castle has been banned from working with the police. I think it shakes things up and provides a new way of looking at things. Him being a PI is going to be great.
ReplyDeleteI don't expect Castle to be out for more than three or four episodes ala Beckett being in the FBI at the beginning of the last season. But still, it will be a nice way to shake things up.
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