TV Recap: Castle 6-3 - Need to Know

The shoe is on the other foot, and that’s not necessarily a good thing.  Frankly, I felt all the characters were in the dark about what was really happening last night, which made things interesting.

The episode actually takes place back in New York.  And it featured the guys, although Beckett and her new partner, McCord, were certainly in it.

It all starts with a jogger running through a construction site.  As he is turned around, he spots a body hanging from a hook.

Meanwhile, Castle and Beckett are lying in bed talking.  Of course, it’s two different beds in two different cities and they are talking via phone, but still.  Then Beckett gets called into work and Pi starts making smoothies, driving Castle crazy.  He needs to get out, and the news provides a great out when he sees the story about the murder.  He’s a former child star who was on a sitcom back in the 90’s called 2 Cool for School.  And behind the anchor, Castle can see Esposito and Ryan are working the case.  He calls them, but they ignore his call – on live TV!  Castle never gives up that easily and heads down to the crime scene.  He meets the new detective at the precinct before finally talking his way onto the case.  Gates is less than enthused, but they are all not happy when Beckett and McCord show up and take over.

It’s a dance we’ve done a few times before on the show, the difference is that Beckett is the fed trying to take things over.  Still, Castle, Ryan, and Esposito do their best to work the case.  They track down the victim’s manager, only she didn’t do it.  She wants to know why this out of work actor got a check for $120K recently.  Then they track down the other star of the sitcom and learn that a hush hush reunion movie was in the works.

The show is still extremely popular in Russia, and the Russians are funding the film.  The director is rumored to steal money from his movies, but he didn’t do it because he’s afraid of the Russians.  And the victim had tracked down a shipment coming in from Russia for the production to a warehouse.  Going there, our trio learns that this shipment was a camera.  Only the crate has a fall bottom and there are guns underneath it.  Beckett and McCord show up right behind them as does…the jogger who spotted the body.

Turns out this man is actually CIA, and our victim was working for them (hence the payment) spying on the Russians who are funding this film.  They want all this hushed up so they can keep working on the Russians since they don’t think the victim’s cover was blown.  Even Beckett and McCord didn’t know about this; they just knew that they were supposed to keep the police from getting too close to the Russians.

With the guns now found, the CIA plants their tracker and the police are told to close out the case.  Only Beckett slips Castle a flash drive with data on it.  It shows a woman from the production following the victim to the warehouse.

She didn’t do it.  In fact, she and the victim had fallen in love and were planning to run away together.  But she does point them in the right direction.  It was the co-star.  When he found out the victim was planning to leave the production on the movie, he got mad and pushed him off the roof of his condo.  The hook was an accident.  He needed this job and the money from it and any potential sequels because acting jobs had dried up.

Actually, I was surprised when it turned out he’d done it.  We had more than enough time left for a twist.  And it came, just not in the case.

The CIA agent attempts to turn the victim’s girlfriend and get her to continue his job working for the CIA.  However, she obviously doesn’t want to, and Beckett slips information to the media anonymously that the girlfriend is being held for suspicion of being involved with something shady.  Obviously, that burns her, so they have to put her in witness protection.

However, it comes back to bite Beckett.  She and Castle are enjoying a quiet evening at the loft.  Castle’s sent everyone else out, and Beckett doesn’t have to leave until the morning.  Castle tells her that the long distance thing isn’t working out at all and they need to make a change.  He then shows her a key – a key to their place in DC.  He’s going to move down there.

Only at that moment McCord shows up.  She’s come to deliver bad news.  DC has figured out that Beckett was the anonymous source and they aren’t happy about it.  She’s fired.

End of episode.

This was definitely back toward the lighter side of things, although it wasn’t because of lots of Castle and Beckett scenes.  Mainly, it was Ryan’s love of this show and the hard time Esposito and Ryan were giving Castle.  I loved Esposito’s line “You’re whole relationship is built on invading cases” when he was trying to talk Castle into getting information out of Beckett.

Interesting that we still haven’t seen Laney this season.  I wonder when she will be back.

I don’t know what I think of this new guy yet.  He seems to be under Ryan and Esposito, but he’s at Beckett’s desk, which I found interesting.  And he is a slob.  I’m not exactly Mr. Neat, but even by my standards he’s a slob.

From what I’ve read, I don’t think Beckett’s journey is over yet.  Part of me is curious to see where she goes from here and part of me is ready to have the gang back at the 12th so we can get back to normal.

Next week looks interesting with Castle as a hostage negotiator.  It’s a bit of a clichéd premise, but after the bank robbery episode a few weeks back, I’m curious to see their spin on things.

What did you think of Beckett’s return to New York?  Any ideas where she might go from here?