TV Recap: Castle 6-4 - Number One Fan

After last week’s episode, I read an interview with Stana Katic, aka Beckett, that talks about the path Beckett would have to take before she got back to police work.  I now feel misled since the particular path that Beckett was traveling seems to be wrapped up already.

And the path to Beckett getting her job back?  It starts with a woman desperately trying to gather stuff up from her apartment.  There’s a dead man on the floor and the police are pounding on the door.  She grabs a gun, stuffs it in her purse, and leaves, but she is chased until she runs into a dental office and takes five people hostage.

Cut to Beckett and Castle in bed, only this time they are in the same bed.  It’s morning, and Beckett is trying to figure out what she will do now that she doesn’t have a job.  She can’t go back to the 12th thanks to a hiring freeze.  Castle’s suggestion that she not work since they are going to get married and they don’t need the income is not welcome.  As he is backtracking, Pi walks into the room clad only in a towel looking for one of Castle’s razors.  Then Martha walks in to announce her combat class for her acting studio has been moved to the living room starting in 15 minutes.  Then Alexis walks in.  As Beckett and Castle are talking about spending the night at her place (I guess she still has her place in New York after all), Alexis announces that Captain Gates is on the phone.  For Castle.

Naturally, both of them go down to see what is up.  The woman who has taken the people hostage is demanding to talk to Castle.  He tries negotiating with her over the phone, but she won’t talk because the police are listening.  Castle agrees to go in if she will release two hostages, a mother and child.

Strapped with his Writer vest, he heads in and learns the woman’s side of the story.  She drank her whisky and went to sleep.  She woke up to find her boyfriend dead on the floor in her apartment.  She had not planned to see him that night but was planning to that night since it is her birthday.  He had a big surprise for her, and she hoped it was a proposal.  She didn’t want to kill him.

However, the evidence at her place doesn’t back up her story.  There are texts from her inviting him over.  There’s an empty whisky bottle.  And the murder weapon was one of her knives.

Castle, however, believes her.  For one thing, the texts sent the night of the murder doesn’t sound like her.  He begins to think it is an elaborate frame.

He is in and out of the building trying to help prove her innocence.  Meanwhile, one of her hostages is plotting a way to overpower her and get out of there while the other two are willing to stay put and let things play out.

Looking into the woman’s past, they learn that she changed her name.  She was given up as a baby and lived for a number of years as a foster child.  During that time, she was accused of killing someone else living under the same roof in the exact same manner.  However, she maintains that it was self-defense, and she did get off for that crime.

That happened when she was a juvenile, and the records should have been sealed.  Someone else had looked at them as well, a lawyer.  But he won’t tell them anything.

Around this time, the one impatient hostage tries to go for the woman’s gun.  They struggle and Castle is shot – dotting the I in Writer.

Meanwhile, searching the boyfriend’s apartment again, they find the records in a birthday package.  The records were sealed, but her boyfriend put his past as a burglar to good use to find them and steal them.  The woman’s mother is dead, but her father is a rich and powerful man who is considering running for office.  And he is a client of the firm the lawyer works for.

Just one problem, he is a golfing buddy with the police commissioner.  Given the political nature of the interrogation, Gates handles it personally with Beckett, someone without a career to be ruined, assisting.  While they try to be delicate about it, they lay out their case.  Yes, he gets mad.  But he also gives them some information that fills in the blanks and leads them to the real killer.

The lawyer.

Turns out the lawyer is also the son-in-law of the politician want to be.  And his wife was just named sole beneficiary of a trust.  Another heir, even one no one else knew about, showing up now would be horrible.  He got wind of what the boyfriend was doing when the boyfriend went to stake out the politician’s house.  So he killed the boyfriend and frame the woman for it after digging into her past to recreate the earlier crime.  Then he searched the boyfriend’s place without finding anything.

The politician and the woman are introduced.  She is obviously still facing charges for holding people hostage, but he plans to be there for her.

At which point he comes in to talk to Gates and Beckett.  In a twist I loved, he told them he understood why they brought him in and thanked him for the professional way they did it.  “You are both good detectives.”  At which point, Beckett confesses her current situation.  Next thing you know, the politician has called his golfing buddy, and the commissioner has found the money to rehire Beckett.  Furthermore, Castle will be back as a consultant.  The fact that Castle and Beckett are engaged won’t be a factor.  As long as they are professional at work, Gates will consider this their engagement present.

Mind you this comes after she complimented Castle earlier in the episode by saying that she has learned Castle’s theories, as wild as they can be, often have a grain of truth behind them.  High praise from her indeed.

Naturally, this does leave us to wonder what will happen with Sully, the detective that is using Beckett’s desk.  Will he still be around or not?  It could be interesting to have a new member of the team around occasionally.

But the entire main cast was around.  Yes, we got to see Lanie this week.

As much as I loved this episode, I do have a few plot holes/nick picks.

The biggest is why did the police show up.  Obviously, someone must have called them.  Was it a neighbor?  Was it an anonymous tip?  I kept expecting that to come up at some point as further proof the woman might be being framed, but no one ever mentioned it.

Then there was the fact that Castle referred to having his writer’s vest made 4 years ago.  That’s been a staple of the show since the second or third episode.  This is season six.  Okay, so the first season started in the spring, but still, shouldn’t it have been at least five years?  They’ve skipped enough time between seasons to be on the same time frame we are after all.

Overall, I really enjoyed this episode.  And I’m looking forward to things being back to normal next week.  As an added bonus, Joshua Gomez from Chuck will be guest starring as a time traveler.  That I can’t wait to see.