TV Recap: Castle 6-10 - The Good, the Bad, and the Baby

After last week’s episode, we needed something light.  And that’s exactly what we got when a baby became part of the equation on last night’s castle.

The episode starts off with a man stumbling down the aisle of a church.  He’s carrying something, and he hands it off to a priest just before he dies.  He was carrying a baby.

The man is quickly identified as a driver for a local company.  But the baby is a mystery.  It’s not his son.  They find his car, and determine he was shot from above through the roof.  Why?

Castle goes out and buys baby stuff and starts taking care of the kid while Beckett starts investigating.  His wife denies have any idea of who the baby might be.  And his employer remarks that the victim is a great employee who always works the overnight shift.  He did stop coming back for lunch after someone showed up and they argued a few nights before.

That someone was a man convicted for armed robbery who just got out of prison.  And it turns out the victim was the getaway driver.  Ryan and Esposito go out to the guy’s apartment, but he hasn’t been there for several days.  While Esposito goes to buy a mega millions lottery ticket, Ryan spots this guy, gives chase, and arrests him.  (That sequence was so funny!)  However, not only does he alibi out, but he also says he has no animosity against the guy even though the victim didn’t go to prison for being the getaway driver.

But Beckett decides to see what the victim was doing on his lunch hour since he wasn’t returning to base.  Via GPS tracking on his car and video surveillance, they find him driving a getaway vehicle.  He stays in the car while two men get out with a briefcase and then return with it a little while later.  And there is no evidence of a break in.  They’ve also managed to find another crime scene, this one an old building where a fire had taken place.  There are ping pong balls, evidence of blood related to the baby’s DNA, and glue.

With these clues swimming around, Ryan turns on the lotto drawing.  Suddenly, it’s Castle who makes the connection.  The victim had a lotto ticket on him.  As the drawing takes place, Castle correctly predicts the numbers.  The victim had the winner lottery ticket.  Those clues were scamming the system.  And the building that wasn’t robbed houses the TV studio where the drawing takes place.

They confront the woman who draws the lotto numbers, and she immediately explains that her husband and baby were kidnapped and they were going to be killed if she didn’t pick the suitcase that was put in the closet (she was told which one it was).  The balls inside had been rigged so that only the winning numbers would be chosen.

So who is in on the scheme?  That’s where the biggest surprises come into play.  It was the security guy at the building and the owner of the driving service where our victim worked.  His part in all this?  He was being blackmailed into helping when his boss learned about his past.  But when he realized that the conspirators were planning to kill the man and baby, he grabbed the baby and took off, getting shot through his car roof as he tried to drive away.  In the end, he is the hero because he saved the baby and his death lead Beckett to save the man and arrest the villains.

Meanwhile, there were a couple of fun sub-plots, one involving the baby.  There are various reactions to him, including Castle being smitten immediately and Beckett trying to stay away.  Lanie comes by to share findings in person so she can hold him (and her voice while talking about entry wounds was great).  Poor Ryan got worried when the baby started to cry every time he held him.  In fact, he confesses to Esposito his worries that maybe he isn’t ready to be a dad.  But Esposito calms him down by reminding him that he will figure it out one day at a time, and since he wants to be a day, he’s already ahead of Esposito’s dad.

When no foster home is available for the baby, Castle and Beckett wind up taking him home for the night, where we get some very funny scenes of them trying to calm him down and change him.  Yes, Beckett eventually bonds, and she reassures Castle that when they have kids, she will be there, too, unlike Meredith with Alexis.  They eventually fall into exhausted slumber, and the best line of the night is when Alexis walks in the next morning to find Martha holding the baby and says, “How long have I been gone?”

Meanwhile, there’s Thanksgiving coming up.  Castle keeps talking about the family tradition of dressing up as a Pilgrim or Indian for the day.  In the final scene as they are just about to sit down and eat, Beckett walks in wearing an Indian costume.  When Castle reacts shocked, she admits she knows he was joking, but figured it was time to start a new tradition.  She hands him a Pilgrim costume and tells him to go change.  Then she high fives Martha as she walks by.  It’s nice to see Beckett pull one off on Castle.

Speaking of which, I’ve definitely noticed they shift this season.  As the season started up, there was a big story about Nathan Fillion wanting a four day work week and even not showing up to work one day to make his point.  You can definitely tell the writers are working around that since Ryan and Esposito are getting more scenes on their own and even bigger sub-plots.  Frankly, it’s a change I’m enjoying.  What are your thoughts on it?

Looks like the next new episode is January 6th, so we’ve got the month of December off.  Don’t be a stranger during that time, and I’ll be back with more recaps then.