TV Recap: Castle 6-18 - The Way of the Ninja

Castle and Ninjas.  Honestly, I'm a little surprised they did give us this combination before now since it seems pretty much perfect.

The episode starts with a woman running down a deserted ally.  Suddenly, a throwing knife hits her in the chest and she dies instantly.

The next morning, our team is called in to investigate.  They quickly learn that the girl was a Japanese ballerina who had recently come to New York to perform there.  She was found with a key on her, a key that leads to an abandoned cookie factory.  Inside, they find what might be a shrine to her by the killer?  Either way, Castle finds a knife that might be the murder weapon.  They hear a noise and Beckett goes off to investigate only to have a Ninja show up and steal the knife from a surprised Castle before disappearing in a cloud of smoke.

Castle is thrilled, but Beckett and Gates are skeptical.  After all, he was the only one to see the Ninja.

Meanwhile, they start interviewing the usual suspects.  The boyfriend is devastated and doesn't know anything.  The woman who comes from the Japanese consulate doesn't provide much help either.  The victim had just been cast as the lead in a ballet, and she and her partner weren't getting along because she didn't seem focused.  However, he'd just learned she was planning to quit soon, and she was making phone calls from a pay phone quite regularly.

It's from the pay phone that they track down a gentlemen's club where she worked part time in the evening.  In fact, she was wearing her "work attire" (a skimpy, form fitting dress) when she was killed.  Beckett has a dinner date with an old friend, so it's Castle, Ryan, and Esposito that head down to the club.

Castle tries to ask some discreet questions about the victim, but the women who are waiting on them shut up.  Except for one, who asks Castle if he wants some alone time.  He figures out what that means and they go off, where this young woman says that the victim was always trying to work with one particular man, and the night she was killed, she was working a private birthday party for him.

The three guys get thrown out of the club at this point, and then they are attacked by a Ninja.  Then a second Ninja shows up and they start fighting.  Finally, one of them runs away, but not before saying "Next time I'll kill you."  Then the other one vanishes.

Now we have proof of the Ninjas involved, but what does it mean?  Investigating the victim's past, they discover she didn't exist until she showed up at an orphanage 10 years ago.  Right about that same time, a family was killed by an assassin.  Could it be the same girl?  And could she be after the person who killed her for revenge?

They reach out to the consulate for some more info on her background and learn the woman they spoke to before doesn't work for them.  When they track her down, however, they learn she is the good Ninja and the sister of the victim.  She confirms what they had already learned.  Her father was in league with a criminal and tried to go straight.  This man had her entire family killed, although she and her sister hid and escaped.  It was decided to keep them safe, they should hide the fact that the sisters lived.

Only the victim wanted to get revenge for her parents and started tracking down the man responsible.  Her father was in business with two men, the man whose birthday party she worked and her boyfriend's father.  They talk to the boyfriend's father first, and he fingers the other man.

So they go to arrest him, only to have him shot to death in front of them.  Yep, Ninja guy is back.  Fortunately, the sister shows up and fights him to surrender, although Beckett has to stop her from killing him.  They pull off the mask to reveal - the boyfriend's father.  He was the mastermind all those years ago and still in charge of it now.

Meanwhile, Beckett's dinner with her friend depressed her.  The first used to be fun, but is now married and is begging about how boring her life is.  Beckett makes Castle promise they won't become boring.  She does forgive him, however, for not calling her at 10 PM to get her out of her dinner.  She is even more upset when she finds out he was in the private session with the witness.  But she doesn't stay mad for too long.

I'm wondering if Nathan Fillion is back to full days on the show.  They certainly seem to be using him for more scenes again.  Either way, I enjoyed this episode.  Castle and the Ninjas provided some really good laughs.

Your thoughts on the show?