TV Recap: Castle 7-3 - Clear and Present Danger

While I’ve pointed out how “off” the first two episodes of the season have seemed, I have also been confident they could get the classic Castle feel back.  Last night proved me right.  To me, it felt like it could have been in last season (expect for the sub-plot).  Plus it was one of the funny episodes the show is known for.

Translation: I enjoyed it.

The murder victim is a pool shark.  He is found inside his locked apartment.  The apartment has been vandalized, and a pool cue shoved through his chest.  It’s a classic locked room mystery, and Castle is in his element throwing out wild theories on what might be behind it.  His first one is set off by the place where the victim normally plays pool.  The owner says that the victim said he got his skills by making a pact with the Devil, and mentioning a week ago that he had to pay up.

Then there is a security camera shot of his door opening and closing right before he was murdered.  But no one was seen around the door.  And a piece of evidence just vanishes from the police station.  Suddenly, Castle thinks their suspect should be The Invisible Man.

From his girlfriend, we learn that the victim dropped out of MIT after becoming a government conspiracy nut his senior year.  They were together then, and they’d gotten back together recently.  She is very upset to learn he was murdered.

There was another attack similar to the one that killed the victim, only that man survived.  Still, he refuses to say anything about what happened to him.

Tracking down the victim’s employment, we learn that he worked for an insurance agency, only they have one office – in Chicago.  So he worked from home.  Yet the victim left for work each morning.  Castle and Beckett decide to go investigate his obviously used work key card.

And that’s when they are attacked by the Invisible Man.  Even Beckett can’t deny it when she is nearly choked by the person.  When Castle saves her, he becomes the next target.  Expect, the target is really the victim’s key card.  Castle manages to do some slight of hand, and the Invisible Man runs off with a credit card instead of the actual key card.

It takes some doing, but they use the cord it was attached to to find a shipping address and track down the victim’s true office.  Castle and Beckett walk in and find themselves surrounded by armed guards.  They’ve stumbled into a research facility.  The victim had faked his break from MIT as a cover to work here since it is a top secret government facility.  And what has the victim been working on?  Invisibility I mean a cloaking devise.

Of course, since it was top secret, it is amazing the number of people who knew about it.  Take the victim’s neighbor.  He was mad with the first guy who was attacked (the one who survived but wouldn’t talk), and he and the victim used the cloaking suit to attack the man.  Then there was the fact that it was his “deal with the Devil” that caused him to win a pool.  The neighbor again, this time making balls do impossible things (which is why our victim had a run in with some people who thought he was cheating – he was).

Now the neighbor was my choice as killer.  He fit the profile – one of the first two or three people we meet who appears to cooperate of their own free will.  But we found him too early to be the killer.  Instead, it was the girlfriend, who found out that the victim was just using her to gain her knowledge for the cloaking devise.  She stole it and used it to get her revenge on him before he dumped her a second time.

Meanwhile, we learn that Ryan is moonlighting to make more money for his family again – this time working security outside a male strip club.  Esposito can’t let that go and gives him a new uniform – a very skimpy one.

And Castle and Beckett are looking to get their relationship back on track, however their plans for some alone time are constantly interrupted.  Honestly, this was the only thing that even hinted at the two months Castle has been gone.  But I’m okay with that.  This is Castle, where we go weeks or months without a word about any ongoing story only to have it suddenly become the focus again.  My guess is we’ll get a little more in February and May for sure, possibly in November, but with the wedding, I think that would be too soon to bring it up again.

As I said at the start, I loved this episode.  The characters were back to being themselves, and the humor was plentiful.  It was the light, fun mystery that first hooked me on the show, and I’m glad to see it.  Again, not that I thought we’d never get back here, but it is nice to see that we have.

What are your thoughts on the episode?  Agree?  Disagree?  Hit me up in the comments and let me know.