TV Recap: Castle 7-20 - Sleeper

I’m still shocked by last night’s episode of Castle.  I honestly figured we’d get answers to the story of his disappearance next year at the earliest.  But they answered the big stuff last night.  As they pointed out at the end, there are still a couple of small questions remaining, but I don’t care as much about them.  (In fact, I’d forgotten one of them.)

It all starts with dreams Castle is having that he’s been having for a week.  The images don’t make sense to him, but he’s sure they are related to his disappearance.  Beckett suggests that Castle go see Worf, I mean her shrink from season 4.  The doctor uses some techniques to get Castle to focus in on what he is seeing in his dream.

The clues he comes back with are of being chased through a jungle, a foreign language license plate, and a man who looks like Chuck Norris.  Castle is warned that he might not be remembering things correctly, but he is sure he is right.

The license plate turns out to be from Thailand.  And the Chuck Norris lookalike was an ex-army ranger.  However, when Castle and Beckett show up to talk to him, he’s dead.  Recently killed, too.

Meanwhile, Castle has also remembered seeing someone from his school days who he co-won a debate competition with.  However, that man denies having seen Castle recently or being in any debate competitions.

Eventually, Castle and the team are able to piece everything together.

The dreams were triggered by a person in the background of a news report.  That man is a Russian ex-KGB killer for hire who was shooting at Castle in Thailand while he was being chased by the car.

And why was Castle there?  A defecting terrorist asked specifically for him.  He was an exchange student who knew Castle during school.  He wanted someone he knew to be there for his defection since his last contact was killed.  There was an imminent threat against the US that made the timing of the defection important, which is why Castle was kidnapped when he was.  The defection happened in Thailand, and it was successful.

Castle learns this when he runs into this defector at a restaurant in New York.  The man freaks, packing up and running.  (He also reveals that among the memories they took from Castle was of him at school, including their debate tie.  It was memories of him that Castle’s mind was trying to bring to the surface, not the other friend we’d met earlier.)

It was a good thing the guy ran because the Russian shows up to kill him just after he’s left.  It’s looking like Castle is going to be killed instead when Jenkins shows up and kills the Russian.  Jenkins, of course, being the man we’d met earlier this season who lied about having seen Castle at that camp site.

While technically he should keep this a secret, Castle does tell Martha, Alexis, and, of course, Beckett.  It’s pointed out we still don’t know why he had a bullet scar when he appeared again, although that’s not too big a mystery since he was being shot at.  Also, we don’t know why he was gone for two months.  That would be interesting to know since this could have been wrapped up in a week, tops.  Maybe it took that long to get home safely?  Something that foiling the plot?  Either way, the big mystery is answered, and that’s all I and the characters seem to care about right now.

This was definitely one of the more serious episodes of the show, but I figured we’d be all business trying to answer the mystery of Castle’s disappearance.  I feel like I’ve made a hash of this recap.  The episode was well done as they laid it all out of us.  Overall, I’m satisfied.  I’m still not a fan of this storyline, but the ending explained all the whys and whats that the story set up for us.  If they were going to do it, this was certainly the way to give us answers – before the season was over and with stakes that were high enough to explain the story.

So, what did you think?  Were the answers worth the mystery?  Or do you feel this was as stupid as the set up was earlier this year?  To be clear, I still wish they’d never done this, but since we can’t go back and erase what happened, this is a decent conclusion.