Castle, S4 Ep16 – Linchpin

Previously on Castle: there’s a rogue agent called Thomas Gage, people get murdered, Pandora, and then Castle and Beckett plunge into the waters of the Hudson River!

"Would this be a bad time to tell you that I can't swim?"

We pick up right where we left off. Both Nathan Fillion and Stana Katic do an excellent job of portraying two people who are terrified, who know they are close to death, but who also know their hope lies in not panicking. The car doors won’t open; Beckett suggests shooting out a window, but her gun is missing somewhere in the car — and of course, her seatbelt is stuck. That only happens on TV when the car is about to burst into flames due to an accident, or if it’s about to fill with water. I guess that’s realistic enough. Anyway, the car starts to fill with water as Castle goes to look for Beckett’s gun in the back seat. He finds it, underwater, but it’s jammed under a seat. The car continues to sink and water rises to Kate’s chest, and Castle hasn’t reappeared from under the water. But just as things start to look impossible for our heroes, we pan away from the water-filled car and see and hear three gunshots fired from inside.

I have to admit I’m a little disappointed that there’s no scene with Castle and Beckett struggling to the surface, helping each other out of the water. Oh, well. Next scene is the two in dry clothes on the pier, emergency vehicles aplenty around them. Beckett thanks Castle, very sincerely. The rest of the scene between them here is just lovely (and is described below in the “favorites” section).

Then the two theorize that Gage was behind the murder of Blakely, as Gage works to tie up all the loose ends of people who could stop him from implementing Pandora. Of course they still don’t know what the linchpin was that Blakely discovered, or what he was working on exactly. And according to Lanie and Alexis, there are no clues on Blakely’s body.

Before any of the team can do much else, a black government car pulls up. Sophia and her partner Martin order our duo into the car, and back at the underground bunker, Sophia starts to ream them out. She’s unimpressed with their excuses and how little they managed to learn from Blakely before he was killed in Beckett’s custody.

"Don't you talk to my not-boyfriend like that!"

I am amused and pleased during this scene that Stana Katic’s hair looks poofy and a little messy, as it would actually look I’m sure if she got soaked and then it air dried. I am also distracted by how much Jennifer Beals’ voice reminds me of Nana Visitor’s voice. Only she was already a guest star on this show. Anyway, Sophia orders them off the case, in the process calling Rick a “reckless, immature, self-centered jackass”. Nice. She says that unlike what he did with their relationship, he can’t just rewrite the ending of this looming catastrophe.

I’m not sure I believe that Castle would accept that they’re off the case for good now, even with his Sophia-related issues. He apparently has accepted it, though, based on the next scene, where Beckett says sure, they’re not working with the CIA anymore, but she still has murders to solve. I guess if Castle thinks that Beckett would be in danger if they continued, what with the highly-trained rogue operative on the loose who has supposedly (spoiler!) tried to kill them several times, he might stop pursuing the case. Anyway, Beckett says she’s not giving up, and that if they find what Blakely was working on, they’ll find Gage. Castle is unconvinced, but it’s not his call. Ryan and Esposito, meanwhile, have found out that Blakely had an alias, Scott McGregor, but his listed address is bogus. Then Castle points out that since Blakely played chess, he had to have played with some other people. Beckett: “I thought you were off the case?” Castle: “Well, you heard what Sophia said: I’m a reckless, immature, self-centered jackass. If you’re stupid enough to keep going, I’m stupid enough to go with you.” That’s love, people. Not that you probably need convincing.