Castle S6 Ep3 – Need To Know

Much as I liked the first two eps of the season, this felt a lot more like the Castle I know and love. That’s no doubt because most of the rest of our NYPD cast had more than two seconds of screentime.

This scene – especially the kiss blown & caught – was the most adorable thing.

This week’s case is the murder of the former star of classic ’90s TV show Too Cool For School. Castle begs Ryan & Espo to let him in on the case. This is mostly to get out of the house and away from Pi. (Like Martha predicted, Alexis will get Pi out of her system soon, right?) But before they really get into the investigation, the feds swoop in and take control – the feds, that is, represented by Agents Beckett and McCord. No one is happy about this situation – not Beckett, not Captain Gates, and especially not Esposito and Ryan. They’re ready to accuse Beckett of treachery for doing this. They also accuse Castle of being complicit.

There’s another layer on top of this clever twist on the old “feds take away the case” trope, though: it turns out that the murdered former actor was undercover on the set of a reunion movie, working for the CIA to stop some Russian mobsters from arms smuggling. The CIA in turn tells both Beckett & McCord and the NYPD crew to stop their investigations lest they clue the Russians in on this. But Beckett, bothered by the fact that the murder remains unsolved, leaves Castle with some key information so the precinct can solve the case.

Things I enjoyed about this episode: as previously mentioned, I had missed Castle working with the boys at the precinct. Ryan’s love for the cheesy TV show rang true for his character. Plus, he looked awesomely ridiculous in his Too Cool For School hat. I also loved Espo’s indignant, “We are not serving them coffee!” right after McCord and Beckett have taken over the case.

I liked getting a bit of follow-up about the Nikki Heat movie, as succinctly summarized by Castle: “There were script issues … and casting issues … and directing issues.” Hee! And yay for continuity.

Just… that hat.

I continue to be pleased at how the writers are handling Castle & Beckett together. Not only did their Facetime scene feel genuine, but so did the fact that they both knew the long-distance, constant separation thing wasn’t going to work. Also, Castle was willing to move to DC for Beckett, and even bought her an apartment! Aww. See, Andy Wyatt, this is how you react when the man who loves you buys you a house. Even though it might not end up being relevant in this instance, either.

The ending wasn’t exactly a surprise, but nor was it exactly what I was expecting last week. I knew it was going to be Beckett’s strong sense of right that made her leave the DC job, but I thought she might quit rather than being fired. But she can’t have honestly thought she could leak that kind of information to the press without getting found out, so maybe it wasn’t too much of a surprise to her… Anyway, it was nice having Lisa Edelstein around for as long as we had her.

So, is that new detective going to hang around when (I assume) Captain Gates rehires Beckett? Will she get her old job back without a hitch? Guess we’ll have to wait ’til next week to find out.