Castle S7 Ep13 – I, Witness

This was not quite the kind of episode I was expecting. But that’s good, because once again that means it was better than I thought it might be.

I’m pretty impressed with Castle’s PI skills now. I mean, he’s still no Mars, but he knows how things work.

This week, Castle is called in by a friend from prep school, Eva, who wants Castle to get proof that her rich lawyer husband Cole is cheating on her. Castle’s not big on the idea of adultery cases. But he takes it for Eva’s sake, and gets the evidence she needs. When he goes to her house that night to deliver the photos, he witnesses Eva being murdered, apparently by her husband Cole, and dragged out to a car. So he follows the murderer out to the forest, where he’s knocked out.

This where I thought the episode might get quite annoying. I thought maybe no one would believe that Castle saw anything, and that the whole ep would continue like that. That’s one of my biggest pet peeves: stories where no one believes the protagonist (especially when the protagonist has proven him or herself to be worth listening to). But in fact, when Castle refuses to stand down, they find that Cole is hiding something. And so is his mistress. He also seems to have killed his first wife too and gotten away with it, years ago. And then Eva turns up dead. Physical evidence points to Cole. But then Cole appears to have committed suicide. And it turns out Eva was working with someone else in Cole’s company who wanted to frame him to get control of the company – but the guy insists he didn’t kill Eva or Cole, and that someone else was behind this whole plan. So finally, the team discovers that it was all Cole’s company’s lawyer, in revenge for the death of her friend, Cole’s first wife. Whew. So many suspects!

Once again, I’m so glad that Beckett trusts Castle enough not to dismiss his theories as totally nuts. Even when he stays up all night and makes his own kind of crazy-looking board to track the movements of everyone involved in the case. They’re, like, the best together, guys. But they should probably stop making out in Castle’s office, or at least close the door first.

BTW: they pretty much worked together for the whole case, and no one (including the audience) seemed to mind.

Other plotlines tonight: Ryan and Jenny set up a Match.com profile for Esposito, because they want him to have a date for their double-date ski trip that’s coming up soon. Espo is, unsurprisingly, not pleased. As revenge, he decides to go out on a date with one of the potential matches that Ryan and Jenny rejected as not ski trip material. Well played, Espo. But I still think you and Lanie should just get back together and stay together this time.

Speaking of Lanie: yay, Lanie’s back! Nice to see her doing the autopsy this week.

So now we’ve seen Castle shaken by the murder of his friend, and expressing some doubts as to whether the PI business is for him. We’ll have to see what results from that. But first, the return of 3XK and his lovely, dangerous accomplice next week!