Castle 4-20: The Limey

A couple weeks ago, I stated that the rest of this season of Castle would turn serious. Looks like I was misled. Okay, so I’ll admit that this show has some more serious moments, but there were lots of light, fun moments as well. And lots of fallout from last week’s revelation.

Speaking of which, last week, TV Guide made an excellent point. Why didn’t Castle talk to Beckett about what he overheard instead of assuming her lack of acknowledgement meant she didn’t love him back. This week, Beckett compounds the problem. Is there any hope of our favorite couple?

The episode starts with a dead body on the floor of a hotel room. A man is searching for something while a maid is trying to get into the room. He finds it just in time and walks out of the room just before the maid walks in. She doesn’t think anything of it until she finds the body and lets out a scream.

Cut to Beckett and Lanie. No, they’re not at the scene of the crime. Instead, they are having a glass of wine together and Beckett is sharing about how Castle has been pulling away. Lanie points out the obvious (the two are crazy about each other). Beckett goes through her list of reasons why it’s a bad idea, and Lanie basically says, give it a chance or you’ll regret it. The best line of the scene is “You don’t have a relationship. You have a holding pattern.”

They get called to the scene of the crime and Lanie is still encouraging Beckett to say something, but then Castle shows up with an attractive blond in his car. He lets her drive off with it, and then they get down to business.

The hotel room has been searched, and it’s a cheap motel. They learn the woman was a model who lived across town. Her apartment has also been searched. And the same man was seen there as at the hotel and then used a credit card to buy some liquor in the neighborhood. They quickly track down his hotel in the city and go to arrest him. However, we’re still in the first 10 minutes of the show, so it’s not that easy. The man is Detective Inspector Hunt of Scotland Yard. What’s his interest in this case? He’s a friend of the victim.

We learn the victim was a model, but she’d recently been taking on side jobs going to parties to create a “beautiful” atmosphere. And the night she died, she desperately wanted to get into a record launch party. When she did manage to get in, she was slapped by the rap artist in question because she was hitting on the rap star’s boyfriend (and producer).

DI Hunt wants to be a part of the official investigation, and has a clue he can trade for access. Much to Castle’s dismay, Captain Gates agrees almost immediately. The clue is a key to a locker of some kind. They track that down to a health club where our victim bought a day pass. Inside the locker is a picture of the assistant British consul and a code written on the back.

The gang begins to theorize that the victim and the consul were having an affair, and when she starts to want something more serious, he balked and killed her. There is a partial finger print on her body, but they need his prints for comparison.

While Castle comes up with a huge plan that involves breaking into his apartment from the roof, DI Hunt figures out a way to sneak into a party that is being held at the consulate that evening. He and Beckett go. Castle’s reaction when he sees how beautiful Beckett is in her dress was funny and sad at the same time. While their attempts to get the consul’s fingerprints off a glass don’t work, Beckett manages to snag his card case before they are thrown out for crashing the party.

But the bad news is, the prints don’t match.

Meanwhile, Castle has come up with a lead thanks to his new girlfriend. (And the source doesn’t make Beckett happy at all for multiple reasons.) The code on the picture in the locker is for a diplomatic pouch. One is sent out every month or so, and the latest one is waiting at JFK. We also learn that pouch is relative when we discover the crate weighs 200 pounds. And the contents? Missiles headed to Uganda.

That’s when the pieces fall into place for DI Hunt. Our victim’s boyfriend was killed by a missile in Uganda a year ago. And through a magic bit of detective work, they determine that the rap producer is actually the one teaming up with the assistant consul to smuggle the weapons to the rebels in the country. Sure enough, it’s the producer’s finger print on the body. Our villains are arrested and all is right with the world again.

Well, not quite. What I haven’t been talking much about is how little of the episode Castle was really in. It was more the Beckett and Hunt show. Castle wasn’t even around to be upset that much. He was off with his new girlfriend almost every time Beckett turned around.

As the episode ends, Hunt is about to leave but offers to buy Beckett a drink. She says no so she can stay and talk to Castle. But then Castle leaves as well because he has another hot date with the same woman. “You must really like her,” Beckett observes. “She’s fun and uncomplicated – just what I need right now.” So Beckett calls Hunt back and takes him up on his offer of a drink.

Now, I can see Beckett’s side a bit more in this. Castle basically told her “I don’t want you right now.” So how else is she supposed to react? But really, these two have some major communication issues to work through to get this relationship started.
What did you think? And where does our favorite couple go from here?

The tease for the next episode shows that it is going to guest star Adam Baldwin. No idea when it airs, but I’m really looking forward to that.