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Castle 5-3: Secret’s Safe with Me

Storage wars meets murder. The headlines almost write themselves if last night’s Castle had been a real murder. And it had some serious fun moments along the way.

The case starts with a dead girl in a cheap motel room. But she had $4,000 in cash on her, so why was she in that hotel? And why did she write LIE in her own blood? She lived in Philadelphia, and her boss was tracking her down because she had stolen the money from him, but he hadn’t arrived in the city yet. (Plus if he were the killer, it would be like the shortest episode ever. We haven’t even gotten to the opening credits yet.)

Our victim had been driven by taxi to a destination the day before she died, and they follow her trail to a storage center where they learn she had registered to bid on an auction the next day, which is now today. That’s when Castle figures out that the LIE was really 317, the number of the unit she was going to bid on.

That auction is currently happening, and since they won’t have the time to get a warrant to shut it down, Castle starts bidding. A war ensues, and Beckett has to bargain some cash off one of the people standing there so Castle can win. One guy is persistent, and they manage to outbid him just at their max. The price includes Castle including one of the bystander’s mother’s name in his next book. I’ll be watching for Eunice in the next Nikki Heat book.

Back at the precinct, they go through the stuff and find nothing of any value. That’s when Captain Gates walks in. At first she is furious that all this stuff is in her precinct, but then she sees Castle holding a doll. It’s a collectible, one part of a twin pair, and the one she’s been searching for for years. Castle immediately gives it to her, and suddenly, he is her new best friend. (Any guesses where the item in the storage locker that will be important to the case is located? I knew you were smart.)

Meanwhile, they have learned that the owner of this storage locker rented it under an assumed name. His real identity? The victim’s twin brother. And he died when he accidentally fell on the subway platform a few weeks back. Hence the reason he wasn’t paying rent on the storage locker any more.

They track down the brother’s employer, a rich socialite who had hired him as her chauffer. She knows nothing, but does let it slip that he had been cleared in a robbery that had happened several weeks before his death. Her safe was opened, and a diamond bracelet worth $4 million was stolen.

And the hunt is on for the bracelet. They research everything from the storage unit, but nothing. Then they try to track down the man who was bidding against Castle. Turns out, he was bidding as an agent for someone else. They get a sketch, and this guy turns out to be the partner of the brother who helped him in the robbery. Only all this partner did was turn off the alarm. And he didn’t know what was going to be taken until he heard about the bracelet on the news. He did, however, take a safe from the storage locker before it was auctioned off. Once again, that safe turns up nothing.

At loose ends, they start looking at the socialite the brother worked for again. Turns out, she had lost most of her money and used the insurance settlement from the bracelet to pay off debts. They begin to wonder if the bracelet was really stolen. Getting a search warrant, they find the bracelet back in her safe. But she says she just saw the break in and used it as an opportunity to commit insurance fraud. She didn’t actually kill anyone or have anything to do with the break in happening.

It’s then Castle finally figures out the doll is the key. He leads Beckett to the Captain’s office and drops a doll, only to find nothing. That’s when Gates walks in and looses it because Castle had broken the doll she brought from home. Castle then breaks the other one and finds – a glass eye and a USB drive.

And those do turn out to be the important things to solving the case. The drive has pictures on it from the accident that killed the twins’ parents several years before. The brother has managed to track down the person who caused the hit and run. And the killer is…

…the butler. I loved how they revealed it, too, with Castle trumpeting “I’ve always wanted to say this, The Butler did it!” Yes, this is the butler of the socialite. The brother had gotten the job to get proof, and the robbery was about stealing the glass eye for the DNA.

What other developments did we have last night?

Ryan and Esposito are clearly back as friends. There was no fighting and no hints of animosity between the two of them. I like seeming them back together, although I am still wondering if they intend to revisit their fight at some point in the future.

It was nice to see them give Captain Gates some comedy last night. Her change in demeanor toward Castle from ice to warm to ice again was very funny. I loved her gushing over Frozen Heat. (Yes! A reference to the book, no matter how fleeting it might have been.) We are back to square one at the end of the episode, however. Although why Castle had to drop the dolls instead of try to open them without breaking them is beyond me. After all, those items were hidden without the doll being broken. I’d call that a plot hole, but it created a funny scene and fit Castle’s character going for the dramatic reveal, so I won’t say too much.

And two of the characters know about Castle and Beckett being together. And I got it all wrong. The first to figure it out was Martha, who knew what was going on when she walked in on them in the season premier. She makes Castle tell Alexis, who gets moody. Turns out, it isn’t because dad has a new girlfriend but because she is leaving for college. Yes, they moved her into the dorms in this episode. I’ll be curious to see how they include her from here on out. Will it be only via her internship with Laney?

So, who will be the next to figure it out? Will it be Alexis to Laney to Esposito to Ryan to Gates like Beckett fears? Although frankly, if the two of them don’t start being more discrete, Ryan or Esposito is going to figure it out on their own pretty quickly. Those two walked in on a few private conversations and moments in this episode alone. I’d say they are already suspicious.

Some of Castle and Beckett’s flirting in this episode could have been in any episode in the past, but it takes on a completely different sub text now that they are together, and I think the actors are playing it perfectly. That had to be the sexiest handshake ever on TV. And the scene where they wanted to kiss after making a huge break in the case but couldn’t because of being in the precinct was funny as well.

Finally, there was also a sub-plot involving a stick man that Castle finds in Beckett’s desk. She finally tells him that she and her dad made it when they went to the beach on Coney Island the day of her mother’s service. She keeps it as a reminder that even the saddest of days can still have moments of joy.

So, I think that’s a wrap on this week’s episode. Personally, I found it fun and am looking forward to what promises to be a very interesting episode next week set in the Hamptons. Until there.

2 thoughts on “Castle 5-3: Secret’s Safe with Me”

  1. I’m loving the season so far!

    I think Castle breaking the dolls goes back to what he did last season with the stolen hand sculpture – he kicked through the panel to get to the sculpture instead of finding another way in. I think it’s just part of his character to get over-excited and theatrical.

    And I’ll fully admit I’m still giggling like an immature schoolboy at the “tool” joke :) The delivery between R&E and Beckett was hilarious!

    1. I agree it is in Castle’s character. I just think he’d go about it differently since he knew what the doll meant to Gates. Especially after the first one.

      And yes, that joke and the acting during it was perfect.

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