Castle – Sleeper

• Title: Castle – Sleeper
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“So you were in jungle combat…with Chuck Norris?”

Haunted by dreams he believes are tied to his missing two months Castle (Nathan Fillion) enlists the help of Beckett‘s (Stana Katic) old psychiatrist Carver Burke (Michael Dorn) to help make sense of the images involving jungle warfare, chase sequences, and a heroic hero bearing a resemblance to one of the author’s favorite action stars (Mark Sivertsen). With Castle chasing breadcrumbs down the rabbit hole, Alexis (Molly C. Quinn), Martha (Susan Sullivan), Beckett, Ryan (Seamus Dever), and Esposito (Jon Huertas) all become concerned on their friend’s growing obsession – especially when more reasonable explanations for some of the imagery of his dreams come to light.

The case takes an unusual turn when the mercenary from Castle’s dreams turns out to be real, and recently murdered, in New York City and the Russian Special Forces soldier (Max E. Williams) chasing Castle in his dreams turns out to be the likely killer. Discovering the third man (Usman Ally) from his vision finally leads Castle to answers about his missing months, a friend wiped from his memory, and an excuse for missing the most important day of his life.

Understanding how goofy the entire idea of Castle’s missing months is, “Sleeper” has fun with the concept (mostly at the title character’s expense). That said, the episode doesn’t even attempt to offer an explanation for the CIA faking Castle’s death (which seems completely out of place given the reasons we’re asked to accept for his disappearance and the fact he should have been returned relatively quickly). Nor does the episode answer all of the questions about the rest of Castle’s missing months, but enough is discovered that the show should be able to move on to the remaining episodes of this season, and next season, without the events of Castle’s past unnecessarily weighing it down.