- Title: Castle – Dial M for Mayor
- tv.com: link
When a young woman turns up dead in car connected to the Mayor’s (Derek Webster) office Beckett (Stana Katic) is brought in to investigate. The case is complicated from the get-go by Castle’s (Nathan Fillion) friendship with the Mayor and the victim’s odd behavior over the past six months when she cut ties with her family, abandoned her life and promising teaching career, and started working at a phone sex line.
The investigation uncovers the victim was working undercover on a tell-all book, but it was something she overheard on the phone sex line that got her killed. Throw in $2.3 million missing from one of the Mayor’s charities (which the victim was investigating) and some circumstantial photo evidence linking the victim back to the Mayor, and Beckett thinks she’s found her killer.
Aside from keeping his partner from putting his good friend behind jail, Castle’s job is even harder this time around when he finds a connection between the woman’s death, a conspiracy to take down his friend, and the people responsible for the death of Beckett’s mother. Once again he’s contacted by the mystery Man (Geoff Pierson) who is willing, to a limited extent, to help Castle solve the case as long as it does uncover any more leads that would tie back to Catherine Beckett’s murder.
The tension of the episode works well, especially as more of the evidence points to the Mayor. It doesn’t help that Captain Gates (Penny Johnson) wants the Mayor to be guilty realizing this might be her opportunity to remove Castle from the precinct. The ending twist is more ominous that I’d expect, and far more Castle conspiracy theory than the truth usually turns out to be, but it works well and leaves the status quo unchanged.
