- Title: Castle – Murder, He Wrote
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With no murder to solve, Beckett (Stana Katic) and Castle (Nathan Fillion) head up to coast for a romantic weekend in the Hamptons only to have a murder investigation fall in their lap when a banker dies in front of them. Meanwhile, too curious to let the identity of Beckett’s new mystery man go unanswered, Ryan (Seamus Dever) and Esposito (Jon Huertas) begin an investigation into the identity of her new boyfriend.
Although the local sheriff (David Burke) quickly arrests a meth addict (J.R. Nutt) who was found near the crime scene with the victim’s wallet, Castle is unable to let the matter rest. Beckett does a little investigating and discovers the banker testified against five co-workers in an insider trading case that sent them all to prison. And one of his former co-workers (Brian Howe) just happens to own a boat seen near the crime scene the night of the murder, but he also has an iron-clad alibi.
As Castle and Beckett try and narrow the field of suspects, Castle gets Ryan and Esposito to question the victim’s wife (Natacha Roi) in the city who reveals her husband was having an affair with a Hamptons council woman (Tamara Braun), but when the woman complains about Castle harassing her the author and his muse soon find themselves in prison for interfering with a murder investigation. Once the sheriff is convinced his suspect couldn’t be the murderer, and learns Beckett is homicide detective (and not a prostitute, as he assumed) he agrees to drop the charges if the pair agree to help him solve his first homicide.
With all other avenues closed Beckett and Castle investigate the victim’s neighbor (Don Stark) who has ties to organized crime and who Castle accidentally offends while implying he might have been involved in the murder over a nice Merlot. Once again ordered off the case, it’s up to Ryan and Esposito to discover the real reason for the murder when they uncover a meth lab in the basement of one of the victim’s Manhattan properties. It also leads Ryan to make a shocking discovery about Beckett’s new boyfriend.
Although the episode has a couple of awkward spots it does deliver a nice late twist as well as the amusing interrogation scene where an incredulous Ryan discovers the fact that Castle and Beckett are secretly dating. We’ll have to wait two weeks to see what the fallout of his discovery may be, but his refusal to tell Esposito what he learned makes me think the secret is safe… at least for awhile.
