‘Castle,’ Season 4, Episode 1, Season Premiere: TV Recap

Source: WSJ, 9-19-11

We ended the last season of “Castle” with a classic cliffhanger: Beckett was shot by a sniper at Captain Montgomery’s funeral. Castle had tried to knock her out of the way when he saw what was happening, but he wasn’t successful. As Beckett lay bleeding, Castle confessed his love for her.

The season premiere picked up exactly where it left off. Beckett is being frantically rushed into surgery. She is slipping away. We are taken back and forth between the operating room and the hallway where everyone has gathered.

In surgery, Beckett’s boyfriend Josh has to start the surgery to save her life despite protests from around the table. “You can’t operate on her, she’s your girlfriend.” To which Josh responds, “She’s dying.” And then he cuts in to stop her bleeding.

Outside in the hallway, Beckett’s father, Castle’s daughter wait. Josh, relieved by another surgeon, comes out of surgery and slams Castle into the wall, blaming him for forcing Beckett to investigate her mother’s death. Back in the room Beckett flat lines.

Castle admits, “I put her on the crosshairs.”

Meanwhile, an envelope is pulled out of a mailbox with the name Smith on it. Montgomery sent it before he was shot. Castle’s pictures, a news article about Beckett’s shooting and some other paperwork are inside and once Smith read’s it all, he places a call to someone who is high up in government.

Beckett doesn’t really flat line. She pulls through. Castle visits Beckett in the hospital while she’s recovering. He says, “I just never thought I’d see again.” Followed by “I heard you were opening a flower shop so I thought I’d pitch in.”

Jokes aside, he quickly realizes Beckett doesn’t remember anything about the day she was shot, including his confession of love. She says, “There are some things better not being remembered.” Not that it matters because Beckett tells Castle to leave. She tells him she’ll call him. But she doesn’t.

Then, with the magic of TV, it is three months later, Beckett returns to work, still not having contacted Castle. She learns Castle had worked tirelessly to figure out who shot her and that the new captain, Captain Victoria Gates (who prefers to be call sir) kicked Castle to the curb anyway. Castle has taken the files home so he can continue working on finding Beckett’s shooter.

Beckett gets into it with the new captain because her case has been closed and because she has to retrain to get her gun back even though she did okay on her psych examine. With no leads on her shooter the captain said it was a waste of time to keep pursuing.

Beckett finally decides to connect with Castle so she catches up with him at a book signing. He is furious she had let three months go by without a call, explaining that it was painful to watch her die on the ambulance, and then recover. He is angry, but softens when Beckett said she needed to work through some things.

“Did Josh help you with that?”

“We broke up.”

After some small talk, Beckett reveals she built up a wall inside after her mother’s death. She tells Castle she needs to put the murder to rest in order to have the kind of relationship she wants. Castle tells her he’s still mad, but says they will figure it out. He softly changes the subject and tells her he’s been working on the money trail to find her killer, but has no leads. He promises to get reinstated by Gates.

He goes around Gates to get back into the squad, having called his pal the mayor to pull strings. Gates is not happy. She threatens to bury Beckett if she ever lets Castle embarrass her again.

The team is in the middle of connecting some dots on a warehouse fire deemed accidental that might lead to some clues on Beckett’s mother murder, when Gates sends them all out on another lead. Becket is back in the saddle, but clearly isn’t ready. After a chase she hesitates to raise her weapon when faced with one pointing at her. Her hand is shaking and Esposito and Ryan come in and take down the bad guy before anything happens.

Back at the station, Castle confronts her on freezing and the shaky hand. She says it won’t happen again. The two of them go and talk to the fire investigator about the warehouse fire that might lead to her shooter. He insists the report is accurate. Beckett flips out and accuses the investigator of lying, and being pressured to falsify a report. He throws them both out of the fire station.

She and Castle go to her home to review the files and they disagree on the fire investigators guilt and the cause of the fire. Beckett can’t accept this because it would mean she has no leads in her mother’s murder.

After they part, Castle gets a call from someone claiming to be a friend of Montgomery’s. Presumably the high-placed official silenced by Montgomery’s mail. He’s got the envelope’s contents spread out in front of him.

“We need to talk.”

Here’s the crux of that call: the contents of that envelope are so damaging to people in high places that they ensure the safety of Montgomery’s family. Beckett was shot at the funeral because that envelope arrived late. She’s safe now and won’t be targeted again, as long as Beckett doesn’t pursue the case any further.

Castle decides to not mention the call to Beckett and instead decides to work to steer her away from the case. He convinces her to take a break until she feels better.

Beckett focuses on the killing of a debutant instead, that they thought had already been solved. She figures out who the killer is, which is not the guy in custody. This time, when they chase the suspect down Beckett doesn’t hesitate and she faces the second gun barrel of the show. This time she prevails and cuffs the suspect.

“We’ll figure it out. That wall inside won’t be there forever,” says Castle as they part.

And just when you think its over, the last few minutes of the show set up the season to come. Castle has, for the time being convinced Beckett to stop pursuing the case, but he is clearly still looking into finding her sniper. And Beckett, in an appointment with her shrink, acknowledges she actually remembers everything from the day she was shot.

Why do you think she lied to Castle about not hearing him say, “I love you”?