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Castle - Episode 5.01 - After The Storm - Review

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Hi, this is the first review/recap I’ve ever written. I’m a big Castle fan, so I hope you guys enjoy reading this. Also English is not my first language so if there are any spelling mistakes, I’m sorry.

We start the episode at the highly anticipated morning after, with Castle waking up alone (and naked) in bed, wondering if last night was just a dream. We quickly find out it’s not when Kate walks into the room holding to cups of coffee and wearing nothing but Castle’s shirt. I think that by now we’ve all figured out that Kate’s hair is magic, because no one’s hair looks like that after a rainstorm. We get a little throwback to the pilot episode when Castle says“you’re right, I had no idea.” Now my dirty mind would like to know what she was talking about when she said “even the part where…” and I’m sure I’m not alone in this, right? After clearing up that this clearly wasn’t a one-time thing, the conversation takes a (very) flirty direction. I probably shouldn’t talk about the part where he started undressing her because then I’d just start to freak out again and nobody wants to see that. Anyway, where was I … right, their kiss was interrupted by Martha who is yelling pretty loud considering that fact that she has a hung-over Alexis with her (poor girl). Castle throwing himself and Beckett off the bed is to me the second funniest moment of the episode, you’ll find out about the funniest one later. Castle thinks the only logical option is for Kate to hide in the closet, which she is not happy about. But she hides anyway just as Martha walks into the room. “I’m just making the bed.” Yeah Castle, that’s exactly what it looks like. I’ve re-watched this scene a couple of times now and I still cannot focus on the dialogue when Castle is trying to hide Kate’s bra and she is giving him those mean glances, and then later throws a pillow at his head.
After Castle is fully dressed he goes to distract Martha and Alexis, who looks like she’s been partying for a week rather than just one night. I said I’d talk about the funniest scene and for me this was it, between Alexis’ “I tried, you didn’t pick up” (is someone still a little drunk), Castle’s constant (non-subtle) glances at the door and Kate’s slide to the front door and then realizing she forgot her bra (I mean come on, just leave it there. I’m sure Castle won’t mind) this is, for me, probably the best scene of the entire show. I can watch it over and over again, without getting sick and tired of it.
Now after Kate manages to ‘successfully’ sneak out of Castle’s place, the episode becomes a lot more serious, as we’re reminded that Maddox is still out there, when we see Gates and Ryan talking about the case. The minute I see who is playing the senator I know this guy is going to be trouble (why can’t Jack Coleman ever play a character that I actually like). Next we see Maddox who is trying to get information out of Smith by torturing him (poor guy). Maddox seems to have no luck as Smith refuses to give up the location of the file.
Now back to the happy part of the episode. Castle arrives at Beckett’s place, who is clearly still upset about being shoved into a closet. The scene quickly goes from funny to sweet when Castle says he wants to keep their relationship to themselves because he clearly doesn’t want to share her. It’s also a little throwback to the scene in 3x21 when Castle didn’t want to share Beckett with another writer. Oh how they’ve grown. Kate has a point when she says it wasn’t Castle’s finest hour. He offers to make it up to her and she suggests a round 2 (or in their case round 4!!) but they are once again interrupted, this time by Ryan. Kate tells Castle to hide in her closet, and I still haven’t figured out if she was kidding or not, but Castle says there’s no way Ryan will find out. She tells him to act normal, and clearly that’s not possible for him when we see him standing there very awkwardly. Once again Castle has trouble coming up with a good excuse (and you call yourself a writer) when Ryan asks him what he’s doing there. “I was walking by the neighborhood. I only live 20 … what are you doing here?” Smooth Castle, smooth. When Ryan brings up the case, Kate tries to make it clear that she’s done but it turns out she doesn’t have much of a choice since Maddox is still after her.
Kate is clearly overwhelmed as Castle and Ryan start working on the case. Kate says that she doesn’t know how to do this, since she’s no longer a cop and had finally managed to put this behind her. With Castle’s word of encouragement and the clue he uncovered about the watch they start their search for the identity of the mystery man, which we know is Smith.
After 11 minutes and 10 seconds, we finally get to see Esposito. He’s reached out to an old friend, for whom he apparently took a bullet, to figure out who Maddox is. Next we see Castle & Becket working on figuring out who Smith is while Ryan is having trouble at the precinct when they’re unable to trace the call made by Smith. They manage to ID him by tracing him back to a yacht club (if you want the entire explanation of how they found him you’ll just have to re-watch the episode). They find out that Smith has a first name and it’s Michael. They manage to get to his place in time to save Smith but it’s too late for the file. It’s has already gone up in flames (no pun intended).
When paramedics start talking Smith to the hospital, he says “86 M..” to Castle. Castle is convinced that this is a clue as to where a copy of the file is and they start looking through Smith’s files. While Kate is ready to give up, Castle is not because the thought of someone coming after Kate while he is unable to do anything about it is unacceptable. Right after they find a file that says that Smith owns property at 86 Markwellstreet, which explains the “86 M..”.
When they get there the place looks like a bomb has already gone of there, why would you want to own that? Kate thanks Castle for helping her and says that she would’ve never gotten this far if it wasn’t for him. He tells her they’ll do this together. Awww. When they find out that Smith has an office in that building they are interrupted by Maddox, who followed them there. He ties them up and locks them in a room (not sure what kind of room that’s supposed to be). As they’re unable to get out of those zip ties, Castle says “If we got murdered right now I’d feel so ripped off”. Kate agrees and I’m pretty sure the same goes for the entire Castle fandom. When Castle says they should have done that 4 years ago they are rescued by Esposito who asks “Done what 4 years ago?”. I wish they’d showed us how they talked themselves out of that one.
Esposito tells us that he found Maddox (whose real name is Cederic Marks) putting out a BOLO on his car (can he do that when he’s suspended?). They find Maddox as he’s about to retrieve the file. But good old Smith had the safe booby-trapped and a soon as Maddox lifts the file the bomb explodes. Esposito jumps to one side of the hallway while Castle pulls Kate to the other side. Even though it’s just a tiny detail in this episode, I love how Castle pulls her as close as he possibly can to protect her. Maddox didn’t survive the blast (yay) but neither did the file. It’s been blown into a million pieces (that’s just my estimation of the amount of confetti that was flying around in the room.
They tell Gates they were just walking by when the explosion went off. Gates asks Ryan if he knew anything about this and Ryan covers for them, but the look that Esposito give him just breaks my heart. Back at Kate’s place they talk about the fact that they’ll probably just send someone else to come after her when they hear a noise from outside. Kate and Esposito grab their gun while Castle grabs the fire poker, because if two trained cops with guns fail to stop the intruder, Castle and his fire poker definitely will. It turns out to be Ryan but Esposito refuses to lower his gun as the two start arguing. It’s clear these two have a lot to work out, let’s hope they do it soon. Ryan brought the confetti, which used to be the file, and they start working on trying to piece it back together. After 5 hours of puzzling (how can you be that patient) they find an account number that ties to a money order. They break into the Federal banking database and find out the account belongs to William H. Bracken who happens to be a US Senator. I knew there was a reason I didn’t like this guy.
They assume that Bracken got wind of the kidnapping gangsters scheme and that he probably wanted to get in on it, but when his political star rose he had more to lose if this ever came out so people started dying. Unfortunately they have no hard evidence but then Ryan gets a call about Smith being awake. But when they go talk to him, Smith refuses to cooperate because he owed Montgomery but he doesn’t owe Kate. Outside of the hospital they find out from Ryan and Esposito that they couldn’t find a link between Maddox and Bracken, making Smith their only hope. But when they see the guard outside they realize something is wrong and they rush back inside only to find Smith dead.
Back at Kate’s apartment Castle and Beckett’s hope has decreased immensely as Kate points out that the police won’t be able to protect her forever. Caste suggest they go somewhere where she’ll be safe but Kate says she’ll never be safe again. He tries to put on a brave face but the minute she can no longer see his expression, we can see how worried he is.
While Castle is still sleeping, Kate grabs her gun and leaves making it clear to the audience she’s not willing to run for the rest of her life. Not much later, Castle founds out she’s gone and he, Ryan and Esposito figure out that she’s going after Bracken. Kate is already at the convention and asks officer Hastings (is this the same cop from episode 4x02?) if she can jump the line, that way she doesn’t have to go through the metal detector. As Kate gets closer to Bracken we see flashbacks of everything that happened these past 4 season that relates to her mom’s case. At this point I was at the edge of my seat and I assume I was not the only one. While Castle, Ryan & Esposito race through the building to stop Kate, we see that she placed something inside of Bracken’s pocket. It turns out that it’s a cellphone when Kate calls him on it. When the boys get to the main hall they hear that the senator is in a meeting with a donor, who we all know is Kate. Ryan wants to call Gates but Castle convinces him to wait since Kate hasn’t done anything wrong yet.
Next we see Bracken meeting Kate in the kitchen with Kate pointing a gun at him (smart girl). Of course he denies everything and start to tell her a story about his past and all the good he’s been doing since he became senator. Kate doesn’t want to hear it and tells him (or yells) that her mother bled out in an alley all alone because of him. Someone give Stana an Emmy right now! Bracken tells her that no one will believe her and that it’s not about who has the gun but about who has the power. She tells him she has the file and that the deal he had with Smith is now their deal. He agrees and she whacks him over the head with her gun, giving him a scar to remember her by just like she has the scar from the gunshot of season 3’s finale. Kate finds the guys and tells them that she and Bracken reached an understanding. She also says that she’ll get justice for her mom, just not today, mirroring what Castle said to her in 4x01.
Later in Gates’ office, Kate tries to get her job back assuring Gates that her mom’s case will no longer be a problem. Gates tells her she knows she’s trying to protect Roy Montgomery’s reputation and admires her loyalty. Kate gets her job back but is still suspended and when Castle asks her what she’s going to do in the meantime she says “Oh I’m sure I’ll think of something” while (how shall I put this) groping Castle in the elevator. This sets the tone for a more fun season 5, which will hopefully include a lot more groping.

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