Review: Castle - "Like Father, Like Daughter"

Castle is in the doghouse with his daughter. Maybe a flexing of his detective skills for a cause she believes in will get him back in good graces. And save a man’s life.

****SPOILERS BELOW****

Alexis enlists Castle’s help on an Innocence Review case to prove that a death row inmate, Frank Henson (James Carpinello, The Good Wife), was wrongly convicted. With only 72 hours left before his execution, Castle and Alexis (with help from Beckett) urgently investigate the original murder, only to uncover secrets that may seal Frank’s fate. Joelle Carter (Justified) guest stars as Frank’s long-time girlfriend who has always believed in him.

A quality episode showcasing Molly C. Quinn, along with the characters of Castle and Alexis’ relationship. She, grown from a middle school student since the first season to now a young college girl and Castle, well is Castle. We find out the victim is a Kim Talbert, who had been tutoring some other kids at the time before her murder in Chemistry and the sciences fifteen years ago. The tutoring wasn’t known about because some of the boys being tutored were embarrassed, so Kim kept their remediation on the QT. This was tipped off to Alexis by (at the time fifteen years ago Kim’s ex-boyfriend), a Lyle Gomez. The crew in NYC still vital to helping, researched and found that during the same period of time as her murder, an abandoned farm house was found to be a meth production house and a place the teenagers of the day had some wild parties. Turns out, the kids partying and the people cooking meth were one and the same.

Kim went to a party the night of her murder, which was where she saw the students she tutored in chemistry making the illegal, poisonous drug. When she went home to decide what to do, she was confronted by one of her meth-cooking pupils and was killed. The accused brother- who had some head injury-related mental problems at the time- was with Kim’s body when the accused (who’s been in jail and about to be executed in present day) got his brother out there and tried to wipe down the place of their prints. Before he could leave, the cops found him. Instead of implicating his brother (who he thought was the real murderer) he has been sitting in a jail cell all this time. Frank took the rap for John because the social-mental problems which plagued John came from Frank rolling his Camero with John in his car. He blamed himself for John’s strange behavior and even possibly the murder he though John committed. Beckett questioned John in Manhattan, where he lived at the time of the case. His alibi was full of holes, and his walking out on Beckett mid-questioning, confirms they found something.

Two last clues unravel the case. 1) A supposed charm off Kim’s charm bracelet was found under her body, but her bracelet broke after her murder when John and Frank were endeavoring to leave the crime seen (so how would it get under her body?). And 2) in one of the pictures Castle finally recognizes a solar system clock that broke in the original murder. In a coded manor, these clocks give the time. It being broken at the time of the murder, it read as 7:32pm, when the 911 call didn’t happen until 8:04pm. It wasn’t Kim’s screams that Frank heard, it was John’s scream upon finding his tutor bloodily murdered on the floor. This never came to light as Frank was protecting his brother and due to John’s head injuries at the time, he had memory loss (he might have thought it all a nightmare he slept through).

With a little more help from Ryan and Esposito, Kim’s old bank was tracked down and the names of the boys getting tutored were found (all the parents had paid by check). A young cop (the son of the chief of the town) who had been giving Alexis and the lawyers working to free Frank a hard time anytime he saw them, turns out to be a past swim champ. The dolphin charm found under the body matches the necklace in a picture from one of the officer’s high school swim newspaper pictures. He was the meth cooker who tricked Kim to show him the theory to cook meth. She found out and if she told someone, it would have been bad for business. QED …means, motive and opportunity. Frank goes free.

The way the writers keep all the players (detectives and Castle’s family) involved is very artful. Not forced. Each charter has skills and resources that make them key to the show and this episode. The idea of murder in this town is so abhorrent that if anybody really laid the facts down and was in communication with each other, whatever the outcome, it would have been solved long ago. Lucky for us, and them, Castle and Alexis pulled all the pieces together. In the end, Castle hands it to Alexis, pointing out what she did was “amazing.” He helped, but she was the one that got the innocent man free. Up until now, I think Alexis’ character hadn’t come into focus as much as the character had grown behind the scenes of the many other episodes (she is witness through all the cases which put her father in harms way, more often than not). Great episode and nice work by the cast.

Memorable lines of the show:

“I am not giving up. And you know why? Because it’s the best idea ever!” -Castle

“Castle, I am not getting married in space.” -Detective Beckett

Next Week: “A Murder is Forever” (06.08)

Speaking of harms way for Castle… clowns with guns, if they weren’t scary enough before. Diamonds as big as your fist can bring out the crazy gun-toting clown in some. Watch out!