Review: Castle 7.12- “Private Eye Caramba!”

Castle and Beckett cross paths in their investigation into a telenovela star’s murder. These two continue to help each other solve cases, despite Castle not being able to work with Beckett like he used to. Will he find his way back into the 12th Precinct or is being a P.I. in his cards for the future?

*****SPOILERS BELOW*****

The episode begins with Beckett expressing her concerns to Martha about Castle’s P.I. venture. It seems like Castle isn’t really getting many cases of substance, and is instead dealing mainly with fans wanting to talk to him or people throwing around crazy theories about where he disappeared to during those two months. Castle doesn’t seem phased by it; he says he has a meeting with a potential client. Beckett tells Castle she supports him no matter what, but that he doesn’t have to prove anything to her or anyone else.

Beckett has a new case, in the form of a murdered telenovela actress, Anahita Menendez (Cindy Luna). Meanwhile, Castle looks a little more bored than he was letting on at his office. He tells Beckett he’s jealous of her case, as he throws pencils at the ceiling. It turns out Castle may get a piece of the action after all, because the deceased was carrying her co-star’s “on-loan” purse, which is now missing. Her co-star, Sofia Del Cordova (Daya Vaidya), comes to Castle for help looking for it after his services were recommended by Beckett.

Beckett and Castle end up bumping into each other on a lead, and cuteness ensues. I don’t know why, but them working together seems even better/funnier now, given the forbidden nature of it all. Castle fills in Sophia on his leads, and she doesn’t seem to have too much faith in him. Beckett and Castle start some P.I. roleplaying in his office and things get steamy when his telenovela client walks in to check on him. Castle can’t catch a break! He gets fired by Sophia, then quickly re-hired when he finds a new lead.

Castle tracks down the white limo the victim was seen in the night she died, and while looking in the back of it for the purse, a man with a gun gets in with him. At the same time, Beckett and team identify the man seen at the murder scene, Harlan Mathis (Jackson Hurst), the same man that has taken Castle. Mathis has a knife and he’s about to use on Castle when Ryan and Esposito save the day. After going back to the theatre the victim was at the night of her murder, Castle finds the purse in the bushes. While going through the purse, he realizes the purse is actually encrusted with fake diamonds, so it isn’t worth all the money his client is making it out to be. Sophia walks in and he tells her he knows something fishy is going on. He refuses to give her the USB in the purse and she pulls out a gun.

Castle manages to disarm her and then brings her into the station. The USB ends up being a security key to a Swiss bank account holding $100 million. Sophia says she didn’t kill Ana, as she and Ana were business partners and were planning on starting the first Latina driven TV network. It ends up that the head of the show, Francisco Herrara (Franco L. Barberis) had been eavesdropping on the actress’ and knew about their plans. He killed Ana, ensuring that she and Sophia didn’t go through with their plans to leave the show/network. Castle and Beckett walk out of the precinct arm in arm, with Castle’s first happy client under his belt!