Although Castle is considered a drama, we are all well aware that when it comes down to it, it’s more of a ‘dramedy’- all the murders and investigation, but with a really lighthearted approach. However, last night’s episode ‘Punked’was all comedy. Now, I’ll be the first to say that I’m not a big fan of the genre, but Castle never fails to impress me. When I read the press release before watching the episode, I wasn’t all that excited about it, but they sure pulled it off and made me laugh out loud several times.
We know that the cast of Castle has brilliant comedic timing and that was really spot on last night. I particularly loved seeing Captain Montgomery in on the jokes and, more importantly, I loved that Detective Ryan got more screen time. We usually just see Beckett and Castle during the investigations, but since Esposito got hurt, Ryan got to tag along with them, which was great and we had a chance to see just a little bit more of Seamus Deaver’s talent.
This particular case got Castle’s imagination running wild. A man is found dead in a park, with a large bullet hole decorating his chest. However, when Lanie performs the autopsy and takes the bullet out, they realize it’s not an ordinary bullet; in fact, it’s a lead ball, commonly used in the 18th century. Castle’s imagination runs away with him and he immediately theorizes they’re dealing with a time-traveling killer. Beckett rolls her eyes dismissing the idea, but they’re stuck. There’s just no plausible explanation as to why Daniel Goldstein was killed by a 200-year-old bullet.
A specialist is called in and he says that the bullet found in Goldstein could have only been fired from an antique gun. The problem is that those aren’t registered as they are considered a collector’s item.
They eventually get an ID on a print that was found on the victim’s wallet and bring the guy in. This suspect, however, is a little too big, a little too violent, and throws poor Detective Esposito through a wall. Beckett interviews him and it’s just so much fun to watch how she’s not even flinching at the size of the guy, while Castle screams like a little girl and jumps out of his chair when the guy stands up. That scene is just downright hilarious.
Esposito is furious that he was assaulted by the suspect and Captain Montgomery promises him that with the amount of other charges the guy was already facing, he’ll be locked up for a long time. The fact that Esposito needs a neck brace is a source of endless jokes throughout the episode.
Beckett and Castle interview the victim’s sister and she says that he wasn’t into drugs or anything illegal. In fact, he barely had a social life because he worked so much at a company called Berman Rose. He created financial products and was this brilliant math genius. Castle and Beckett go to his firm, while Ryan and Esposito start tracking down antique gun collectors. Once at Goldstein’s firm, they interview his boss and his assistant, but they deny knowing anything about the gun or about Daniel’s life at all. They do say that a couple of months back, Daniel was blamed for hundreds of millions of dollars a few investors lost, so his killer could easily be one of them.
Eventually, they track down a guy who just happened to collect antique guns and was part of the angry mob that had lost millions after Daniel’s mistake. He denies having killed him, but says Daniel once asked him where he could get a Sherlock Holmes gun. They send his guns to ballistics for testing but they all come back negative. However, they do find that Daniel’s car has three illegal parking tickets for the past several months and all in the same place — 82nd street, between Lexington and 3rd — and the last ticket was from the night he was killed; only it was after the murder, so the car should still be there. Esposito and Ryan go and discover it’s a replica of Back to the Future‘s Delorean. Ryan spots a man wearing antique clothes with a blood stain on the shirt that matched Goldstein’s wound. The guy looks homeless and tells them he found it in the trash. When they start asking more questions, though, he resists and slams his cart on Esposito, who gets hurt yet again.
At the precinct, they confirm the homeless man’s story and let him go. However, they still don’t know why Goldstein was wearing those clothes and why whoever killed him used an antique gun. Lanie sheds some light on the subject because she found some very interesting substances that amount to gunpowder residue on the right sleeve of the jacket. That can only mean that Goldstein didn’t go down without a fight; he fired back.
Castle, Ryan and Beckett go back to the crime scene and they canvas the area for another bullet or gun. Another lead ball is found and Castle suddenly has an idea: the new bullet was found about forty paces from where Goldstein was killed. He was wearing turn of the century clothes and shot an antique gun, probably identical to the one that killed him. It wasn’t a game; it was a good, old fashioned duel.
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