The events of "Knockout" take their toll on our heroes; Beckett, recovering from her gunshot wound, makes no contact with the others for three months, driving a wedge between her and Castle. Meanwhile, there's a new captain at the Twelfth — Victoria Gates, a no-nonsense by-the-book type who, naturally, is not particularly impressed by Castle or his eccentricities and makes no secret of it, meaning that Castle is no longer welcome at the precinct — and Alexis, naturally, reacts to any suggestion that he might go back with great hostility. And the investigations into Beckett's shooting and her mother's case have both gone cold, having been suspended due to lack of evidence or progress. Beckett thus continues the investigation on the quiet, but it soon becomes apparent that she's not as unaffected by what's happened to her as she'd like the others to believe, and that she might be spiralling even further out of control.
Meanwhile, socialite Sonya Gilpert has been murdered in her bed, leaving the obvious suspect to be Dale Landers, the rock star who was sharing it with her. Considering she was shot in the chest at close range, his insistence that he slept right through it right next to her and didn't hear a thing is met with skepticism, and it looks like an Open-and-Shut Case— except we all know what this show's like regarding open-and-shut cases.
As Beckett and Castle try to rebuild their friendship, it soon becomes apparent that both are keeping secrets that could shatter everything...
Tropes:
- The Big Board: Castle repurposes his electronic writer's board to chart Beckett's mother's case, implying that he has begun investigating it on the quiet.
- Blatant Lies: Both Beckett and Castle are keeping their secrets throughout the episode: Castle about who is keeping Beckett safe and his own investigation, and Beckett about precisely what she remembers about her shooting.
- Call-Back: Beckett's lack of contact throughout the summer reflects Castle's own lack of contact with the others between the Season Two / Season Three gap.
- Foreshadowing:
- Officer Hastings, the uniform who gives Esposito and Ryan information about the Body of the Week, will play a significant part in one of the following episodes. Specifically, "Heroes and Villains", in which she is the vigilante Lone Vengeance.
- Beckett freezing when one of the suspects points a gun at her is also echoed later in the season in "Kill Shot", which features her having a full-blown PTSD-influenced psychological breakdown.
- A Deadly Affair: Sonya had been seeing Dale's bandmate Mitch behind his back. Mitch wanted Sonya to leave Dale for him, but instead she broke it off.
- Frame-Up: The killer slipped drugs into Sonya and Dale drinks, killed Sonya, and put the gun in Dale's hand to pin the murder on him.
- Heroic BSoD: Beckett spends most of the episode having a slow-burning one, but becomes increasingly irrational and out-of-control in the second half after she freezes when Dale points a gun at her.
- If I Can't Have You…: Mitch Yancey's motive for killing Sonya, as she broke off their affair to be with Dale full time.
- Inconvenient Hippocratic Oath: Beckett's boyfriend is forced out of surgery because you can't operate on a loved one.Surgeon: [replacing him as lead surgeon] You did what you had to. Now do what you should do.
- Locked Room Mystery: Sonya Gilpert is shot dead. The only other person in the apartment was her boyfriend, and the alarm system was active. The killer got in hours earlier by using a key he already had, hiding under their bed, spiking their vodka while they left the room, slipped out from under the bed again, killed Sonya, then waited for Dale to discover the body and flee, then escape.
- Pillow Silencer: Sonya Gilpert's killer did this.
- Put on a Bus: As of this episode, Josh is gone.
- Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: How Castle gets back into the precinct. Captain Gates isn't best pleased.
- She's Back: Beckett manages to rally her spirits the second time she gets a gun pointed at her, managing to work through the urge to freeze. She's in better shape for the rest of the episode, suggesting that she's back to something like an even keel.
- Wham Line: "I remember everything."
- You Called Me "X"; It Must Be Serious: Castle continues his tendency to refer to Beckett by her first name when things are serious (or when he's having difficulty separating himself from his feelings for her).
