A woman suspected of killing her boyfriend holds people hostage and demands Castle to help clear her name since she's his number one fan.
- Amoral Attorney: The killer is one of the Stokes family attorneys and Aaron's son-in-law. He used his connections to obtain incriminating evidence against Emma in order to murder her boyfriend and frame her. He also has no problem hiding behind his clients/in-laws, even if it means implicating his own father-in-law (Emma's biological father) in his crimes.
- Asshole Victim: One of Emma's hostages is a Wall Street Jerkass in French collars and cuffs. Even after hearing Emma's motives, he stupidly escalates the situation by trying to play hero just as she was backing down.
- Because You Were Nice to Me: After Emma is reunited with her father, Aaron Stokes, he uses his connections to the police commissioner's office to help Kate get back on the NYPD (current budget issues stopped Gates hiring her back directly).
- Bittersweet Ending: Emma is cleared of murder and her father is now part of her life, but she lost her boyfriend and she's still going to be facing a number of charges for the hostage situation. Also, Aaron Stokes' own life will no doubt be a mess once word gets out what his son-in-law did, but he promises to support Emma no matter what.
- Brick Joke: Castle's "Writer" bulletproof vest finally comes in handy when he's accidentally shot by Emma while she was struggling with a hostage for her gun.
- Continuity Nod: Castle gets sent in wearing his "Writer" vest.
- Clear My Name: Emma wants Castle to clear her of murder charges.
- Gun Struggle: One of the hostages attempts to wrestle Emma's pistol away from her while she's distracted by Castle's revelation about Angelo's gift. In the ensuing struggle, Castle ends up getting shot, but fortunately his "Writer" bulletproof vest stopped the round.
- Hidden in Plain Sight: Emma's adoption papers were in a gift-wrapped box in Angelo's apartment, which the murderer never bothered checking inside of when he broke in looking for it. The NYPD didn't think to look in it either until Castle pointed it out.
- Hollywood Law: The lawyer who got Emma's files unsealed (illegally) says that's grounds for disbarment. Sadly, it's really hard for lawyers to get disbarred. About the only way it happens is if they screw with a client's money. Breaking the law isn't enough to do it. Then he claims that his client's identity is privileged information. Nope. Who you're representing isn't privileged, just the information they give you.
- Inheritance Murder: An indirect case. Stokes' daughter was set to have a trust fund, but if news got out that he had another daughter, all of that money would be split. So Stokes' son-in-law killed Emma's boyfriend, the only other person who knew Emma was Stokes' daughter, and framed her to keep all the inheritance in his wife's name.
- Miscarriage of Justice: When she was 16, Emma was arrested for stabbing her foster brother to death. However, she didn't mean to do so; Emma's twin foster brothers had bullied her (while the parents didn't care because they were Fostering for Profit) and attempted to attack her in the basement as part of a Deadly Prank, causing her to accidentally kill one of them while defending herself. The cops arrested Emma for murder based on the surviving brother's testimony without even giving her a chance to tell her side of the story, causing it to go on her record. It was only thanks to Emma's old church orphanage that she wasn't unfairly sent to juvie.
- My Greatest Failure: Stokes deeply regrets not trying to find Emma since giving her up for adoption, especially after her mother died and learning what she had gone through.
- Oh, Crap!: Castle's okay with being the cop's representative... until he learns one of the hostages is a little girl. Then the first thing he does is brag and demand the girl and her mother get out.
- Police Are Useless: Emma distrusts the police, due to them arresting her in the past and falsely labeling her an unstable, violent murderer despite the extenuating circumstances.
- Pulling the Thread: Castle refuses to give up on Emma. Similarly, Angelo refused to give up on her. Angelo tracked down her birth records and that's what triggered his death.
- Red Herring: Emma's surviving foster brother looks like a shoe-in for being the one framing her, as he was party to the original case, had successfully framed her before and would obviously hold a grudge for his brother's death. However, as soon as he's brought up, Emma shuts it down as she knows he's currently in prison due to an unrelated crime.
- Reformed Criminal: Angelo. However, he did rely on his burglary skills to break in to Emma's old orphanage and steal her adoption records.
- Shout-Out: "Emma's unstable and that's a problem, but there's a hostage in here who's seen Die Hard too many times."
- Slipping a Mickey: The killer laced Emma's scotch with knockout drops the night of the murder so she wouldn't remember what happened.
- Spotting the Thread: When looking through Emma's text messages, Castle notices she always types "love" in a personalized way, but her last message to her boyfriend Angelo spelled the word normally. This makes him realize someone else used Emma's phone that night to lure Angelo into a trap.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Angelo just wanted to give his girlfriend a memorable birthday gift when he stole Emma's sealed records to uncover the identities of her biological parents. Unfortunately, when he tried to make contact with Emma's father, the man's greedy son-in-law answered instead and decided to take drastic action by killing Angelo, nearly causing Emma to be wrongfully arrested again.
