Holy Smokes Did You SEE Castle?

Last night's Castle was amazing---tense, emotional, and very well-acted.  I even shed a tear at the phone call between Jenny and Ryan. So, so good.

We start out with Kate on the phone with Jenny, telling her to remain calm as a huge fire rages in the background.  Then we switch to twelve hours earlier and the team is investigating a burned body in a building that was burned down by an arsonist.  The building is structurally damaged and when they hear a few creaks and are told to get out of there as soon as they can, Castle practically runs away. That made me smile.

They bring in the building's owner and question him since he gets an insurance settlement from his burned out building and he has ties to the mob. But he also has an alibi, so he is ruled out.  Castle and Beckett go to talk to Lainey, and while she's giving the scant amount of information she has on the identity of the victim, the fire investigator comes in and says she knows who the body is---it's her partner, Blake McCann.

Apparently Blake is a fire investigator, too, and had been investigating a serial arsonist all on his own. He must have found him and received a bullet to the head for his trouble.  Ryan and Espo go to his house, realize his car isn't in the garage and head over to the burned out building to see if it's there.  It is and it has files in it that lead them to an old shoe factory.  Once inside, they find the arsonist's lair, but it's been wired to explode and they are caught in the explosion.

Castle and Beckett have been following up on leads with a website for pyros that features the crime scene.  The owner of the website keeps getting texts about a three alarm fire in an old shoe factory and Beckett and Castle both get the same look on their face as they realize what that means. They head over to the fire to check on Ryan and Espo, where the fire chief is pulling everyone back since the fire's so bad.  Beckett says her guys are in there, but there's really nothing they can do. They stand there, looking at the fire with such horror on their faces, it was heart-wrenching.  But not as much as when Ryan's wife Jenny calls. She's about to have the baby and has been "testing" Ryan's phone for when it's "go time," but he hasn't been answering. Beckett tells her to remain calm, there's been an incident.

We see Lainey's reaction as she comes to the fire scene as well as the entire precinct when they're told of the situation.  Gates takes matters into her own hands and interrogates the website owner.  She gets a few clues as to the arsonist's identity, but is it too late for Ryan and Esposito?

Jenny shows up, in labor, but wanting to be there for Ryan. Lainey convinces her to go to an ambulance so they can make sure everything is all right.  Then we see Ryan and Esposito alive in a sub-basement, trying to hotwire an old phone to alert someone that they're alive.  They get through to Beckett and it's bittersweet.  The sub-basement isn't on the building's plans and they don't know how to get to them.  The carbon monoxide is setting in and Beckett gives the phone to a laboring Jenny so she can talk to Ryan for what may be the last time.  They talk baby names and decide on Javier if it's a boy and Sarah Grace if it's a girl.  The funniest line of the night was Esposito commenting that Ryan was going to name a white Irish kid, Javier. Haha!

The phone line goes dead and Ryan decides to fight this and is almost frantic in looking for a way out when he realizes that Esposito has gone to sleep.  There is such a desperation to this whole scene it was incredibly well done.  I love Espo and Ryan. 

With the information the website owner gives, combined with the fire investigator realizing that the buildings that were burned all had the same inspector, they figure out who the arsonist is and he's at the scene filming.  Beckett convinces him to tell her how to get to Ryan and Esposito and the next scene is of fire crews getting to the unconscious men.  I was on the edge of my seat to see how this would play out and when they see the rescuers bringing out Ryan and Esposito, there was such relief for Castle, Kate, and me!  Ryan runs to the ambulance where he meets his new baby girl, Sarah Grace.  The family is all together, Castle, Beckett, Lainey, Espo, all looking on the happy family scene. 

Sigh. One of the best Castle episodes ever.

Did you see it?