Beckett Undercover---Oh My!

Did you SEE Castle last night?  It was so good. I was seriously on the edge of my seat.

Of course the writers start us off with the warm fuzzies of Caskett lounging around the loft and Beckett reveling in not having anything to do. They're talking about fonts for their save the date cards and being all cute and cuddly.  Then Beckett gets the phone call---come down to the precinct, alone.

She does, and there's a mission waiting there for her.  Go undercover to try to help bust a shadowy drug ring.  They don't know much about the woman she'll be impersonating, but since she's a low level courier, it should be a quick in and out.  Beckett agrees, gives Castle a phone call to say she'll be home for dinner and she loves him, and then she's gone.

Beckett goes to the meet, but in the elevator a gun is pulled on her and she's whisked away in a white van, hooded and hands behind her back.  Uh oh.  When she's frantically trying to talk to anyone who can hear her through the wire she was wearing, while the scene is cutting back to the precinct where the team is trying to figure out what to do to find her, was especially good at ramping up the tension.

Beckett is taken to some mansion where she goes in to meet a creepy Glasses guy.  He offers her a permanent position in the "company" for $50,000 per week and she says she wants to meet Lazarus (the main guy) before she says yes.  Glasses says he'll check with Lazarus and let her know, but until then, she'll be their "guest."  The men step outside to talk for a second and Beckett lunges for the phone to get a message through to the precinct.  Seriously heart-pounding.  She gets through and is able to talk to Espo for a second before the men come back.  Whew.  She's taken to a nice room where she pricks her finger and leaves a little blood trail for CSU so they'll find the letter she's left for Castle talking of her love for him.  So sad!  Stana Katic was amazing in that scene.

Castle has figured out something is wrong by this time and when no one answers his calls, he goes to the precinct.  The captain brings him into her office and tells him what's going on.  Poor Castle.  He looked like he'd been sucker-punched.  Beckett's message gave them a clue that Elana, the woman Beckett is impersonating is more than a low level courier, so the team turns their attention to her.  The guys go to question her, but when they get to the hospital, the police guard is dead and she's gone. Ruh roh.

Meantime, Beckett is given an assignment that, if she completes it, Lazarus will meet with her. (Because the real Elana is an accomplished killer apparently. Yikes.)  So all Beckett has to do is kill a guy for the organization. They take her to his house and give her a gun.  She tries to stall a bit, to find out more about the target, but they aren't having any of it and tell her to get it done.  Beckett goes in, the guy sees her, and we cut to two shots being heard.  She runs back out, but her escort tells her to show him the job is done.  We go back in and the guy is lying on the floor, there's blood spatter everywhere. Everyone's happy but the dead guy.

Only he's not dead.  He calls the precinct to tell them the story about how this woman said she's a cop and went into his kitchen to get ketchup and beets and that she better do what she says if he wants to live.  So the team has a clue that she's alive at least.

Beckett goes back to the mansion (and she does manage to get a partial text message to the precinct from a bimbo's phone) and is taken to this creepy staircase to a basement.  Here is my advice---never go down a creepy shadowy basement staircase.  Shiver.  Beckett does and sees a bunch of women counting money.  Lots and lots of money.  She's taken down a long hall and to a door where a man can be heard screaming.  After a minute she's allowed in and when Lazarus turns, it's a moment of recognition for both of them. He was that massive guy that she questioned in her mother's murder, Vulcan Simmons.  Yeah, not good for Beckett.

She gets tortured for information with her head dunked in ice cold water.  When she doesn't give anything up, he gives the order for her to be killed and dumped in the woods.  As she's kneeling there, just before the guy pulls the trigger, the real Elana comes out of the trees and kills the guy, saying she was sent in because "he" wants her alive.  Bet you can't guess who the "he" is.

Beckett is rescued and during her statement they realize they can't prove anything.  The mansion has been cleaned out, Vulcan Simmons has an alibi, there's nothing solid.  But Beckett remembers lots of money being funneled to something called Future Forward so the captains starts looking into that.

We get a really sweet Caskett moment with Castle saying, look what happens when I leave you alone and Beckett telling him she wasn't alone, that thoughts of him and their future life together kept her going.  They do realize that Vulcan wasn't Lazarus, and after Beckett watches Senator Bracken on TV they all realize who the real Lazarus is---him---who has a big super PAC full of drug money to fund his run for the presidency.  But the bigger problem is now the debt is paid, she saved his life once, he saved hers.  So the next time they meet, well, the gloves are off.

Such a great episode---angsty, twisty, and part of the over-arching mom death plot that seemed fresher than the rest of the times they've visited this storyline.  Loved it!

Did you watch?