Castle Recap---The Ninja Episode

Last night's episode was funny, filled with twists and turns, and NINJAS!  It was so awesome.  I watched it with my kids and we had so much fun with this one.

A Japanese woman named Jade is killed in an abandoned warehouse and not much is known about her. She's dressed up like she's going out, but there's not much nightlife where she's found.  But our fearless team is on it.

The body is found with a drop key to an elevator of an abandoned cookie factory warehouse, so Beckett and Castle go to check it out.  They find a shrine and the murder weapon (a dagger) is there.  Castle picks it up, but before he can theorize about it too much, they hear a noise.  Beckett goes to see what's what and then poof! a ninja appears and takes the murder weapon then leaves in a puff of smoke.  The look on Castle's face was so FUNNY! Beck-ett. The ninja took the murder weapon.

No one really believes Castle about the ninja and even the lady the Japanese consulate sends tells him there aren't any ninjas anymore.  Poor Castle.

The team is led to a fellow ballet dancer (the victim was a ballerina) but he tells them he was just frustrated with Jade's lack of professionalism. Jade's phone records take them further to the Miyago Tea Import company where the guys get entertained by some hostesses. When Ryan pushed the hostess over to her own seat instead of his lap, I chuckled. I love Ryan.  (By the way, Beckett is meeting up with an old friend, so she isn't there. That was sort of a weird part of the storyline with Kate being worried about how awesome her friend's life always seemed. Whatevs. She's Kate Beckett for crying out loud!)  Anyway, one of the hostesses tells Castle if he buys private time she'll tell him about Jade, which she does.  Jade was trying to get into some muckety-mucks named Saito high end party and when she did, she ended up dead.  The guys get thrown out of the hostess bar (right in the middle of Ryan's karaoke number, too!) but they got the Saito lead, so the $6000 tab Castle got stuck with is worth it, right?

Before they can do anything, however, two ninjas attack.  Oh man, it was such a great ninja fight, too, and Ryan and Espo hold their own, but both ninjas disappear. It. Was. Awesome.  Anyway, they go to visit Saito (after Castle explains to Beckett why he didn't call and get her out of her dinner date with her old friend early) and Saito is a Japanese Yakuza guy.  He tells them nothing except he wants to see a search warrant, so they go back to the precinct to do a little more investigating.

They get a clue from Lainey when she tells them that Jade has scars on her body that show she was in an explosion at some time in her life.  Which leads the team to realizing who she really is---Jade's family was killed for double-crossing the Yakuza and their house was blown up.  (Hey, Saito was Yakuza . . .) Oh, and when they catch up with the consulate officer, she admits that she's really Jade's sister. Surprise!  Wowza. The sister says Jade had been trying to find the "Green Dragon" that killed their family and said she recognized his voice and was going after him.  (What a terrible assassin the Green Dragon turned out to be if both sisters lived.  But I digress.)

They all go back to Saito's house, and while they're questioning him about the whole situation, he's killed, a ninja comes in and Jade's sister takes him down in another ninja fight!  They unmask him and the Green Dragon is Jade's boyfriend's dad. So, so good.

They wrap up how it was such a perfect disguise to have the "Green Dragon" be a white guy because no one would expect that.  At least Jade's sister got some closure and her sister's dagger back.  Bittersweet.

Beckett tells Castle her friend is now boring and she's afraid they'll get boring after they get married.  Castle points to the case they just solved with ninjas and says, um yeah, no, we will never be boring.

A really great episode.  Did you see it?  What did you think?