Castle and the Snakes On A Plane Ep

I actually really liked this episode. It did a nice feature of Castle.  We start out with Castle and Alexis on a plane. They're heading to London where Castle is going to be speaking to some other mystery writers in Sherlock Holmes house. (Alexis is all, you know he's fictional, right? And Castle says, yeah, but the address is real. Haha).  Alexis informs him that she's got plans with her own friends and won't be accompanying him to Sherlock's. Castle is disappointed.  During their whole conversation the turbulence is getting really bad and Castle notices that the crew look really upset over something. He goes to see if he can help and the flight attendant who asked for his autograph earlier thinks maybe he can.  The air marshal is missing and since Castle has worked with the NYPD he's the closest thing they have to law enforcement.  Dun, dun, dun.

Castle talks to Beckett who reassures him he can do this and he needs to start creating a timeline for the marshal.  They search the plane again and Castle goes down into the cargo hold with a flight attendant. They notice clothes sticking out of some suitcases (and Castle finds a snake. *shiver*) and when they figure out that someone stuffed clothes into other suitcases to empty one, they look around to find a bigger piece of luggage.  Of course the sky marshal is stuffed in there. Ick.

So, they start to piece together his timeline. Some of the crew remember him at the back of the plane. They find some honeymooners taking selfies that had the marshal in the background.  He was definitely watching a guy, so Beckett and the boys check him out. His name is Haddad and he is traveling on a stolen passport and associated with ISIS. Uh oh. Haddad overhears their plan to isolate him and he runs, but they catch him and zip tie him in the cargo hold. Castle gets more reassurance from Beckett that he can interrogate the guy, so Castle tries his best. Haddad gives him a story that it's his cousin associated with ISIS and he's going home to Syria because his mom is dying of cancer. Haddad seems surprised the air marshal is dead and he says that he saw the guy getting a lot of texts. They didn't find that phone with a lot of texts on the body, but the boys discover that the air marshal had a second phone. They ping it, and for a second it looks like the phone might be in the snake cage, but it isn't. Dangit). The phone has a bunch of threatening texts on it and points the investigation in another direction. And there is a very real fear that the plane might actually be brought down in an attack of some sort.

The team starts pinging the phone they traced from the air marshal's second phone and looking for a left-handed person by handing out customs forms. They narrow it down to an ex-employee of the airlines who is holding a grudge. Castle spills wine on her and when she opens her purse he sees the air marshal's stolen gun. They zip-tie her and she tells them she was in a relationship with the air marshal and thought he was cheating on her. They had plans and he broke them to work this flight. It looks like someone is setting her up, when she denies knowing about the second phone or the gun, but who would do that?

The team looks into the air marshal's financials and find he was paid just less than ten thousand dollars and it came from a guy named Dietrich. They call Dietrich in and he denies knowing anything at first, then admits that he was having the air marshal watch someone wearing a thirteen million dollar watch on the plane. (If they don't declare it, they save on fees and such.)

So, Castle tracks down the guy with the watch, only he's been drugged and the watch switched out for a fake.  With all the seat changes, Castle figures out it was an inside job.  Not shockingly, the flight attendant who's been helping them comes out with a gun, threatening them. Alexis talks her down and the case is solved.

One of the cutest moments was Alexis saying she did want to spend time with Castle after all. But the most touching moment, I think, was a little scene between Beckett and Espo. She's watching the plane on her computer monitor and he comes in and just watches her, lots of support and friendship looks between them. I love their rapport.  Of course I loved how Beckett had such faith in Castle and that they were quick to say their I love yous when they realized that there was danger aboard.

So, a solid episode for me with some great twists and turns and a little different pace with Castle in charge.

Did you watch? What did you think?