Castle Review: What the XX Blankety X?

I'm still sort of processing what happened in last night's Castle. It feels like such a setback for Caskett as a couple.

Let's talk about this.

The episode starts out where we left off with last week's episode, with Kate staring out a dirty window while a death squad approaches her position.  She is chatting with Vikram, telling him to get some rest when she hears crunching glass outside the door. (They're obviously beginner assassins since that's the oldest trick in the book.) Kate runs away with Vikram to a hidey-hole, but is met by the bad guys down there, too. There's nowhere to go when all of the sudden the bad guy is down and some lady is saying we've got to get out of here. Kate forces her to identify herself before they get in the car with her and surprise! It's Castle's stepmom, Rita.

Rita asks Kate to tell her what happened from the beginning, so we get the events from last episode in Kate's perspective starting with Vikram's phone call giving the code of a life and death emergency. She goes to that old theater, where Vikram informs her that while Kate was at the AG office, she asked for any files that would connect Bracken to criminals and here we are two years later and something has popped. (That's some terrible file searches, y'all, if it took two YEARS to get.) Anyway, Vikram forwarded the redacted memo up the chain and now everyone on the team is dead. The only word visible was LOCKSAT.

Well, the bad guys find them at the theater and Kate gets shot, heads to the dry cleaners where she sews up her own bullet wound (Ick) and then they try to break back into the AG office files to get a copy of the memo, which they do. Beckett follows the assassins to the warehouse which is how she was able to be there when they brought in Castle and save his bacon again. Oh, and she goes to visit Bracken and he's all slimy until she mentions LOCKSAT. Then he freaks and tells her to kill herself because she's dead anyway.

On the flip side, Castle, Alexis, and Hailey are also retracing Beckett's steps, listen to her convo with Bracken and get a look at the memo, so they start looking into LOCKSAT too. An AG lady Alison Hyde comes down to help work the case and she tells us that Vikram isn't who he seems and is dangerous. Of course they cut to him at the safehouse alone with Beckett with a knife. Dun, dun, dun.(He just cuts some food, though, nothing nefarious happens. Yet.)

Rita has told them she's been tracking this thing for years and can't get close. The person they're tracking is Bracken's partner in the CIA who is anonymous, but well-connected, and helped Bracken move the drugs and commit all sorts of felonies and treason. She gets word that Bracken has been murdered in prison (and they showed him quite graphically dead, double ick) and Rita tells Kate she'll have to go on the run until she can find this guy, but Kate decides to make a stand.

There were some letters and numbers scratched out on the recovered memo and just like the old days, Kate and Rick figure out they are tail numbers for a plane and head to a hangar. (Creepily like where Montgomery made his "stand" and died there. I miss Montgomery still. *sigh*) Anyway, Kate gives Vikram a gun and they confront the guy unloading/loading the plane that has the right numbers on it. He acts like he doesn't know anything and Vikram ends up shooting him when he doesn't respond to Kate's threat.

Rick, however, thinks Vikram is bad and tells Kate not to trust him, but Vikram begs her to do otherwise. Hailey points out the unloader/loader guy did have a gun and Vikram saved them. Kate goes with her gut and says she trusts him.  Then Caskett get a sweet reunion before they head back to the precinct.  Castle tries to talk to her about what's going on and why she didn't tell him. She gives him a song and dance about protocol and protecting him, even going so far as to say he did the same thing last year when he was missing for eight weeks. Um, yeah, Castle didn't remember anything about that. Not even in the ballpark of the same thing and he has felt horrible about what happened for the entire last season. She kept him in the dark on purpose and lied to his face.  Castle says he's seen this before, but Kate acts like she doesn't know what he's talking about. She promises no more secrets and that seems to pacify him for now. But not me.

They figure out a plan to smoke out the death squad by doing a TV interview about the case. The assassins' take the bait and come to take out Caskett, but the boys save the day. Until Hailey is brought in at gunpoint by a new gunman. Castle is able to break out his trusty hidden gun on a spring and shoot the guy.  Everyone is taken down to the station and Alison Hyde takes the gunmen into custody. She's going to avenge the agents who were murdered.  All is well. But wait---

Vikram finally hacks into the phone of the assassins and they all called one number---Alison Hyde. The team tries to track her down and find her dead by her own hand. (Triple ick for showing that several times.)  Kate is looking at the dead woman and knows it's not over. Rita tracks her down and tells her to let it go, but Kate doesn't think she can. Her obsessiveness has reared it's ugly head and she can't force it back. Rita warns her she will have to choose it over her family. And it's then that I see the writing on the wall.

She goes home and Castle is cooking and happy. He notices her bag and asks where she's going. She says she loves him, but has to do this on her own. The look on Castle's face is heartbreaking. "Bracken said you wouldn't be happy just being my wife. Don't tell me he knew you better than I do." And that's exactly what I want to say. It's so dumb that Castle even has to remind her of what a great team they are in them against the world scenarios. They've been down this road. Several times! They've learned, or so I thought. This seems so heavy-handed and out of left field. Why not still have them together, but have her keeping the secrets as she promised not to? Anything but an unbelievable reason to keep them apart? The smoking food in the background was such a foreshadowing I thought. Hopefully this season isn't going to go up in smoke for me.

I just think Castle has chased and chased her and tried to prove to her how good they are together, FOR YEARS, but she just wouldn't see it for so long and now that she finally has, they're setting them back as if they hadn't progressed at all. How many times has he said, "I'm right here" "We can do it together" "Trust me" "We're better together than apart" and it makes me sad that the writers are having Kate turn her back on him AGAIN. I wanted more for them. How many times has he pulled the "Always" card in the last two episodes alone? But Kate is going down a rabbit hole to some conspiracy that's barely more than a mirage.  Was this whole new conspiracy born out of a worry that because they're married there isn't anywhere to go so they have to imagine a silly new obsession for Kate to drive them apart? Sigh. Disappointing to say the least. I was so happy to be done with Bracken and that convoluted conspiracy that at times made no sense, and now we're back to square one with a new "conspiracy."

But I just can't get over that Kate is shutting Rick out again for really flimsy reasons. *shakes fist* I'll reserve judgment, but I really hope this new road doesn't suck as badly as I think it might. Please don't kill my enjoyment of my favorite show with conversations and actions that we've seen before while Castle tries to keep them together! Dang it. Kate should have to work for it, too, and this twist doesn't seem believable with where they were as a couple.  *sad sigh*

All right, you've got to tell me.  What did you think?