The Nose Knows--Castle

Last night's Castle had some really funny moments! Of course, there's still the gut-punch of the Caskett mess, but at least we had some laughs, too.

We start out with a woman driving through a parking garage. She sees a weird guy standing there with a silver briefcase, but she drives by and parks. Just as she's pressing the elevator button, she hears two gunshots and quickly gets inside. Only the shooter in a ski mask does, too.

The team gets called to the scene and find it odd that the murdered man has a bulletproof car with a hidden compartment in it. It makes sense that he would be in security of some sort. Ryan and Esposito are waiting to hear the results of their sergeant's exam. Castle has bought some celebratory champagne and goes down to give it to them, but has to quickly pawn off one bottle on another officer when Ryan finds out he didn't pass, but Espo did. So sad for Ryan. Why they gotta mess with the bromance?

Kate interviews the murdered man's brother who has nothing useful to add except that his brother helped pay for all of his expenses.  They find out who the anonymous caller was that called in the shooting and Ryan and Espo head to her house. She won't let them in, however, and is quite eccentric. They take her down to the station, but it doesn't go well. Ryan asks Beckett to interview her since she said he smelled like dirty diapers and Espo's cologne smelled like Satan's sweat. Haha! She has hyperosmia, which is a heightened sense of smell. Beckett doesn't really get a lot out of her either, except a generic description of the killer. As she's leaving Castle talks to Beckett for a minute and she tells him she needs to come over later to get the rest of her stuff. Yeah, gut punch. The look on Castle's face! Ugh. He follows Mia to the elevator and she tells him Beckett's pheremones were off the charts when she was talking to Castle. He proposes using her to get Beckett back, just having her tell him when he's being charming for Beckett and when he's being annoying. She declines, but he gets more information out of her about the killer, so he calls Beckett with it.

No one seems inclined to believe her really, until she tells him she smelled an oil painting in the briefcase. That jives with what Hayley the bounty hunter told them---that the murdered guy was transporting a multi-million dollar Van Gogh. She wants it back for the insurance company and tells the team what they want to know if they'll let her in on the investigation.  Esposito gets some ATM footage of a possible suspect named Starks and they bring him in for a "smell" ID. It's so funny to see Mia sniffing these guys. But he's not the killer. The killer smelled like nail polish remover.

Kate tells their suspect, Starks, that he had been ID'd and he confesses that he was at the parking garage, but when he got there, the guy was already dead. The interesting thing is he was hired by the same guy who supposedly hired the dead guy to transport the painting. The boys go to talk to him. The boss says that the dead guy, Justin, jumped the job and took it from Liam because it was a six figure payout. So Espo and Ryan go to talk to Liam, but he runs. They chase him into a building and separate to catch him, but Ryan ends up accidentally shooting Espo. In the butt. (He's fine, it's just a flesh wound, but he does become the "butt" of a lot of jokes throughout the rest of the episode.)

They put an APB out on the Rolls Royce Liam was driving and Castle goes to a car place with Mia that just happens to have the wanted Rolls Royce. Liam catches Castle opening the trunk, (Mia is in the driver's seat) and pulls a gun. Mia expertly backs up the car and knocks Liam in the trunk. She's so happy to have helped! It is really cute how Castle gets her back to the land of the living, and looking at her hyperosmia as a talent and not a curse. (He does resort to a juvenile fart joke to get Mia out of her apartment, but my teens found that funny.)

All the evidence is pointing to Liam, but Mia tells them the painting in that briefcase is a forgery. They check into that while Castle takes Mia to his loft for a bland dinner cooked by Martha. Mia loves Martha and saw her in a play years ago. It was a great scene with the two of them. I love Martha. But a gunman breaks up the party, a guy from the original family that owned the Van Gogh. He's desperate to get it back, but Castle disarms him and accidentally breaks Mia's nose. Beckett arrives at the scene to hug him and ask if he's okay, but she pauses outside the loft and that sort of ruined it for me. I wish she would have just rushed in.

Well, the desperate guy didn't kill Justin either, but he does give them the clue they need. He was Justin's partner and they were going to switch the real Van Gogh with the forgery and then split the money from selling it. Castle and Beckett go back to the parking garage to reenact the crime and search for clues. They find a hair on the air conditioning unit (which standing near it would make the killer smell like nail polish remover). They do a DNA test and it matches to Justin's brother. Apparently he had a gambling problem and didn't mean to kill his brother, he just needed the money. Oy.

The boys are trying to get through the angst of Espo passing and Ryan not. They hug it out, but Ryan knocks out Espo's cane and things are not resolved. Beckett suggests counseling might be an option. That could be funny if handled right.

Castle brings Mia paper flowers to apologize for breaking her nose and she thanks him for helping her live again. She also does a nice voiceover of how she helps perfume industries bottle love and passion and hope, but Beckett and Castle have the real thing. (I wish Kate's actions showed that a little more, but whatever). They do show Castle and Beckett sniffing each other's shirts and smiling. Because, the nose knows.

Did you watch? What did you think?