Castle season 3 episode 3 review: Under The Gun

3.3 Under The Gun

This review contains spoilers if you haven’t yet seen the episode.

The murder and mayhem continue this week in another episode of Castle. If you read my last review, you’ll remember that episode two of this season was missing classic detective work, and this week they heard my plea. That’s one of the reasons I love Castle so much. The show can swing between classic crime drama and touching and fun comedy in a heartbeat. This week’s episode was called Under The Gun and the title means nothing to us until the very end of the episode.

So, let’s go over what happened.

As always, we start with a murder. This one was a bit different because we saw the victim alive and entering a room before it cut to an adorable Castle/Alexis scene. Their dilemma this week? Alexis wants a Vespa. Castle is, of course, not okay with this, but promises to think about it. He gets the call from Beckett and they get down to work.

The victim worked in bail bonds and we meet his wife at the beginning of the episode, who tells us that he has connections with criminals. So, logically, the investigation starts there. The first man we meet is a hilarious thief named Random (I know, right?) who recently had his bail posted by the victim. Random is brought down by a bounty hunter, who also just so happens to be the man who trained Beckett, Mike Royce.

Their reunion is sweet and funny and Castle takes a liking to him, especially when he starts sharing stories about Beckett’s “wild child” phase. Castle very obviously shows his interest in Beckett through these stories, but she doesn’t react to him, still very charmed by the man she called her “hero”. Castle, of course, gets a bit jealous. As you do.

The next character we get to meet is an adorable old man named Clifford Stuckey, who walks very slowly and with a walker. He has trouble hearing and it is initially clear that Stuckey had nothing to do with the murder, especially since we, the audience, saw the murderer run away in the opening scene, and it was obviously not an old man who could barely walk.

The best lead the team finds is a very creepy priest named Father Aaron Roe. He is young and strong and is wearing the same kind of shoes that made a print found at the scene. His alibi checks out and the team is sent back to square one.

There was a very interesting development in the case, I thought, when Lanie, the M.E., finds a mysterious piece of paper folded up in the victim’s sock. Ideas are thrown around about what it could possibly mean, but no one figures it out until they realize what all the suspects had in common.

And it’s this: several years previously there had been a jewel heist that earned the thieves ten million dollars. The thief was put away, but his accomplice, Stuckey, was set free and shared his information with some key players, in this case, the victim, the priest, Random, and Mike Royce.

When Beckett finds out that Royce was in on it the whole time, she is devastated. Other than when she talks about her mother’s murder, I have never seen her so upset. He was her hero, and he let her down.

So, what was the mysterious piece of paper? It was a treasure map! Castle finally figured out (with inspiration from Alexis) the message was “under the gun”. They figure out that the only place something could be buried in Manhattan is in a cemetery, so they head out to the spot and stumble upon Roe, Royce, Stuckey (who is not as disabled and old as we thought) and the victim’s wife, who admits to doing the actual killing. Castle throws dirt in their faces to distract them as the team takes everyone down, and Beckett herself gets to clap handcuffs on her fallen hero. Oh, the dramatic irony.

Castle and Alexis compromise on getting the Vespa and Castle and Beckett end up finding the treasure on their own. Castle wraps up the episode with, “Turns out when you go on a treasure hunt with a cop, she makes you return it to the rightful owner!”

It was a good story, really well told, and I, for one, enjoyed it a lot.

So, another great week in the Castle universe, back into the full swing of traditional Castle format. A great case, a very awesome supporting cast, and cool previews for next week’s episode. Looking forward to it already…

Read our review of episode 2, He’s Dead, She’s Dead here.