Episode: Castle 2.11 – “The Fifth Bullet”
Original Air Date: December 7, 2009
Neptune’s Trident! It’s a Buffy reunion this episode! I love it when that happens (seriously, there just needs to be a full on, proper Buffy reunion somewhere on my TV)! Actually, this episode turned out to be an “Everyone Who was on a TV Show Once” kind of reunion. Not only was there Buffy action, there was Boy Meets World and House action up in this cop shop!
The vic this time around is an art gallery owner. Nothing’s stolen so the motive is pretty hard to figure out at first. That is, until they find out that the vic was dealing in fakes that he was selling at original pricing. People are serious about their art, man. While doing the sweep of the crime scene, the team discovers that five bullets had been fired from a 9mm, but only four are accounted for.
Back at the station, Castle quickly brings the Ice Bullet Theory into play. When an amnesiac shows up (Marc Blucas — dude, I forgot how hot he is) with a bullet lodged in a copy of Crime and Punishment, they not only find the bullet they’re looking for but also a possible second vic. They try to help him remember who he is by having their shrink look at him and do some scans and tests and even put his picture up on the news so someone can claim him. Even at that early stage in the episode, it clearly looked like Beckett had the hots for him, despite the fact he couldn’t even remember his own name.
Then the usual “Crazy Lady tries to claim Amnesiac Hottie as her husband” scene happens. That lady got crazy fast when they found out she wasn’t really married to him (also, typically, she was a Crazy Cat Lady). Eventually, Castle realizes that they can figure out who he is because his dog was tied up outside the crime scene the whole night. They track the dog down, pick her up at Animal Control, and find out that Mystery Man (whose real name is Jeremy) has an ex-wife who’s willing to come and help him out.
And Ex-Wife turns out to be Wilson’s dead girlfriend from House! Hollywood. Such a small world. She goes with Castle, Beckett, and Jeremy to Jeremy’s apartment to try and help him regain some memories and search for clues as to why he was at the gallery that night. They don’t find any clues that make sense right then (his ex notices that he still has a painting the two of them bought on their honeymoon), but they do find a 9mm in a desk drawer that is missing five bullets. Looks like their second vic might just be a suspect.
So they arrest Jeremy, even though it doesn’t feel right not to know why he would kill the gallery owner. Castle talks Beckett into figuring that out because he’s like that. Can’t just let anything go or sit the way it is, he needs to know the whys and hows. They go back to Jeremy’s place and run into his ex picking up the dog’s stuff. She fills them in on the story of the painting and how they had to buy it because Jeremy stuck his big ole man thumb in the wet paint. The one he has in his apartment is a fake (no thumb print), and Bob’s your uncle, they have a connection between Jeremy and the gallery owner.
In the end, it was the gallery owner’s assistant that was the Big Bad hiding in a hipster outfit. He stole the painting from Jeremy because he wouldn’t sell it to the gallery for someone else to buy. He also stole the money he was supposed to use to buy the painting from Jeremy with. When the gallery owner found out about all this (via a confrontation with Jeremy), he killed his boss and tried to kill Jeremy. After finding out that Jeremy didn’t die, only got amnesia, he tried to pin it all on him by planting the 9mm in Jeremy’s desk.
Amnesia turns out to be a good thing for Jeremy and his ex, as they walk out of the police station together intending to take their reboot one day at a time. On the home front, Martha had been reconnecting with her first love. In a fear of things going bad or good and not knowing how to handle the uncertainty of it, she broke it off with him. He sent her a token she gave him all those years ago in an attempt to win a second chance, but she was still scared of what could happen. Castle simply tells her that’s the price of living.
Castle returns on January 11, 2010.
Rating: 3.5 / 5 stars
