Castle - Episode 5.01 - After the Storm - Recap

Waking up after his passionate night with Beckett, Castle finds himself alone and wondering if it was all a dream until she walks into his room with a cup of coffee. They agree that what they have is not going to just be about the fact that she was vulnerable and just lost her job. But as Beckett points out, they have to deal with that too. As they’re trying to figure out how they’re going to spend their day, his mother walks into the apartment. Castle quickly convinces Kate to hide in the closet but hiding her bra proves a move difficult task than it would first appear.

Castle learns from his mother that Alexis is in the kitchen so he goes out there to give Alexis the hang over speech as Beckett tries to sneak out of the apartment. Castle's mile a minute but non logical speech, saves them.

Back at the squad Ryan is briefing the captain gates about what Maddox took from Montgomery’s apartment. Namely the wedding album.

Across town, Maddox (guest star Tahmoh Pennicat) is interrogating a man tied to a chair about a file. The man tells him to go to hell and Maddox stabs him.

Castle goes to Beckett's apartment to apologize for hiding Beckett in his closet this morning. He gives her the I-want-to-keep-this-to-myself speech before offering to make it up to her. Just as they’re about to go for round four, Ryan knocks on the front door and Beckett begs for Castle to hide in her closet. He refuses and she lets him on the proviso he can act normal. "If that's even possible."

Ryan is so distracted by the case he ignores/glosses over the awkwardness. He wants to brief the pair of them and hopes that his betrayal (the telling of Captain Gates that she and Esposito were still invesigating when Gates ordered her to stop) hasn’t affected the relationship. Castle recognizes the man in one of the recovered photos as the other man who was protecting Beckett and says that they need to take out Maddox before he gets to her. "Or you'll never be safe again."

Ryan and Castle recap on the fact the solving this mystery man’s murder could be the key to everything: Montgomery, Beckett’s mother’s murder... Beckett says that she can’t go back again. Castle knows that they don’t have a choice and They’ve "done it before with less to go on." Castle runs over what they know about the man and comes up with the idea that they could use the very expensive watch, sold the year of Montgomery’s wedding and
pictured in the wedding album, to figure out who the man was.

Esposito is asking one of his army buddies to tap into the DoD to look for Maddox. Javy needs to remind him that he took a bullet for him.

Castle finds out then nine of the seventeen watches were given to a law firm to celebrate winning against big tobacco as he's looking a flyer for the senator's (guest star Jack Coleman) canpagin. Beckett looks up a photo of the team on the computer. Castle determines that the man works behind the scene at a law firm and Ryan calls saying that he called from a burn phone. They traced another one of the phones because of bad signal area to a yacht club in Connecticut. Michael Smith is the name that stands out immediately and now they're able to find their target tied to a chair but still alive.

As the man is being hauled off to the hospital, he’s repeated that the file isn’t safe and the number 86. Beckett tells Castle that the file has burned up and Castle deduces that the man is too smart to only have on copy of the file. After ruffling thru the filing cabinets, Beckett insists that they have to go. Castle continues to go thru them and finds an address 86 Markwell.

Going there, Beckett thanks Castle for helping her. Castle reiterates the theme that they are a team as Beckett finds Smith’s office plaque in the middle of the room that tells them it was on the fifth floor. The building is under construction and then Maddox walks in and attempts to take the file. He zip ties them together. Castle grabs a drywall screw and tries to saws thru the zips tie as they hear footsteps which they thought was Maddox but turns out to be Esposito. Once he got Maddox’s real name, he put a BOLO out on the car, thusly finding them. Castle remarks that Espo should have an "extra, extra" gun so that when he has to rescue both Kate and Richard, he is throughly armed.

They clear the room looking for Maddox who is busy cracking the safe. They find him and as he swings the door open and reaches for the file. Beckett threatens to blow his head off is he reaches any further for the file. Maddox picks up the file which triggers a pressure sensitive bomb. “Well he’s gone.” And so is the file.

Captain Gates isn’t buying their excuse that they were in the neighborhood taking a walk even though Castle, Esposito, and Beckett all vow that’s what happened. Ryan of course backs them up but since he wasn’t there he couldn’t have really said anything else.

Back at Beckett’s apartment, Esposito isn’t nearly as forgiving of Ryan as Beckett was until Ryan produces a bag full of the remains of the file. As the reconstruct it, they find the remains of a money order which they surmise could have been used to pay someone off. Espo mentions that he still remembers the banking password from a few cases back. The account was closed 19 years ago and used to belong to William Bracken. Senator William Bracken.

According to his bio, he was district attorney at the same time Montgomery was working his mobster extortion ring. They figure that he knew he couldn't prosecute mobsters because they would never testify against each other and wanted a cut. Since the man is being groomed to be president, it would make sense for him to be trying to clean house. Smith is of course the key.

Smith tells them that Bracken used the money to finance his first congressional campaign. He also tells them that he protected her because he owed Montgomery but he doesn’t owe her. His best bet is to disappear and he suggests she does the same. Beckett tells him that they will find him and his best bet is to work with her. He kicks them out of his hospital room.

Castle takes a call from Ryan saying that they have no concrete evidence between Brakin and Maddox. Castle says that this is Smith's only play, he only needed encouragement. At that moment, the man who was supposed to be looking after Smith walks out of the hospital. Apparently, dispatch told him to stand down. Going back up to Smith’s room, they find the man dead.

The cameras around Smith’s room were disabled. Castle offers to take Kate someplace where she’ll be safe and as she leans against his chest, she tells him “I’ll never be safe.”

Early the next morning, Beckett looks at a few pictures of her mother as she steals one last glance at Castle before leaving. When Castle wakes up, he realizes that Beckett will go after Senator Bracken.

Kate stalks into the convention with every apparent intention of doing just that, she lies about being on security detail and asks the beat cop, who recognized her, to let her past to go talk with someone. “For you, of course.” As Beckett stalks up to the stage rapidly, her memories of Maddox and Captain Montgomery and all the failed leads on her mother's murder flash thru her head. And as she passes Bracken, she slips a call phone into his pocket. Soon it starts to ring and she announces herself in his ear. “This is Kate Beckett. I can see you know the name. That’s right. I’m watching.’

She tells him that she has information that will destroy his carrier unless he does exactly what she says. Ryan, still under the impression that she’s going to kill Bracken, pulls out his phone to call Gates. Castle and Esposito ask him to stand down on the call until at least they know she intends to kill him because “that’s a bell you can’t unring.”

Bracken goes down to the deserted hotel kitchen for his meeting with Beckett. She holds him at gun point as she enumerates the people he’s killed and demands a confession. He tells her that he can’t give her what she wants. He then proceeds to tell her a story about a boy he knew when he was fourteen and how he found the boy and his little sister dead by their mother’s hand, who then hung himself because she couldn't provide for them. He tells Kate about all the great things he’s done but the look of disgust on her face speaks to the fact that she isn’t going to be swayed by it. “How can you justify yourself to me... My mother was stabbed in an alley because of you.”

He tells her that she’s a disgraced cop obsessed with her mother's murder and that he’s a decent man and respected politician, “That’s how the public sees me.” He proceeds to tell her that "it’s not who has the gun, it’s who has the power" and does she really think she does? She then tells him that Smith had another copy of the file and she has it. She tells him that she knows about his bank account and that she has the power. So she bargains with him that the deal he had with Smith is "our deal now." If anything happens to her or anyone she cares about, that files goes public.

“You have no idea what I’m capable of or how far I will go. I am done being afraid. It’s your turn now.” She says before leaving a nasty scar on his face and telling him that every time he sees it, he to think of her.

Captain Gates is a little reluctant to let Kate back onto the force despite the fact the man who shot her is now in the ground. She tells Kate that she has no intention of tarnishing Roy Montgomery’s memory or reputation but that Kate is still suspended. How will she pass the time? “I’m sure I’ll think of something.”