Castle - 5.19 - The Lives of Others - Recap/Review

Tonight starts with two security guards, one teasing the other. The girl sees a person with a light up face on the CCTV outside, the male guard goes to investigate when the light up person hits a woman in the face with a two by four.

Castle (Nathan Fillion) has broken his leg skiing and is not happy about having to miss work. Martha (Susan Sullivan) reminds Castle that she might miss his birthday but it will not be her fault as the spa she’s going to doesn’t have reliable cell service. Kate (Stana Katic) has gotten a ride to work so that she could make Castle breakfast. Ryan (Seamus Dever) and Espo (Jon Huertas) askhow he’s feeling. He’s a little bored because he used the word ‘speculate’ three times in one sentence. The boys encourage Castle to be a voyeur. Castle wants to keep in cell contact with the three of them and they could be his Charlie’s Angels.

Kate asks why boys are such babies when they get hurt to which the guys give a non-answer. Briefing Beckett, the detectives go to watch the footage and determine that the murder of Clara DeWinter was a premeditated murder.

Clara’s workload had increased over the last couple of weeks. Her husband (John Griffin) last saw her around dinner the previous night and she was fine. In her job at the IRS, she’s made an enemy of a 6’ dark hair guy who accused her of destroying her life. She promised her husband that she would file a report.

Castle’s toy helicopter starts acting up in his house and eventually crashes to the ground smashing. Intrigued by the boys earlier and their report of a hot neighbor, Castle considers picking up the glasses.

The IRS agent in charge tells them that Clara wouldn’t have reported her stalker since the unofficial rule of the IRS is that agents who report clients don’t get good performance reviews.

Castle sees a number of things in his new found voyeurism including some other writers, a maid stealing money, a woman cheating on her significant other, and the other nearly catching her. She kisses her boyfriend sweetly before chasing her lover out when the boyfriend heads to the bathroom. She would have gotten away with it too if a hat hadn’t been left behind.

Castle calls Beckett asking her to bring dinner but she still isn’t leaving for another hour. Bored, he picks up the binoculars watching the cheater and her boyrfriend fight over something. Suddenly the guy gets a look in his eyes and picks up the knife going after the woman. The blinds are drawn but Castle sees something that looks suspiciously like a body falling down them a few seconds later.

Castle now follows the investigation from across the bedroom. The police have found nothing. The man claims that the woman broke up with him and left. According to Espo, the woman was driving to Philly. Beckett asks how long it’s been since Castle took his last pain killer before asking what the odds are that he would have actually seen a murder. She makes him dinner and puts him to bed.

Castle actually gets out of bed to watch the guy that night. According to him the guy kept pacing his living room looking at the bedroom and slept on the couch. Kate tells him that he’s obsessing over it because he has nothing else to obsess over. She invites him to join her case and he claims writing. She’s fine with that as long as he doesn’t continue looking at the neighbors. Castle swears he won’t.

On the real case, they have an ID on the car. Comparing that with a client who broke up with her last week, they have a suspect.

Castle sees the neighbor with a tarp and then sees the guy washing his hand in the kitchen sink of something that looks suspiciously like blood.

The suspect in the DeWinter case claims his car was seized by the government and that Clara had asked him to help her set up a new identity in return for dropping all charges. His alibi is that he was at his sister’s.

Kate is not amused at the continued allegations against the neighbor. Castle points out that the neighbor across the way could have paid someone to be the woman. Kate says that she thinks it’s sweet he wants to spend time with her but to stop making things up. She leaves and Castle tells her not to come back for a while in not so many words. Kate realizes that this means something to him but at the same time, without any proof, she can’t do anything.

Castle sets his binoculars down and picks up his camcorder to film the neighbor dragging what looks to be the body from his apartment only Castle doesn’t get the camera set up in time so he only gets the end what looks like a large rug being drug out of the apartment. Nothing fishy about that by itself.

Alexis (Molly Quinn) asks why he didn’t just call Beckett about the suspected body and reminds him of the time he thought that her art teacher was a serial killer. Castle presents the evidence and Alexis sees that the neighbor guy is taking off his clothes. He strips to his boxers which is not an unwelcome sight for Alexis causing her binoculars to be taken away. She gets another set and see the neighbor put on a gas mask and rubber gloves. When he emerges from the bedroom hours later, he’s got two garbage bags of something and is redressed. Alexis wants to call Kate but Castle says he needs more evidence. The next time the guy leaves, Castle plans to go over to the apartment. Alexis offers to do it for him and Castle is fervently against the idea saying that she would never be president if she did it.

Tommy the Shark had hired Clara to be his tax consultant and she took the money because he needed it for something. Ryan and Espo have found that the husband took out a half a million dollar life insurance policy on her a couple of months prior after the restaurant incident; it would be easy to frame the other man for her murder.

Meanwhile, Castle is breaking into his neighbor’s apartment. Alexis is watching from Castle’s apartment. He gets the stuff from the shredder as planned but can’t resist also going into the bedroom where he finds a cleanly stripped bed and an open closet door with fresh paint. Looking closer, Castle finds what looks to be bloodstains on the baseboard. While celebrating his find, Castle falls over and, of course, that is the moment the guy comes back to his apartment. Alexis from across the street, urges Castle to get out of there.

Castle hides under the bed and overhears the guy’s conversation on his cell phone where he talks about getting rid of something using Jimmy’s boat while Jimmy’s at work. He leaves. Castle then stand up, takes the evidence in a small trashcan liner and gets out of the apartment without further drama.

Clara’s husband’s alibi has been confirmed by the supermarket.

Beckett is not happy to hear that Castle broke into his neighbor’s apartment. Among the things Rick’s found is a statement for a storage facility he just rented the previous night. He lists some other evidence when someone comes over to the apartment. It’s the man the supposed victim was having an affair with. He’s kicked out of the apartment and Kate goes to talk to him under Castle’s advisement that if anyone knows where Emily went, it would be him.

Brent, the lover, has been texting Emily for the past couple of days and had gotten no response. Castle persists that the body is in the storage unit. He then tells her that when he does an illegal search, it’s just illegal. His plan is to have Kate standing the hallway where she isn’t breaking any rules, while he searches. If he finds the body, he’ll call down to the front desk, who will call the police.

Kate helps Rick unroll the rug when he’s stuck and they find nothing. Castle sees the garbage bags. Kate opens one and finds a mass of blonde hair that appears to be the top of a head. She goes to take it out of the bag because it’s a blonde wig. Just as they turn to leave, a guard tells them to stop in their tracks. Kate puts her hands up with an expression of my boyfriend’s an idiot.

Captain Gates tells Kate that she could easily have her badge for that. Gates talked to the suspected killer and he had gotten the unit for his ex-girlfriend’s stuff. She has personally talked to the would-be victim whose fine and the paint/bleach is for some mold found in the closet.

Castle across the way apologizes to his neighbor without ever going over there. Kate tells him that it’s okay standing in a cute black dress. She offers him a drink from the fridge and that leads Castle to the conclusion that Emily is in the fridge. Kate is not happy about that. Rick threatens to stay in the apartment until he opens the fridge. She says that she is not going to let him wreck her plans. She’s going over there to open that “bloody fridge." Kate marches over to the neighbor’s apartment and charms her way in. She goes over the fridge and the guy tries to stop her before grabbing her by the wrist and eventually grabbing her around the waist when she persists. The guy picks up and knife and the lights go out. “Kate no!”

Castle yells at the guys when they arrive and they yell back at him. They all burst into the apartment yelling surprise because there’s a birthday party for Castle in the neighbor’s apartment. Rick has a look of disappointment on his face and says that he was upset thinking that she was going to die. Kate says that it was because he was so bored for two weeks that when she saw the apartment for rent, she had to do something special. He adores the present. “This is without a doubt, the best birthday ever!” Rick helps her solve her murder by a little phrase suggesting it was staged. Kate stays until the end of the party and then calls the security guard from the first few scenes accusing her of staging the murder.

The video is the perfect alibi for the murder. The woman doesn’t know Mrs. DeWinter but Kate says that she does actually know the husband. She didn’t kill Mrs. DeWinter but knows who did—the husband. The actual murder was committed in the garage with Clara changed into the fake victim’s clothes.

Castle asks how many cases Kate thinks they solved together and she says “I don’t know about a hundred.” Before he tells her that what she did for him was epic. He swears to get her back for the prank and pulls her into his lap and wheels her into his bedroom.

What do you think? Appropriate way to celebrate Castle’s birthday, hundredth episode, and April Fool’s Day all at once or not nearly enough?

In two weeks: Bigfoot commits a murder.