Castle: Linchpin

S4Ep16

Last week, 'Castle' ended with a cliff hanger. Worse than that, it ended with a potential reconciliation between Castle and his ex-muse, CIA agent Sophia (Jennifer Beals). Luckily, by the end of tonight's episode we knew one thing: Sophia was gone, and she was never coming back.

The episode picked up exactly where the last one left off...Castle and Beckett were trapped in a car that had just been pushed into the river. Not only were they unable to find something to break the window in order to escape the sinking car, but Beckett's seatbelt was stuck. Castle dived into the water within the car and managed to find Beckett's gun, he shot out the windows at the last minute and they survived (I know you're shocked).

Clearly, Beckett and Castle were happy to have escaped their ordeal. Sophia, on the other hand, was less than thrilled. She was okay with them surviving (Well, kind of. More about that later), but she was annoyed that they had continued to investigate after she had ordered them off the case.

Sophia yells at Rick that he can't always rewrite the ending, like he did with them. Kate's expression shows that she is disturbed by the confirmation that they had a relationship.

They agree to stop investigating, and leave the CIA offices. Of course, it's Castle and Beckett, so they're lying.

Sophia, who does seem to know Rick remarkably well, is sitting in Castle's bedroom when he gets home. She tells him that she knows he won't ever leave a case alone until the end of the story is discovered, and she gives him a list of bank routing numbers that were found in the suspect's apartment.

The next morning Castle brings the list to Beckett. When she hears how he got it (Sophia. Rick's house. Middle of the night) she is obviously annoyed and slightly hurt.

Basically this whole episode illustrates how well Stana Katic (Beckett) can play annoyed and hurt. Someone give that woman an Emmy.

Anyway, Castle and Beckett follow the clues and find the dead professor's house. They find a room which includes his linchpin formula--and they discover its ultimate goal: World War III. They also find out that the linchpin is a little Chinese girl. All they find is her photo, they don't even know her name.

Suddenly they are interrupted by Gage. If you'll remember from last week, Gage is the rogue CIA agent who is involved in Pandora. Or is he? He saves them from a bomb, and pulls them to safety. He hurriedly tells them that he is being set-up, and Kate seems to believe him. They are interrupted by a team of CIA agents who take Gage into captivity.

Sophia and her fellow CIA agents try to interrogate Gage, but he keeps saying that he was set-up.

Castle and Beckett have turned over the photo of the girl, and they have run her through face recognition, but can't figure out who she is. They're in a hurry, because they suspect that Pandora is going to happen in the next 24 hours. Castle suddenly has an epiphany, and suggests that they run recognition software on the mountains in the back of the photo. Sophia admits that it's a brilliant idea, and briefly kisses Castle on his cheek. Stana Katic has another Emmy moment.

As the techs are investigating the photo, Sophia approaches Kate, and starts talking to her about Rick. Kate asks what went wrong. And Sophia responds that they had sexual tension for months, but once they finally gave into it, they didn't have anything left. All that was left were all their little annoying personality traits. Of course, Sophia is just listing the concerns of 'Castle' writers. She's also making viewers everywhere yell "shut up!" at their TV screens. Must she really put more doubts into Kate's mind?

The techs figure out who the girl is! She's the daughter of a Chinese official in the financial sector who is the main supporter of China helping with US debt. Through some super fast talking Kate, Sophia, and Rick explain why this is bad. Basically, if his daughter is killed by "CIA" it means China will no longer help the US financially, which = ruin.

This means there must be a mole in the CIA. The techs run a trace on all the agent's computers to discover who the mole is. It points to Sophia's partner, Mark. He escapes.

But there's no time to run after him, because they have just realized that the little Chinese girl is in the United States, and may be killed that day. Sophia, Kate and Rick run to save her. Sophia insists that no one else come with them, because she doesn't trust her agents anymore. She has contact with another CIA cell, and says that they will help instead.

But Sophia leads Kate and Rick into a parking structure, and points a gun at them. She's the real mole. Her agent from the other CIA cell is actually her partner in crime, and she orders him to go and kill the girl, while she murders Kate and Rick. Sophia taunts Rick, telling him that the only reason he ever had access to the CIA was his father (rather famously, Castle doesn't know his father). She also speaks in Russian, insinuating that she is ex-KGB. Right as Sophia is about to shoot Castle, while Beckett screams "no", Sophia is shot in the head. It's Mark, the framed CIA guy, who isn't really a mole. (Yeah, the plot was convoluted this week).

Mark, Rick, and Kate go to save the girl. And they do. Yay!

At the end of the episode Castle is clearly upset that Sophia may have known something about his father. He asks if Kate thinks she was telling the truth, and she tells him that she thinks Sophia told "a lot of lies" (Maybe she no longer trusts the relationship advice Sophia gave her! We can hope).

Kate expresses sympathy for Rick regarding Sophia's death, as well as the death of his muse from his Derek Storm novels. He tells her that his female main character in those books may have started out based on Sophia, but ultimately they grew into someone more like Kate: brave and caring. He says that's one of the reason he was first attracted to Kate (he quickly adds "as a muse", but it's clear Kate knows what he means).

Next week 'Castle' will return to it's frothier murder mystery background, as Castle and Beckett investigate a killer who is framing his murders after fairy tales.

Kate, I love you, but I refuse to believe your hair is that perfect after a near-drowning.