‘Castle’ 5.20 Episode Recap and Review: The Fast and the Furriest

In this episode of Castle we are on the hunt for not just a murderer but also the elusive Bigfoot, and Castle is ready for action! Well, almost ready, but we will get to that in a minute.

Our opening scene finds Anne Cardinal being dumped in front of a hospital emergency room. Anne has what appears to be claw marks covering her face. Could it be that she was attacked by a wild animal? Despite the best efforts of the medical staff, Anne succumbs to her wounds shortly after her unceremonious arrival on their doorstep.

At Castle’s place we find Rick preparing his breakfast. Or trying to. It seems the leftovers he had planned to use in his morning scramble are gone. And this is not the first time. Food has been disappearing for the past month. It’s not Martha or Alexis or even Beckett, so who could it be? The housekeeper? No, she hasn’t been there for 3 days. Hmm, obviously Castle must set a trap to discover who is poaching his food. For now though, we have the mysterious death of Anne Cardinal to occupy our heroes mind.

As it turns out Anne works in a primate sanctuary. Perhaps one of the apes or monkeys attacked her? Dr. Paul Devlin, Anne’s faculty adviser and the director of the sanctuary claims none of his animals are violent, despite the way Moonshine is reacting to Castle. Dr. Devlin is more than willing to do whatever he can to help solve Anne’s murder. He explains that Anne had taken some time off from Hudson University, though he wasn’t sure why. The only other piece of useful information he can provide is that he saw Anne having an argument in the parking garage with an unidentified man. He agrees to sit down with a sketch artist.

Meanwhile, Castle is convinced that we are dealing with a Planet of the Apes scenario involving Moonshine. But unless Moonshine took driving lessons he isn’t our killer. But Eddie Maslon might be. He is an ex-con and owner of the car that dumped Anne at the hospital. An interview with Eddie clears him of suspicion and provides the team with a crime scene. Eddie found Anne in an alley and was trying to do the right thing (as he saw it) by dumping her at the ER. When Beckett and Castle visit the alley they find a lot of blood and footprints. Some of these footprints are not human. They are huge and lead Castle to the unmistakable conclusion that Bigfoot killed Anne.

Beckett is more interested in the rest of the scene, including the human footprints left behind and the last call Anne made on her phone. Strangely enough, Anne was calling the world’s foremost Bigfoot expert, Dr. Darrell Meeks. Beckett and Castle interview him and discover that Anne was in fact quite respected in the Bigfoot hunter community. She had seen one as a child and had devoted her life to their study. Dr. Meeks also recognizes the sketch of the man Anne was seen arguing with. His name is Chase Diggins and he is a big game hunter who is on the search for Bigfoot. And Mr Diggins has a hook for a hand, a hook that looks like it could be our murder weapon. Ryan and Esposito track Diggins down to a warehouse that he has rented and set up as his staging area for his urban Bigfoot hunt. When Beckett gets him into an interview room he informs her she is “squatting in the wrong bush” by looking at him as a suspect. Yes, he argued with Anne outside her work. But that was because he had caught her in that alley the night before faking Bigfoot tracks. He was convinced that she had found the real Bigfoot and was trying to throw others off the scent. He offered her money for her information on Bigfoot’s location, but she told him to “bugger off”, so he did. Tests on his hook show that it’s not our murder weapon and his alibi checks out, much to Castle’s delight. It appears that Bigfoot is still our #1 suspect!

Glass found in Anne’s wounds is from a camera lens, though no camera was found at the crime scene (no wonder there are so few pictures of Bigfoot, he is stealing the cameras!). There was also a pendant found in Anne’s stomach (odd place to keep your jewelry). It belonged to Anne’s roommate, Justine, who was murdered 1 year ago. Why in the world would Anne have her dead roommate’s necklace in her stomach?

Tabling the case for the evening we catch up with Beckett and Castle at his place discussing what they believe in. He believes in the fantastical and outrageous, as we know. Anything is possible for Rick, nothing is too unbelievable. Beckett explains that she believes more in the everyday miracles of life. This is a wonderful scene, it breaks down the essence of our 2 main characters and why they fit so well together. Right down to the moment when something sets off the trap in Castle’s kitchen. Our hero leaps into action to capture his thief in the act. What he finds is Alexis, literally blue in the face from the trap.She has been the one stealing food, but why? Castle gives her a generous allowance and would give more if she asked, so why didn’t she?? (on a side note, where do I sign up for this allowance?) But for the moment we have to put this aside as Alexis isn’t taking her dad’s calls and the case beckons.

Information has come in on the murder of Anne’s roommate, Justine. Turns out that Anne may not have been hunting Bigfoot as everyone assumed. She was hunting Justine’s killer. Kurt Wilson, Justine’s boyfriend was the prime suspect in that case and has been on the run for the past year. Analysis of the camera lens glass has tracked it to a specific type of camera, one with a wifi connection to a cloud account in Anne’s name. When the team accesses it they find that Anne recorded her own attack. And it doesn’t appear to be in the alley where she was found originally. It is somewhere in the woods. A tech comes in to help the team discover the location of the actual crime scene and she narrows it down to a 2 square mile parcel of land in a nature preserve (she is really good!).

Of course, this crime scene isn’t going to be easy to find, in the middle of nowhere. So Castle and Beckett set off on a hike and Caste is fully outfitted for a Bigfoot hunt, complete with walking stick and Bigfoot calls. Things seem pretty tame until our duo uncovers a Bigfoot trap by literally falling into it. Stuck in an obviously man made trap, Beckett gets a leg up from Castle and heads back to the car for rope to pull him out. In the meantime, Espo and Ryan have found Kurt and have him in interview, but he isn’t talking. Beckett is hopeful that once she pulls Castle from the pit they will be able to find the crime scene and then they won’t need Kurt to tell them anything.

While Castle is waiting for Beckett’s return her hears something. The next thing he sees is a real live Bigfoot standing over him at the rim of the pit. Beckett hears his (manly) cries for help and rushes to the scene. Bigfoot falls into the pit. Castle yells for Beckett to shoot it before it kills him. Then Bigfoot begins to speak. It’s Meeks, in a Bigfoot suit. Sitting on a log, in cuffs (and Bigfoot suit sans the head) he confesses that he was following Anne (I am amazed that this girl was murdered without witnesses for all the fools following her around hoping she would lead them to Bigfoot!). But of course, he had nothing to do with her death. He didn’t even know that this is where she was killed. But he does have one useful piece of information, he found a bloody club.

Of course, it turns out to be the murder weapon. When confronted with it Kurt explains that he was living the woods, but Anne wasn’t hunting him, she was helping him. She believed in his innocence and was trying to help him. And her hunt had been a success. She didn’t find Bigfoot, but she did discover the identity of Justine’s killer. Dr. Devlin, Anne’s adviser and boss was also Justine’s professor. And her killer. He had become obsessed with her and when she rejected him and attempted to report him to the Dean, he killed her, taking the necklace as a souvenir.

But what about Castle?’s blue faced thief?? Well, Alexis is waiting when Castle gets home and explains that she used her allowance to invest in a friend’s plan to plant bamboo trees on top of buildings to combat pollution. She didn’t want to tell her dad because she didn’t want him to lecture her about being careful with her money. She believes in her friend and in his dream and just wanted to support him. You can see the pride on Castle’s face as he listens to Alexis. And in the coolest dad move since flying to France to rescue her from dangerous spies who wanted to kill them both he invites her and her friend to dinner to hear more about this dream.

All and all a good solid Castle episode. Funny and witty with just the right pinch of drama. I enjoyed it thoroughly! How about you?

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  1. Great recap. This was a fun episode which allowed Castle’s imagination to get the best of him. Loved the scene when “Bigfoot” fell into the trap with him. Can’t wait for next week’s ep.
    Thanks!

  2. Really enjoyed this episode, was hoping it would be part 1 of 2…..even watched it twice (which is rare). Love how the writers are always finding new and interesting story lines. I really liked how it ended.