Castle: Sleeper (7x20)

The A-plot is back! Finally! But... uh... I find myself a bit flummoxed by what we learned in this episode. Let's just go over what happened.

Castle has been having bad dreams about the two months when he was missing. Beckett suggests that Castle go talk to a psychiatrist, and Castle does. The man encourages him to think of his dreams as symbols, rather than as literal memories. But Castle is convinced that what he's seeing is going to lead him to the truth. His dreams involve him being involved in some sort of gun chase, with men trying to gun him down in a forest somewhere. He also remembers seeing a man die of a gunshot wound, while Castle tries to help.

All of the leads he gives to Beckett and the boys are a little off kilter. For example, he seems to remember seeing somebody who looked like Chuck Norris. Martha and Alexis are both worried that Castle is becoming obsessed, and even Beckett starts to waver, as Castle's "memories" lead him down some strange paths. However, eventually Castle ends up finding the guy who looks like Chuck Norris - and he's dead. Later, he finds the guy who he thought had died of a bullet wound in his dream. This guy turns out to be a friend of Castle's from high school. Castle doesn't remember him, because he had his memory wiped, and all mention of this guy was removed from his mind.

It turns out, this old classmate apparently got mixed up with Al-Qaeda. Later, when he wanted out, he agreed to give secrets to American intelligence in exchange for a second chance. He wanted somebody he could trust to be with him at the meetup, and it needed to be somebody high-profile enough that he couldn't go missing or be killed without people noticing. Castle fit the bill. Even though Castle will never be able to remember the specifics, it looks like he was a total hero, helping this guy save thousands of people from getting killed.

Beckett, Martha, and Alexis are all relieved that Castle finally has some answers and can put the whole thing behind him.

So... now that I've finished writing all of that out, I've decided that it kind of sucks. We get this really stupid twist at the end of the last season, where Castle goes missing and doesn't make it to his wedding. Then, after some psychological exploration of Castle's character and his relationship with Beckett (which I did like, by the way), the show completely ignores this whole giant mystery for weeks on end. Then, finally, we get some answers, but... this was such a letdown! Al-Qaeda? Really? And Castle is just not going to remember? He was chosen because he was "high profile?" What exactly did he do? There's a Russian assassin, and the Chuck Norris guy, and the Al-Qaeda dude, and all of these other random things, and what the heck does it all add up to? Nothing much, actually. I don't know what answer would have satisfied me, but I know this isn't it.

The thing that was so frustrating about this episode was that it had so many good potential angles to take, and then none of them panned out.

I loved the idea of Castle being hypnotized to help him remember his dream, but what he remembered ended up not being any more helpful than the original dream. I loved the way Martha and Alexis both expressed their concern for Castle, but I thought much more could have been made of his spiral into obsession.

In particular, I adored the moment when Alexis decided to stay with her dad and keep him company. Castle admits that in his worst moments, he wonders if he did something horrible, and that's why he asked to forget about it. Alexis says she knows her father, and knows he could never do anything that bad. This was an excellent scene, but now that we know the truth, it loses a lot of its complexity. Castle didn't do anything wrong, and thus a chance to complicate his character is lost.

The most tragic missed opportunity has got to be the moment when Esposito talks to Castle about his missing months. Espo was always the most skeptical of Castle's story, and in this episode, he seemed to be going down that path again. I love the idea of Espo not trusting Castle. It could open up a lot of interesting potential for strife among the gang. Instead, we got a brief moment of that and then we breezed right past it.

Ultimately, the one thing I loved most about this episode is that we got to see Beckett being supportive of Castle. When they work on a case together, Castle is the one who suggests the crazy theories, and Beckett's job is to shoot him down, to mediate and figure something out that makes more sense. Here, however, no matter how crazy Castle sounded, Beckett was supportive. She knew he had to work this out for himself. I loved that.

I'll admit I was expecting something a lot better when this whole plot arc came up again. Hopefully we can just put this behind us and finish off the season strong.

5/10