Castle: And Justice For All (8x13)

This episode was cute, and actually had a very sweet little message at the end. At the same time, there were a few things that pulled it down.

Cons:

The broken record strikes again - Castle and Beckett's secret relationship is stupid and pointless. Especially since the A-plot is so rarely even touched upon nowadays. The show is straining itself in coming up with plausible reasons to pull Castle in on cases when he and Beckett are supposedly on the outs. And as I've said before, the whole thing is just fundamentally disrespectful to their friends and family, who all believe that Castle and Beckett are messily separated right now.
 

Vikram kept appearing in this episode to help with the main case, but his presence had no real substance and no purpose whatsoever. Rarely have I been so frustrated with a useless character. He just doesn't need to be here at all!

An old A-plot is resurfacing again... Castle is having flash-backs to his missing months. Castle's whole disappearance thing was painful enough to go through the first time. (I mean painful in that it was badly written, not painful in that it moved me emotionally). I really don't need to be dragging this whole thing up again. Castle is apparently on his way to LA to uncover the truth about his missing time. Is that what the next episode is about? Now we're splitting focus even more away from the lackluster A-plot this season is already trying to maintain. Ugh.

Pros:

The actual case this week was a lot of fun, though. Basically, when a man is murdered, Castle goes undercover as a French Canadian in an ESL class to get close to the victim's friends. Castle and the others learn that the victim used to be a corrupt cop back home before he moved to the states, and he is now trying to start life anew. He's using his skills to help his classmates with various problems, which is what gets him killed. As the case progresses, Ryan and Esposito have a run-in with an FBI team that was circling a big corruption case. Castle and the other ESL students, along with Hayley, try to uncover the corruption of a judge who was basically providing criminals to a private prison in exchange for a healthy profit. In the end, they bring down the corrupt judge, get another one of the ESL students released from her unjust incarceration, and find justice for the murder victim.

There were a lot of sweet moments in this plot thread, specifically when dealing with the ESL students. A lot of them were suspects at one time or another, but most of them were friends with the victim and had an earnest desire to help. Turns out, it was the slimy ESL teacher who was working with the corrupt judge. I liked the fact that all of these people were working hard to better themselves, and that they were willing to help discover the corruption in a system already unfairly stacked against them. In one scene, they all bring cuisine from their home countries to share. At the end of the episode, Martha, Alexis and Castle host a party where they all get to try American food. When one person remarks that it's very multicultural, Martha makes a lovely speech about how America's multiculturalism is what makes it so great to begin with. These immigrants are what make the country special. Aww!

I liked Castle's French-Canadian accent during his undercover work with the ESL students. It was adorably terrible in some spots. I especially liked the part where the French-Haitian woman spoke to Castle in French, and Castle had to pretend to understand her. So great!

Ryan and Esposito didn't have a ton to do in this one, but I loved how their bad luck streak just kept going and going until it got comical. They can't get the suspects to talk to them, they end up thrown on the floor by an FBI team... these two could not catch a break.

Alexis decides to take up the mantle of teaching ESL at the end of the episode. Setting aside the fact that I'm sure you can't just show up and do the class without applying for the position, I do like this character move for Alexis. I'd love to see her develop relationships with these people and help them to learn, although unfortunately I doubt we'll get much of that.

I think that's all I've got here. An okay episode, but nothing to write home about.

7.5/10