Castle 5x16: Hunt

When last we left our heroes, Alexis was finally able to take her dream vacation to Paris. The City of Light, the City of Love, the city where Middle Eastern kidnappers lock you in a windowless cell.

They tend to leave that last point out of the brochures.

Castle is understandably freaked out that his daughter has gone to Europe without telling him, but the El Masris get a ransom demand in fairly short order: €15 Million. Anwar agrees and negotiates the release of both the girls for that price. Mrs. El Masri's brother-in-law lives in Paris and he goes to retrieve the girls and bring them home from their little jaunt. With the FBI tapped into a local video feed, the families watch intently as the exchange goes down.

Only one of the girls actually shows up.

Apparently, Alexis has been enjoying Paris so much that she's going to stay a little while longer. That simply will not stand, so Castle hops on a jet and starts looking for her, Liam Neeson-style. While Richard himself does not have a very special set of skills, he knows people who know people. His friend Gaston works for the Ministry of Defence and has an associate who does things for the government that they want to keep quiet. He doesn't work cheaply, but Castle's willing to pay whatever it takes to get his daughter back.

Castle meets the man in a church and is taken to a dank basement where a blind audio engineer listens to the recording the FBI made of Alexis' Skype call. His magic powers let him pick out sounds that other people cannot possibly hear, and he's able to narrow down the location, but it's going to take some time to find the exact building, so Castle gets some rest.

It's a pretty nice sofa for such a dank room.

Meanwhile, back in New York, Beckett's still investigating a couple murders. Someone tortured one of the original kidnappers then shot him in the head. Then they stole a jet from a Russian oligarch and used it to transport the girls. Something is not adding up. They track down the guy's girlfriend and Beckett threatens her until she gives up his apartment address. When they bust through the door, they find that the place has already been searched, but Ryan manages to grab a hard drive from the remnants of a computer.

When his hired gun finally locates the correct building, Castle insists on tagging along, regardless of the danger. However, when they arrive, the building is completely devoid of evidence. There's no DNA, no fingerprints, nothing. Whoever took the girls had intelligence training. But, so does Castle's man, and he notices a microphone hidden in the wall.

"Look what I found."

He talks slowly and deliberately, and lets the kidnappers know that he is a man who is not to be trifled with. The bad guys give them a call and agree to meet with the guy to discuss terms. Castle wants to go along, but he's too emotionally invested and too unpredictable, so his dude goes alone. The kidnappers agree to make the trade in the woods later in the day: Alexis for a briefcase full of cash. When they go to make the drop, Castle thinks something doesn't smell right; and with good reason. Beckett calls to tell him that they've recovered data from the hard drive and Alexis wasn't just a bystander, she was the target.

I'm not sure why they'd need so many pictures of her. Maybe the kidnappers moonlight as fashion photographers.

Unfortunately, Castle hits the ignore button, and he misses the warning. His associate sells him out to the bad guys who throw him to his knees and prepare to shoot him in the head. However, before they get a chance, five shots ring out and the bad guys (and the former good guy) are all dead. After the commercial, a man emerges from the woods carrying a rifle. At first, Castle doesn't trust him, but the options are either to go with him or to hang out in the woods with the dead guys, so he chooses to hop back in the car.

The man's name is Jackson Hunt. He's an American intelligence asset and twelve years ago he killed a Russian counterintelligence operative named Anna Volkov. Now, to exact his revenge, the woman's husband, ex-KGB agent Gregor Volkov has kidnapped his granddaughter. Which means he's not just some random spy, he's Castle's father.

There's not much in terms of family resemblance, though.

He hasn't been the most attentive father, but he's used his contacts at the CIA to grease a few wheels to get Castle access so he could do research for his novels, and they've even actually met once. When Richard was ten, Martha took him to the library to look for a book, and Hunt handed him a copy of Casino Royale: The book that made him want to become a writer.

Volkov gives them a call and says that if Hunt doesn't turn himself over the next morning at 6am, then he'll kill Alexis. But, Hunt says that if he turns himself in, Volkov will kill both of them anyway. Luckily, he knows where Alexis is stashed and he has a plan to get her out. He can't do it alone, though, so Castle gets to play spy.

While Hunt watches the compound from across the street, Castle's job is to sneak into the sewers and plant an explosive charge on the power cables. He's successful, but before he can leave, he's captured by two of Volkov's men, and the bomb is disabled.

That's not his "Yes, I did it!" face.

Richard is taken inside, and father and daughter are reunited. Volkov takes his walkie-talkie and tells Hunt that if he doesn't give himself up in ten seconds, he'll shoot his son in the face. He doesn't get the chance, though, since the whole thing was a ruse and the walkie explodes, taking his head with it. Castle uses his fancy spy watch to blow the lock on Alexis' cage and then charges out the back while his dad comes in the front. They run like hell to the US embassy and get an official cover story that doesn't include Hunt's involvement; they don't even know if he got out alive.

When they get back home, Martha and Beckett are there to greet them, along with a package containing a first edition copy of Casino Royale.

"Damn it, dad! You know I've already read that."

What I Liked
-They actually explain how they managed to get the two girls to Paris without arousing suspicion. It's still a bit far-fetched, but at least they made an attempt.
-Castle's hired gun tries to convince him to stay behind by telling him that the place he's going might not be the right place, then when that doesn't work, he tries to stop him by telling him it might be the place. That's not something I think I've ever seen before. I like new stuff.
-There's a slight gap between the four shots that kill the bad guys and the one that kills Castle's associate. It would take a moment to adjust your aim for the last guy. Although the shots still came unreasonably fast, it's nice that they paid attention to that little detail.
-Castle gives Hunt crap for shooting his phone, but then forgets about the €3 million he brought in the briefcase. He also makes a little "Eugh" sound when he pulls it out of the dead guy's hand.

What I Hated
-Bad green screen work. I know it's too expensive to fly the production out to France just for a few shots, but they could at least give the compositing guy a little overtime pay.

"I'm in Paris!"

-Hunt's a little too old to be doing what he's doing. We're not given his exact age, but since he's Castle's father, he has to be at least in his late 60s. Now, James Brolin looks like he's still in good shape, but even spies have retirement plans. Maybe he's already out of the game and only doing it because Alexis is in danger, but you'd think that he'd call in a little help.

Final Thoughts
Before I go any further, I'd like to point out that I totally called it last week. Not that it was a particularly difficult thing to call, but, I never believed Sara was the real target. Sometimes these things surprise me, but I've seen enough TV to know what was coming. Aside from the whole Paris thing. I didn't see that coming.

They actually did do some filming in Paris for these two episodes, but if you look carefully, you'll see that Castle's face is never shown clearly when he and Alexis are running down the street. That's because Nathan Fillion is a god in France and can't go anywhere without being mobbed, so they had to use his stunt double. Part of that may be made up.

One thing that bothered me that I didn't 'hate' was that they never really explained how the mid-level New York drug runners got involved with a Russian spy. Beckett mentions that it's a bit odd, but they don't actually clear it up. They also gloss over the fact that the guy who tortured and killed the guy at the farmhouse was Castle's dad.

The split between New York and Paris took a bit of cohesion away from the story, so even though this was still a pretty good episode, I didn't like it quite as much as the first part.