Castle 6×18 “The Way of the Ninja” Recap

My Gaming Ninja

Okay, I was so excited to hear about this episode because NINJAS. I wasn’t disappointed. I loved it! Not unlike Castle, I think Ninjas are amazing. For those of you that follow me on twitter, you might know that my oldest and favorite gaming character is – for the most part – a ninja, and I send gifts to my twitter friends through her. Pretty much a black box with the present hovering somewhere in it. Yeah I know, I’m weird.

So that’s only part of why I loved this episode. I felt like this was a return to the types of stories that make Castle great. Not that the heavier stories this season have been bad – they’ve been amazing as well – but we haven’t had a lot of light and fun stuff. We had a chance to see Rick jumping all over a theory that seemed outlandish, yet it still had ties to the real murderer. He managed to make leaps that led to clues that helped solve the case.

Jade, the murder victim, was a ballet student from Japan. At the crime scene, Perlmutter (Arye Gross) was again delightfully condescending to Castle, who simply brushes it off now. I know not everyone enjoys their relationship, but I do. I always miss Lanie of course, but there’s just something about the stinging barbs thrown by Perly.

We learn that she was killed by a very deft hand with a throwing weapon, which sparks the first interest in Rick’s brain. They quickly find her phone that leads to her boyfriend, and an elevator key that was left at the scene. A visit to the boyfriend is first – spoiler alert here – the killer turns out to be her father, which means we see the killer at about the 3 minute mark. Probably my main beef with the show. I’ll wave it off here though – too fun of an episode to nitpick at that.

Then they figure out where the key is from, and Castle & Beckett visit the warehouse. They find a shrine there, including a dagger that matches the murder weapon. But before they can abscond with the ‘evidence’ – there’s a distraction, the dagger is taken from Rick’s hand, and in a puff of smoke, the ninja is gone! Seeing the explanation in Gates’ office was PRICELESS.

As Kate goes off to have dinner with an old friend, the boys decide to follow up another lead. Jade was dressed up the night she died, and they found out she was working at a modern-day Geisha house. They each reacted as you’d expect, even if Rick had a bit more fun than he should have. Poor Ryan – always uncomfortable with the ladies. Castle buys some private time when he gets a hint from one of the girls that she might have info about Jade – and he gets it. He also gets a girl crawling all over him (it’s nothing really), and a $6k bill.

They find out about a really, really, really bad guy – one that Jade may have been tracking. Saito. Before they can get back to the 12th, the guys find themselves in the middle of a ninja attack. Seriously – a ninja attack. One of them is attacking them, and one saves them from the bad ninja. At least now Ryan and Espo back up Rick’s ninja story, and he feels vindicated. He also tries to expense the $6k, which Gates summarily dismisses.

Kate and Rick have a little discussion about her dinner, and their future. She’s concerned that they might get boring, which seriously… really? Boring? They’re in the middle of a case concerning NINJAS!

Things go pretty fast from here out – Saito has ties to Yakuza, and they trace Jade back to a family that Saito wiped out in Okinawa. They can also tie him back to Jade’s boyfriend’s father – Mr. Bedford, which pulls things together. Somewhere in there Jade’s sister shows up masquerading as a consulate employee and she helps them with the puzzle pieces.

Turns out that Saito isn’t the big bad after all though, Bedford was behind the whole thing, and he was also the bad ninja. Saiya, Jade’s sister, played the part of the good ninja – even though she asserted there was no such thing when she was talking with them as the consulate representative. Saito was taken out by Bedford, Saiya was stopped just short of killing Bedford by Kate (foreshadowing?), and the shrine dagger was returned to her because it was just a replica of the dagger used to kill their family.

Overall, the story was pretty good, but the whole ninja thing was the draw for me. The fight scenes were choreographed really well, and set dressings, weapons, costuming – I loved it all! Great job by the cast and crew on this one!

Come back next week, Monday March 24th for “The Greater Good“.