Castle 7-2 - Montreal - Some Answers Along With More Questions

After watching Montreal, the second episode of the seventh season of Castle, I do feel much better about what is going on with the new story tied to Rick that is being introduced.  I still very much dislike the season six finale and I’m honestly not sure what, if anything, will fix that for me.  However that one disappointing episode didn’t ruin the entire show and I’m definitely interested in what is going on.  I still have some issues about how things were set up in the premiere, but this episode does recover some of the backwards steps taken, and I am feeling more positive overall now.

Spoilers for this episode, as well as at least the premiere and possibly finale, are ahead.  There are actually probably more spoilers in this one than I have shared in previous posts about any episode.  You have been warned.  Read at your own risk.

I’m not sure exactly how much time has passed since the end of the premiere, but it doesn’t seem like a long time.  Rick does an interview tied to the release of his two newest books, but the woman conducting the interview is more interested in asking questions about Rick’s disappearance and if his relationship with Kate is still good.  Rick comes up with the idea of offering a reward for information leading to answers about what happened to him.  Captain Gates is less than happy when she discovers that Rick gave out the number of the precinct for the tip line.  Rick’s reaction to hearing that the phones have been ringing off the hook is shockingly hilarious.  

Rick is back for the first time helping Kate and the guys with a new murder, involving the owner of a toy company.  When they go to the office to talk to the employees, Rick quickly gets distracted playing with the different toys.  It doesn’t take long for Kate to discover that the victim had been keeping some kind of secret from everyone before his death.  The case is all right overall, but it isn’t as interesting as what is going on with Rick’s search for answers.  Alexis is helping Rick sort through all the calls, most of which seem to be from crackpots or women desperate to meet Rick.  Martha has started to go out with someone she met in a grief counseling group, and if Rick wouldn’t mind to much, it would help if he would pretend to still be gone.  Martha says that she and her new guy connected over their grief and it would mess things up if he found out that Rick came home.  It sounds like Martha logic.  When Rick gets a mysterious call on his personal cell phone, he decides to meet the caller even though Kate has misgivings.

At first, when Rick meets the guy who called alone, I thought it was fake Jenkins from the premiere.  Once I got a better look at him, I realized it was a different guy.  At first he seems to have information that may be helpful, but it quickly becomes apparent that the guy is one of the crackpots, something he doesn’t want to seem to admit to Kate.  Not long after a couple shows up at the precinct saying they may have information.  They think they found Rick in the background of one of their honeymoon pictures in Montreal.  With some help from Alexis, they figure out that Rick is standing outside a bank, which causes Alexis to suggest the key that Rick had hidden in his jeans when he was found was for a safe deposit box at that bank.

Kate agrees that going to Montreal makes sense in their search for answers, though she says she won’t be able to go until the weekend because of the active case.  Rick thinks he can go alone but Kate doesn’t think that is a good idea.  Alexis agrees with Kate and they decide that Alexis will go with Rick to keep him out of trouble.  They find the bank and Rick comes up with an idea to get into the safe deposit room.  Something seems a little off with the banker that Rick meets with, almost like he knows something.  The key does in fact open a safe deposit box.  Inside the box are envelopes addressed to Kate, Martha, and Alexis in Rick’s handwriting.  Each envelope contains a memory card.  When Rick is back in New York, he takes the one for Kate to her and has her watch it, saying the ones for Martha and Alexis have basically the same message on them.  The card has a video message Rick made during his two month disappearance in which he says that if  Kate is seeing the video then he is probably dead.  He also says that he did not leave on his own to avoid the wedding and says how he loves her, always.  Seeing that video does a lot to help Kate and it clears up once and for all that he was not trying to leave her.

Kate comes up with the idea of seeing if Tori can get any information off the memory card.  Rick decides to stay behind in case Tori finds anything when Kate and the guys head off after a new lead.  Tori has some sort of computer program that can analyze the faint images out a window behind Rick in the video to figure out where it was made.  When the program comes up with a location, Rick decides to head back to Montreal alone to check it out.  Once there, he finds the room where he made the videos and Fake Jenkins turns up again, this time with a gun, saying that Rick shouldn’t be asking questions and trying to figure out what happened.  Fake Jenkins then goes on to say that Rick wanted to forget.  When Rick objects, Fake Jenkins mentions something that happened when Rick was 11, that he hasn’t told anyone else before, claiming that Rick told him as a way to convince himself he really did want to forget. 

Once back home, Rick shares what he learned and is troubled by the thought of what he would have done that he would want to forget.  Alexis suggests that he had just seen something while Martha basically says maybe it would be best to let it go.  That night, Kate reassures Rick that she is not going anywhere while pointing out that they both need a little more time to readjust before getting married.  She also points out that Rick must have had a reason for wanting to forget.

There are a few answers provided during this episode, the most important coming in the video Rick made for Kate that makes it clear he was not trying to leave her and what happened was out of his control.  I’m glad that Rick made that video since it does a lot to help Kate with her concerns with what has been going on.  We also now know that for at least part of the time, Rick was in Montreal, though that doesn’t explain why he had antibodies to Dengue fever in his system when he was found.  It also doesn’t explain how he ended up in the dinghy. 

Personally, I don’t trust Fake Jenkins.  He is already a known liar who sounded very convincing in the premiere when he gave his story to Kate.  Too many things about his story don’t fully make sense, including the fact that he has a gun pulled on Rick.  The hint about what happened when Rick was 11 was supposed to be the proof Rick left behind to convince his future self to stop looking for answers, so the gun seems to be overkill.  I really don’t see Rick, even if he wanted to forget, being all right with the idea of Fake Jenkins threatening to shoot him.  I’m not that convinced that Fake Jenkins is telling the truth. 

If Rick wanted to forget something from the missing two months, that still doesn’t explain how he was shot, why he had the Dengue fever antibodies, not to mention how and why he ended up in dinghy floating on the ocean for days or why stuff was planted in the tent.  If the memory loss was Rick’s idea, then why wasn’t a better cover story concocted that didn’t raise as many questions?  It does seem odd that Rick doesn’t seem to be questioning if he can trust what Fake Jenkins said, probably because of the mention of the childhood incident.  Even with that, I think it is possible Fake Jenkins is lying.  It doesn’t mean that Rick willingly shared that story.  Some kind of drugs, like a truth serum, or hypnosis could have been used to get the information. 

While Rick may say he will deal with not knowing, I don’t think that will last.  He may manage for a little while, but the need to finish the story will become stronger and he will be back to looking for answers.  I also think that Rick, before he lost the memory of those two months, would have known fully well when he said he wanted to forget that he wouldn’t just give up.  If he truly wanted to forget, then why didn’t he do something else to try to convince his future self, like maybe leave himself a video or letter.  By the way, I think Rick made the videos without Fake Jenkins and whoever else was involved knowing and managed to get them in the safety deposit box.  It doesn’t make sense that they would have let him make the videos, leave them somewhere safe, or keep the key. 

After I thought about things from the premiere more, it seemed like there were more holes in the evidence discovered that pointed to Rick being behind his own disappearance.  Certain little things here and there that don’t fully fit.  Normally Kate is able to pick up on those things, though I can see why she didn’t notice those things as fast in this case since she is clearly more emotionally involved.  It would have been nice if it came out during the episode that Kate had started to pick up on the odd things, but that didn’t really happen.  Kate and Lanie have another little talk which is nice.  Esposito has a new ring tone on his phone thanks to Lanie that I found funny once I realized what it was.  Evidently the two of them have definitely gotten back together officially. 

There is a nice scene with Ryan and Esposito at the toy company office in which Ryan acts like Rick, picking up the various toys while he shares worries about being able to afford everything for the baby.  Overall, the episode has a good mix of humor with the more serious moments.  I liked Alexis in the episode.  She has shown an ability to point out useful things in the past.  She has shown that she has a bit of the same interesting in mysteries that her father has in previous seasons - that was mostly missing last season.  To me, it fits and makes sense that she comes up with useful ideas again and that she wants to go with Rick.  I really like that she and Kate are in agreement with Rick not going to Montreal alone.  His declaration that he is a grown man and doesn’t need permission followed by basically begging for permission is really funny.

With the premiere, while I felt better about where things were going by the end, there were things that I didn’t like about it.  With this episode, I feel even better than I did after the premiere.  Yes there are still a lot of unanswered questions, including a few new ones, but there has been a little bit of progress and the most important thing has been made clear to Kate - that Rick didn’t intend to miss the wedding.  I do think this stuff will come up again, though I’m not thinking it will be brought up in every episode.  I do think that the story has recovered a few of the steps back that were taken with the premiere.  From the short teaser at the end of the episode, it looks like the next one will be one of the sillier type of cases that Rick loves - along the lines of him thinking the killer is a zombie or that there is a vampire running around the city.

Recent episodes of Castle can be watched online at the ABC website.  I think they usually show up there a day after they air.  From when I looked before, the website will only have an episode available to watch for a limited amount of time.