Castle Season 4 Episode 18 “A Dance with Death” Recap
Castle is finally back with all new episodes after its unfortunately long hiatus, but like with my other favorite returning shows, I am happy to have it back! In this week’s episode, Castle and Beckett are trying to find the person who shot and killed Odette Morton, a former socialite turned dance constant on “Dancing with the Stars” themed-liked show. The odd thing is that Odette, a previous self-proclaimed party girl had reformed herself into a wholesome sweet young lady without any problems or incidents to speak of, so why would on earth would someone want to kill Odette if she was a changed person in the first place? With seemingly endless questions and some surprisingly turn of events, it is up to Castle and Beckett to solve the case and their killer before he gets away.
According to Ryan, some of the other contestants and staff noticed Odette was acting strangely the past week and was disappearing at odd moments of the day, but the most memorable incident was with her feud with past contestant, Eddie Gordon. The two never got along and when Eddie was eliminated from the show, Eddie blamed it all on Odette and even threatened payback. The cops haul Eddie and he denies any involvement with Odette’s death saying that he was across town with his agent. His alibi checks out, but he does offer some info stating that he saw Odette handing over money to some guy in an alleyway near the studio. Eddie says that the money exchange had to be well over $3000 by the size of the wad money Odette was handing over.
The team checks Odette’s bank statements and finds inconsistencies such as there were no withdrawals of $3000, but her credit spending shot up over the past three months. Castle and Beckett talk to Odette’s financial manager, Samuel Lynchberg and he says that after Odette’s grandfather past away a awhile back ago Odette receive a substantial amount of money. Odette paid for everyone from clothing to nose jobs she didn’t care how much money she was spending as long as it was being spent, but when Odette was involved in a train accident she turned her life around. Lynchberg also goes to say that because of the accident Odette left her partying ways and really transformed herself to someone people could rely on, but because of this odd spending people started believing she had reverted back. The thing is that Odette’s spending didn’t really make sense. She was spending thousands and thousands on clothes that didn’t fit her. So Beckett and Castle suspect that she was being blackmailed and one of the items on the spending spree jogs Castle’s memory from something he saw at the soundstage where Odette was murder. The two head back where they talk to Jasmine the receptionist, who has a purse similar to the one Odette bought during her odd spending and as the pair question Jasmine, she cracks. Jasmine admits to blackmailing Odette after seeing her and the show’s host, Brad Melville arguing in a stairwell. She overheard the Brad threatened Odette, but swears she didn’t have anything to do with her death.
Castle and Beckett go and talk to Brad and he confirms the argument, but that was because he saw Odette shooting up in her dressing room. He offered not to tell anyone if she would stop and Odette agreed, but once he saw her a second time with a syringe he told Odette that he was going to management. Odette in return threatened to say that he was the one let her slide the first time if he went to management. The odd thing is that there were no drugs in her system during Lanie’s toxic screen and the syringes that find out Odette’s house are full of insulin, but Odette wasn’t diabetic. It gets even weirder when Javier presents a photo of one of Odette’s former friends who looks exactly like Odette. Twins separated at birth is Castle’s explanation, but blood tests show that girls are not related. After some digging on the Odette look-a-like, they find out the girl is Barbara Landau and used to work as a stripper. Javier and Ryan talk to some of Barbara’s former colleagues and they say that Barbara always wanted to be on stage and that she started getting plastic surgery which was unusually since she didn’t’ have a lot of money. This gets the team to uncover that the real Odette got Barbara to undergo surgery so that she cover for Odette for things that she didn’t want to do ie: court dates, probation, family gatherings etc and that she paid Barbara to act as her stand in. So Castle theorizes that Barbara and Odette were on the same train accident and when Odette was killed Barbara took over Odette’s life for the chance to be someone thus explaining the “transformation” from bad girl to good girl. But who would want to kill “Odette” unless it was really Barbara he or she was after.
Castle and Beckett talk to Barbara’s boyfriend Jason who was revealed as the unknown man “Odette” was meeting the alleyway. He says that Barbara reached out to him to let him know that she was still alive and that she found out some big secret of Odette’s that she was going to use to her advantages. After some checking they found out that Barbara was investigating the death of Odette’s grandfather, Graham Morton, which was attributed to natural causes, but according to one the butler that used to work for Odette he says that Odette’s grandfather may have been murder. He says that Odette and her grandfather were not on the best of turns especially when Odette wanted to marry a man that her grandfather did not approve of. He also says the night of Mr. Morton’s death he removed all the pillows from the bed because Mr. Morton couldn’t sleep with pillows, but when he found Mr. Morton’s body later on there was pillow beside him, leading him to suspect that he was smothered to death. The team talks to “Odette’s” brother where they find the missing piece of the puzzle and come to understand who their killer actually is.
According to the Odette’s brother, Odette was seeing Samuel Lynchberg, the financial advisor. So the team believes that when Odette’s grandfather rejected the idea of Odette and Samuel marrying, the two hatched a plan to kill the grandfather to obtain large portion of money that Odette would be receiving upon his death and somehow after the train accident Samuel learned that Odette was actually Barbara and killed her. When Castle and Beckett confront Samuel after they find the gun that was used to kill Odette behind Samuel’s house, Lynchberg confess to the crime. He says that he when he tried talking to “Odette” about her odd spending habitats and how he was telling her to stop before they get caught he realized that she didn’t what he meant. So he followed her around and realized that she wasn’t the real Odette and killed her to save his own hide.
In all, this episode wasn’t my favorite, especially after such a long hiatus. This was a classic filler episode that left you wanting something of substance instead of something so bland. Yes, there were some cute funny moments, but that did nothing to hide the fact this plot was just too over the top and that the episode felt like it dragged on forever. Now on the other hand, I cannot wait for next week’s episode when Kate inadvertently lets it slip that she remembers her shooting and Castle saying those three little words. Check out the promo below and share your thoughts about the episode and what you think Castle’s reaction will be when he finds out the truth!
Originally posted on Affairs Magazine
