Tonight on ABC CASTLE returns for a brand new episode. In “That ‘70’s Show” The body of a mobster who vanished in the 1970s is found by construction workers, and Beckett and Castle must deal with a murder witness who believes it’s still the 1970s.
On last episode Castle and Beckett investigated the murder of a Wall Street trader, but the case took a shocking turn when the they discovered the victim was an undercover informant for the U.S. Attorney’s office. To complicate matters further, the U.S. attorney involved was Elizabeth Weston (guest star Salli Richardson-Whitfield, “Eureka”), Captain Gates’ estranged sister. Did you watch the last episode? We did and we have a full and detailed recap, right here for your enjoyment.
On tonight’s episode when construction workers find the body of an infamous New York mobster who disappeared in the seventies, Beckett and Castle try to solve this three decade-old Mafia hit. Unfortunately, their only witness is a man who thinks it’s still the 1970’s, so to uncover what he knows, they must play into his delusion, and party like it’s the last days of disco.
Tonight’s episode is going to be great so be sure to tune in for CASTLE on ABC at 10PM EST. We’ll be blogging all the action and while you’re waiting for the show to start, be sure to hit up the comments and tell us what you think of the current season.
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At a construction site, the jackhammer guy calls a halt to work because he’s found a skeletal hand. Kate and Castle start breakfast when his mom interrupts with wedding news. She’s working on their floral arrangements and shows them a picture of a tunnel of love covered in pink roses. Martha also shows them a portrait of the bride and groom done all in flowers. They are freaked out and Rick says it’s too much. She asks if it’s about money but he says it’s just all too much.
She asks why he dismisses all her suggestions and she insists she’s trying to bring pageantry but he obviously only wants her to be a guest. At the crime scene, he complains to Kate about Martha and she says they need to give her a minor project she can’t turn into a disaster.
Javi comes and tells them the building was about to be destroyed. Lanie says the guy has probably been there since the late 70s. He’s 30ish and was a sharp dresser – he’s still in a leisure suit. They have some research to do but then Castle says he knows who the victim is based on his pinkie ring. Vince Bianchi! He says he disappeared Jimmy Hoffa style.
An older cop – Detective Boyle – comes in to tell them about the Bianchi case. Gates is at a conference and he’s filling in. He rattles off the names of some of Vince’s rivals inside and outside the mafia family. Frank was a buddy of his that had dinner with him the night Vince disappeared. Boyle thinks Frank killed him but says they couldn’t ever prove it. They have a photo of them at dinner that night but his suit is different from the one he was found in.
Kate and Rick go to see Frank who insists he’s gone legit. His wife is there and complains about how he’s not earning what he should. He says he and Vince ate, chatted and then he dropped Vince off at him. He says it’s news to him if he went out after they ate. He tells them to talk to Harold Leone. He was Vince’s consigliere. Boyle says Harold was never a suspect but agrees to dig out an address.
They head out to the burbs to Harold’s house and find his caretaker. She tells him the guy is off – she says he’s been pathologically grieving since his best friend went missing in the 70s. She’s in a retro outfit she says he makes her wear and still drives his old car. Rick asks if Harold is mentally stuck in the 70s and she says yes. She says anything that reminds him that it’s not the disco era gets him all confused. She tells them to turn off their cell phones and pretend it’s 40 years ago.
They go in and his caretaker calls to Harold. He’s watching All in the Family but then greets Kate enthusiastically. He assumes that Rick is her boss and that he’s training her. He tells Kate she has a good ass for a trainee cop. Rick says he’s there about Vince and Kate says they found his body in a light blue suit and asks if he knows where Vince went that night. He says he knows where he went and who killed him.
Rick asks who killed Vince and Harold says it’s a dangerous question. Kate says they can assign him protection. He freaks and she says that few of the people that would threaten him are even around after all these years. He starts to freak and says she’s trying to trick him. Harold demands to see Vince’s body and Rick says he will personally arrange it. Kate asks Rick to talk outside – Harold thinks Rick is a captain and she’s a rookie. She’s not happy.
Outside, he tells her they need to show Harold the body so he will help them. Kate gets a call from Lanie and they head out and Rick suggests maybe Lanie has a body that would look enough like Vince to pass. She tells him not to go there. They leave.
Ryan asks Javi how the research is going and he’s watching a documentary on two NYPD bad asses from the 70s. We see the guys in ridiculous clothes and hair with giant mustaches. Ryan says it looks like the good old days of police brutality.
Lanie tells them Vince was shot with a 38 – once in the head and once in the abdomen likely from the back. They ask how she found all that with just bones and she says the concrete they poured formed a perfect outline. She made a mold and Rick wants to get a mortician to paint it up and slap some hair on it to serve as a body for Harold to see. Lanie wants no part of this but Rick is ecstatic.
Ryan interviews Louis “The Lip” – a former enemy of Vince’s who is on oxygen and looking frail. His wife says he didn’t kill Vince and doesn’t remember even if he did. His wife is a bit of a floozy who chews him out about smoking with the oxygen tank. Ryan says all the suspects are geriatrics and this is a hassle. Javi says back in the 70s, the mob controlled the concrete industry and the Carcano family controlled the building where Vince was found.
Michael Carcano comes in out of respect for Vince but says he was in talks to merge with Vince’s family and didn’t whack him and if he did, wouldn’t have hidden him in his family’s building. He tells them to talk to his lawyer. He recommends they quit looking for the truth and says the past should stay in the past. Ryan asks if that’s a threat and he asks them what they think.
Rick and Kate bring in Harold to see the body and Lanie is done up like Foxy Brown. Harold hits on her and she tells him she’d rather be dead than in his bed and calls him a jive turkey. Harold looks at the faux body with the bullet hole in the forehead they’ve prepped for him. He asks what was on him and Lanie shows him the pinkie ring, watch and a pressed penny from Coney Island. He looks at these and then turns and walks out.
Harold tells Kate that Vince always carried the coin. He says it finally hit him that Vince is gone. They ask him to help bring Vince’s killer to justice but then there’s a guy there in surgical scrubs brandishing a gun. Kate yells at them to get down and Rick knocks Harold down and ducks just as the guy opens fire.
Lanie comes out and asks if there was really just a mob hit in her morgue. Rick takes Harold home and he’s now under protection. Ryan says the shooter was a pro and says that it might be the work of Carcano. Javi cannot keep his eyes off of Lanie in her sexy dress.
A tech has security footage that showed the guy that shot at them but no one in organized crime knows who the guy is. They are running the photo by FBI and have an APB out. Harold chews Rick out and says he was shot at for being a snitch. Rick tells him he hasn’t told him anything yet. Rick says he has nothing to lose and everything to gain by telling what he knows. BTWs – Rick is also in a smarmy leisure suit.
Harold wants to go down to the precinct to make his statement but Kate says that he’ll know it’s not the 70s if he comes in. Rick wants them to hide the computers and drag out the typewriters. Since Gates is gone, Kate can make this happen and Rick opened an account for everyone to get 70s costumes on his dime.
He tells her it can work. She’s freaking out and says it can’t be done but he says he has a specialist. She realizes he’s talking about Martha and reminds her they have to give her a project and can’t let her near their wedding. He says if she lets Martha do this, they will solve the greatest mystery of the 1970s. He tells her that by tomorrow it will be the 70s at the precinct.
Rick is at Harold’s and calls Kate to find out what’s taking so long. She tells him Martha has turned this into a huge production and even brought in actors to serve as extras. Rick talks to his mom and she tells him she has even written scripts. He tells her they have actual cops and don’t need actors. He tells her they just need to walk Harold into the precinct and into interrogation. Harold can’t wait any longer and Martha says it will be ready. She calls for everyone to take their places.
Rick brings Harold out and puts him in a retro squad car with some cops in old uniforms. The car is a relic and barely driveable. They bring Harold in and he is digging the vibe. Kate tells Rick if it doesn’t work, she’s going to kill him. The place looks amazing.
Ryan and Javi come in dressed as the two old school cops from the documentary. Harold recognizes them and wants “Snookie and Ray” to take his statement. He refuses to go to interrogation since he’s not a suspect. Rick begins to panic and Martha tells him to use the scripts she wrote. Alexis is there too playing a teenage runaway. He isn’t happy about her skimpy halter top. But they carry on because Harold can see everything from the office they go into.
Rick is happy with the scripts but Kate reminds him that “Snookie and Ray” don’t have scripts. Harold asks about an old case – the naked Puerto Rican cat. Javi stumbles but Ryan starts talking some crazy smack about them and stone cold foxes and tells him they want to hear his story. Rick plays cop with an actor and they work on their script. Kate is hassling a fake junkie and demanding the name of her pusher. It’s insane.
Harold tells them he was going to meet up with Vince later that night but then he tells them he needs to talk about Glitterati – the nightclub – to set the scene. Then a cell phone rings and Harold is thrown off his game. It finally silences but then Harold gets all confuzzled. They try to bring him back. He says Glitterati is the key to the whole thing. They come out and tell Rick and Kate that Harold is off the rails. They want to take him to Glitterati which has actually been revived as a 70s club. Kate says it has to stop but Rick says they can’t.
Gates shows up and ask what the hell is going on. She’s yelling and Kate tells the guys to take Harold to Glitterati and get out of there!
Gates says her event was canceled by a bomb threat and asks Rick what inspired him to turn the precinct into the set of Kojak. She asks Kate how she could let this happen. Kate explains that it was to get Harold to open up but then she has to admit that he didn’t tell them what they needed to know. The APB scooped up the shooter so that’s something and Gates wants to see Javi and Ryan but Kate has to tell her that they’re at the disco with Harold.
The guys drive the same old muscle car from the documentary and head into Glitterati with Harold. He tells them he wants to dance for a minute before they talk about Vince. He starts hitting on some of the ladies. Kate comes in to interview the shooter and rattles off a list of other contract killings he’s suspected of. She says they found his gun hidden in the door panel of his car and demands that he tell her who hired him. She says he’s getting old and helping out could mean dying in jail of old age or not.
Rick gets impatient and pounds on the window to get her attention. She comes out and asks him what the hell. He tells her that he found photos of Vince at Glitterati and says that he always wore his powder blue leisure suite to the disco. Back then Glitterati was owned by Frank Russo and still is. They call Javi and Ryan and tell them what’s what and say they need to protect Harold.
Harold heads up to Frank’s private area and pulls a gun on Frank. He tells him to admit that he killed Vince and he’ll make it quick. Javi and Ryan come up guns drawn and demand that he drop his gun. Back at the station, Kate tells Harold he’s in trouble for lying to the cops and for assault. She asks him what year it is and he acts panicked.
She yells at him and says she knows he’s faking and asks what year it is. Harold says it’s the year he needs it to be. Rick asks why he thinks Frank did it and he says he knew when they told him about the blue suit, he knew Vince was at Glitterati before he died. Harold tells them that the night Vince died, Glitterati had a sign up that said it was closed for a private event.
Turns out Harold was using them to get to Frank and Harold says Frank needs to pay for what he did to Vince. Frank is in interrogation and Ryan asks what was going on at Glitterati the night Vince died. Frank tells them that Vince booked the club that night. He says he couldn’t say no because he was the boss. He says he never told anyone because they would suspect him. He says he thought Vince wanted it to propose to a girl he was seeing but he didn’t know who it was.
Rick wonders if the woman had something to do with the death. Kate says she went through Harold’s stuff and tells him to look at what she found. They dump out the stuff in front of Harold and ask him about the pressed penny that he carried that was just like Vince’s. Rick asks if he and Vince were in love and Harold says they were even though they didn’t want to be.
They think that Vince was leaving him for a woman and that Harold killed him in jealousy but Harold says that he was the one who told Vince to get married so he didn’t ruin his reputation. Kate asks why no one else knew about him getting married. He says Vince was going to marry Michael Carcano’s sister to unite the families so they were keeping it secret until it was done. They ask who the sister is.
They head to Frank’s place and ask the wife – Marie Carcano Russo – what happened that night at Glitterati. Rick theorizes that she shot Vince after he decided not to go ahead with the proposal and then her brother covered up her killing. She tells them they can’t prove anything and tells them to get out. Kate says Robert Decker – the shooter – fingered her as the one who paid him so he can stay out of jail.
They arrest her. Back at the precinct, Harold says he wishes Vince had just gone ahead and married her. Kate says that he loved Harold too much to do it. Harold says he’s ready to get with the times but Rick wants to indulge his nostalgia once more and they all dress up and head to Glitterati to get their groove on. They thank Martha for all her hard work. Javi and Ryan are grooving too and Javi spots some hot mamas and goes off to flirt.
Rick is in a white Saturday Night Fever suit and then Gates shows up – she says even she likes to dance. Donna Summer’s Last Dance starts and Harold is swaying, caught up in memories. Kate and Rick clink their champagne glasses.
