ABC’s ‘Castle’ season 6 spoilers: How does James Brolin enter Castle, Beckett’s world now?

You may have heard the news already that James Brolin will be back on “Castle” next month, reprising his old role as Rick’s father, Jackson Hunt; but the mystery that is still floating around the internet right now is how in the world the character is going to be turning up?

On some level, this is still a mystery in the same way that the killer is at the start of every episode. However, evidence is starting to pop up! We’ve already learned that Jackson is going to work quite a bit with Stana Katic’s Beckett before she realizes just who he is, and that this is going to be a much darker version of the man that we saw during season 5. Meanwhile, the synopsis below (via SpoilerTV) suggests that it could be a man with a very pedestrian occupation that really helps to throw him into this world again:

“The murder of a video store clerk with a secret history leads the team to Castle’s father (James Brolin).”

First of all, the biggest surprise that comes out of this is that yes, there are still video store employees working out there in America. Now that we’ve gotten past that, the other surprise is that someone so ordinary would have connections to some sort of dangerous spy who cannot reveal himself to even his family after many years. What do you want to bet that this “clerk” was really not a clerk at all? Given that Beckett does not learn at first that Jackson is Rick’s father, it’s also possible that the two end up chasing the same leads for different reasons, before  the truth manages to reveal itself.

This episode is going to be the second one that airs next month on January 13.