ABC’s ‘Castle’ season 5, episode 13 review: Stana Katic shines as Beckett struggles

Ladies and gentlemen, we have just seen Stana Katic’s best work of the entire season. See the relaxed vibe of Beckett in the photo to the left? Well, we’re not sure that Beckett felt this way once during the “Castle” episode “Recoil” on Monday night.

This episode brought us the return of Jack Coleman as the man responsible for the murder of Beckett’s mom in Senator Bracken, and it appeared at first that this was going to be an episode where the detective was finally going to be able to take him down. The problem? As it turns out, the woman who died at the start of the episode (which was what brought the character back into the first place) was not someone that he killed, but part of a trail that led back to him being the target of an assassination. Therefore, Beckett found herself in the terrible position of having to protect a man that she wanted behind bars.

This episode quickly became even more complicated when Beckett started to realize that the man that they had found and even arrested may not the one who really was trying to kill the Senator, after all. Instead, it was all an elaborate set-up staged to throw the police off of the scent. Kate risked her entire career, painful as it may be, to try and actually help keep the Senator alive. Not only did she do that, but she was also responsible for saving his life from the blast.

Since we knew already that Bracken was not going to die this week, the only question that really remained was who actually was the person responsible for putting out the hit and hiring the driver. This led to the leader of a powerful Super PAC getting arrested, and the unfortunate thing here for Beckett was that in saving the Senator’s life, she actually ended up making him into a powerful folk hero with the country behind him. It was a sad, stirring moment, and Katic played it wonderfully.

Do you want to see what Coleman has to say about potentially returning to “Castle” after this episode? If so, you can check out some comments from the actor over at the link here.

Photo: ABC