Castle Season 7 Episode 17 Review: Hong Kong Hustle
Christine Orlando
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Rick Castle enjoyed a bit of a threesome, investigatively speaking, in Castle Season 7 Episode 17. Well, perhaps enjoyed is a bit strong. Endured may be more accurate.
It’s been a long time since we’ve seen Detective Kate Beckett insecure about anything and most certainly not about her career. But with a colleague making Captain and the arrival of Chief Inspector Zhang, Kate was beginning to feel as though she was falling behind.
Granted Zhang’s list of accomplishments was lengthy and on paper her life appeared to be picture perfect. An amazing career, a handsome, action movie star husband and two beautiful children. It was hard not to feel inferior to all of that but as Beckett eventually realized, reality and perception are two very different things.
When Kate second guessed her decision to leave the Attorney General’s office, I was glad that Castle reminded her how unhappy she was in that job and how she would have had to sacrifice her own moral compass to be successful there. It was a job that looked great on paper but the reality was something quite different.
Castle had his own theory about Beckett’s reaction to Zhang. He called it the Patterson Syndrome. James Patterson writes about six best sellers every year compared to Castle’s one. Eventually he learned to stop comparing himself to Patterson.
Let’s face it, there is no comparison to Kate Beckett.
Inspector Zhang’s visit was fun...for one episode. I can't say I'd want her around for any longer than that. Her takedown of Esposito and Ryan was freaky fast. The boys could barely look at her afterwards when they were all back at the precinct. They were so preoccupied that they barely noticed Beckett’s competitive side coming out.
Zhang told Kate that once you reach the peak of a mountain that it’s time to work on scaling the next one. How about just enjoying the view for a little while? And the truth is that there are only so many hours in a day. At some point, you need to make a decision about how you want to spend them and with whom.
Although I never did get that hooked on this case, I will admit that knowing that Henry ended up dying while trying to save his girlfriend was incredibly sad. I did suspect that the restaurant was going to tie back into the case at some point but the reveal of the killer felt a little out of left field.
However, the ending more than made up for it as Castle told Kate…
You can not leave behind what is always at your side.
Rick Castle
It sounded a bit like it came out of a fortune cookie, but I’ll take it. And I couldn’t help but smile when Kate assured him that he was “so much better than Patterson.”
There were a few other cute moments worth mentioning:
- Ryan once again greeted Rick and Kate with “Hey Castles”
- Kate explaining that Capt. Gates chose to believe her story about Zhang’s antics. It says a lot about their relationship.
- The Triads actually did link back to the case. Score one for Castle.
- Rick’s explanation to Zhang about why Beckett chose to face Gates alone in this Castle quote…
Believe me, Beckett has plenty of experience taking a bullet for other people doing stupid things. Hell, she's married to me.
Rick Castle
My only minor disappointment was that I had hoped we’d get a peak at Kate Beckett’s list of priorities for the future. Not that I doubt that Castle and their eventual family ranked at the top, but I would have liked to have seen it just the same.
Don’t forget to check back in next week for our review of Castle Season 7 Episode 18 and if you can’t wait until then, you can always watch Castle online right here at TV Fanatic.
C. Orlando was a TV Fanatic Staff Writer. Follow her on Twitter.
