Castle 4×21 ‘Headhunters’ recap: Of heads and Browncoats

Castle and Firefly are my favorite TV shows ever. No other show will ever measure up to these two in terms of sheer quality, as far as I’m concerned. Why is this little tidbit of information relevant, you ask? Because it’ll explain the rather astonishing amount of gushing you’ll find if you keep reading this recap. Just thought I’d give y’all a fair warning.

The Headhunters starts out with a homeless man coming across a dead boy and attempting to steal his backpack. He’s less than thrilled (actually, make it horrified) when it turns out that the content of said backpack is three severed human heads. Castle, on the contrary, finds it pretty awesome- more so than pulling a Wash and reenacting a scene with dolls… er, action figures. However, he thinks the detective in charge of this investigation is even more awesome- so much so that he decides to tag along with him in hopes of finding inspiration for his new book, inspiration he coincidentally (ha!) can’t find since he and Beckett fell apart.

He goes to the precinct, two cups of coffee in his hands, ready to ask Kate about Detective Slaughter. Disappointed to know that’s his only motivation to come and see her, Kate tells him to look where the bodies are. Cue Slaughter walking into the morgue, trying to simultaneously get information on the bodies and charm the M.E. A multitasker, that’s our guy. One with the sensitivity of a scalpel, one might add, but that’s beside the point. Anyhow, it turns out that Castle was already there, hoping to convince Slaughter to let him tag along with him for this case. His reasons come in the shape of a brown coat (for those Firefly illiterate, Browncoats was the name given to the Independent Faction who fought against the Alliance in a war that ended years before the show began. They were known as such because of the brown dusters their soldiers wore) and the promise to use his friendship with the Mayor to his benefit.

Now, I’m a diehard Castle&Beckett fan. But I didn’t mind their being apart for most of the episode one bit. Because it meant that Castle got to spend the day with Detective Slaughter. And Detective Slaughter was played by Adam Baldwin, who just so happened to also play Jayne Cobb in Firefly. Nathan Fillion was Captain Mal Reynolds. So it was a massive fandoms-collide-in-a-truly-awesome-way moment for me.

Slaughter and Castle break the news of Michael “Glitch” Riley’s death to his father Brian, and then retreat to wait for the man to stalk off searching for the killer. In the meantime, Castle learns that Slaughter is known as The Widow Maker, because of his quite shocking ability to end up with partners who wound up dead. He then gives us a wonderful demonstration as to how this happens by handing civilian Castle a gun and telling him to storm into a bar and yell NYPD to buy him time. Somehow he manages to not die, although he does end up with a bleeding nose. But they also get a suspect, so I guess whatever works.

The suspect tells them that, despite what his father thinks, he didn’t kill Michael. He says that Michael had been kicked out from the Westies gang (or however gang terminology works), and that the only reason Finn, the leader, didn’t kill him was because he was afraid of what Brian would do. However, he had something planned to get back to Finn’s good grace.

What this plan was starts to seem clear when DNA of the three heads reveals that they belonged to members of the Jamaicans gang, enemies of the Westies. Apparently, Glitch thought that digging up the bodies and cutting the heads off seemed to be a good way to get back into his gang. Not a particularly smart kid, clearly.

In the meantime, Beckett is with Dr. Burke, ranting about Castle’s recent behavior. He tells her to think of why he could possibly be acting like this, why he could be pulling away. Her conclusion is that he has moved on, but he says that maybe he’s just protecting himself from more emotional risks. When she asks what she’s supposed to do, Burke asks what she wants to do.

Castle and Slaughter are outside of a bar, waiting for a contact the latter has. When he arrives, Slaughter keeps Castle outside and walks in, only to come out minutes later with a name, not before being apparently involved in a shooting. When it’s starting to look like Castle’s new partner in crime is a murderer, Slaughter’s contact pops right back up and confirms that the Jamaicans were somehow involved with Glitch’s death.  The new suspect is a boy called Maxie… a boy that is subject to what Slaughter thinks is a proper way of interrogation: dumping him into a recycling truck and threatening to “make this guy pop like a grape”. I’m really, really hoping either Beckett or Castle will give him a rundown on appropriate interrogation procedure when this is over.

When he’s in the verge of being recycled, Maxie blurts out that he only ambushed Glitch, but a third gang known as The Mexicans are responsible for his death. Slaughter is clearly not impressed, but Maxie tells them he can prove it. There was a van and he tells them the first two letters of the license plates.

It turns out, he’s telling the truth. The Escalade belongs to a Cesar Vales, a member of the Mexicans. This gang is trying to override both the Jamaicans and the Westies, and Castle realizes it would be in their best interest to make both opposing gangs them get rid of each other. So having one of the members of one end up dead with heads of the other would give them the perfect change to get control of the territory. Slaughter thinks it’s a good theory, and off they go to find this, according to Slaughter, not at all dangerous gang. Ryan and Esposito think otherwise.

Of course, the duo is right. They arrive right in time when Castle and Slaughter are about to get shipped off to another life. However, even that was apparently a part of Slaughter’s plan. He wants to know who the weak member of the herd is. When they catch sight of a nervous-looking boy who can’t quit staring at them, it seems they have their suspect.

The thing is, they have him in more ways than one. Slaughter caught him and put him in the trunk of his car, before pulling a Schumacher and spinning the car madly. In the meantime, he informs Castle that he has a few complaints of force excess to answer for. Jeez, I wonder why.

After Slaughter basically coerces a confession out of him, Castle realizes that he has no idea of what really happened to Glitch. Angry, he breaks his deal with Slaughter and goes to Beckett for help. And, watch this, she’s actually been helping him all along. She makes him suffer a little before she lets him know this, of course.

After this, things unravel quickly. Beckett and Castle realize that Glitch used a pay phone before being shot. With the phone records, they track the call (and the killer) to Brian Riley. That’s right, Glitch’s father. Apparently, all the years of screw ups got to him.

In the end, Beckett threatens Vales to get him out of New York, and Slaughter punches Castle for not having his back and forbids him to use a character like him in one of Castle’s novels. Hee. How I love Baldwin and Fillion’s dynamics. But this amazing scene is overshadowed by Beckett calling Castle her partner and Castle finally realizing that the pros of getting over being hurt and giving his love for Beckett another chance override the cons. We’re left with a touching Castle/Alexis scene, showing us once again why they’re the best father/daughter duo on TV.