Read our Castle season 6, episode 13 “Limelight” recap and discuss all the Kate and Rick goodness of the episode.
The episode opens with Kate asking Rick if she should be worried about their engagement as she reads an article in the paper about Rick and his ex-wife. Rick wants to announce their engagement, but Kate says it isn’t important. Pi stops by looking for a recommendation from Rick, who has not written a word. The phone rings and they head out for a case.
The victim is supposedly Mandy Sutton, teen pop star gone bad girl. The girl is found in the alley with a head wound. Mandy had been partying pretty hard and made out with an ex-boyfriend. Her current boyfriend broke up with her, leaving several suspects.
Ryan and Esposito seek out the boy who broke up with her, Zack, but he has a solid alibi and points them in the direction of Jesse, the ex-boyfriend. Jesse has a violent past and even threatened Mandy the last time they broke up. Mandy’s mom-ager comes to identify the body only to discover it isn’t Mandy who is dead.
Mandy’s mom identifies the victim as Mandy’s decoy, Clare. Kate and Rick begin to look into where Mandy Sutton is. The killer may be still looking for her. Kate and Rick locate her at a hotel and go to make sure she is okay. They find her face down on a rug with a spilt bottle of wine.
Mandy tries to wrap her head around being “dead” and doesn’t know who would have tried to kill her. Kate tries to get information from Mandy, but she is less than helpful. Mandy’s mom only seems to be concerned about Mandy being able to go on tour.
Ryan finds some hate mail sent to Mandy that also contains pictures of her asleep in her room. For the first time Mandy seems concerned. Rick makes her a cup of coffee and tries to bond over celebrity. It doesn’t go so well. Alexis comes in and begins to talk about Mandy and how much she loved her until she became a hot mess. Mandy is not pleased and Alexis is super embarrassed.
Ryan tracks down the guy who owns the printer where the pictures came from. He is a Mandy stalker and can be seen in photos from the night Clare was killed. They manage to bring him in and find more evidence in his apartment. Meanwhile, Kate is busy convincing her family everything they read in the paper isn’t true.
The stalker explains that he was waiting for Mandy in the alley because he knows her routine. He noticed a motorcycle and wrote down information concerning everything he saw in the alley. Kate decides he is probably not the killer, but is their best witness. Ryan makes a crack about Rick being out with his other ex-wife, which doesn’t impress Kate.
Alexis realizes that she has Mandy’s phone and goes to the Essex hotel to switch phones back. Alexis apologizes for what she said and Mandy begins to explain how one changes as much as she has. Mandy feels bad about hurting her boyfriend and doesn’t know what to do. She feels like there is no hope for her. Alexis says she wishes she could disappear from her life too.
Rick is still trying to write Pi’s letter when Ryan and Esposito find the owner of the bike. The owner is Jesse, but he isn’t at home. They decide to ask Mandy where he might hang out. Alexis is pouring out her heart to Mandy and admits to not wanting to be around Pi. Mandy gets a text from her friend Sam, who has information regarding the girl who was killed. Alexis tells her it is too dangerous but goes with her to help get information.
The team realizes that Mandy is gone and begins to look for her. Clare was at the bar before she was killed. Sam tells Mandy that Clare thought someone was trying to hurt her. Clare asked to speak with Jesse, and Sam called him for her. While at the bar Mandy gets recognized and it hits the news quickly.
Jesse pulls up outside the bar and picks up Alexis and Mandy at gunpoint. He drives them to a secluded area and demands answers from Mandy. Jesse admits that Clare wasn’t the one in the photo, and he was paid twenty-five thousand dollars to do so. Clare was trying to set things right when she was killed.
The team shows up to save Alexis and Mandy. They begin to ponder Jesse’s story and find the photographer who took the picture. He is less than cooperative, but Esposito threatens to follow him around all day ruining his shots unless he tells them who staged the photo. Harvey Stryker from celebgazer.com (can you say TMZ?) is the one who paid for the photo.
Harvey insists that they are not fake photos and he didn’t pay anyone off. He insists he had nothing to do with anything, and that he received a tip. They can identify the person who bought the burner phone because they left the GPS on. Unsurprisingly, the person who set up everything was the mom-ager who didn’t want to give up her moneymaker.
Rick tries to give Mandy some advice about not hiding because of everything that has happened. Alexis turns up with Zack and reunites him with Mandy. Rick gives Alexis Pi’s letter and Alexis realizes that maybe it is time to break up with Pi. Ryan and Esposito read a new article about Rick, and this time it is about his engagement to Kate. She admits that she is the one who leaked the news because if there are going to be stories in the paper about him, she wants them to be true.