Well that was a crazy ride on last night’s Castle. Let’s get to it!

We jump right into the murder of a man, Paul Reeves, who investigates claims for the government, the GAO. The team goes to the headquarters and gets his case load to see if that had anything to do with his death. In the meantime, they find the guy who he had a disturbing call with recently. Jared Stone is a hacker and they worry about his safety after Castle theorizes he is a whistleblower. Beckett sends out Espo and Ryan to bring him in for his safety.

On the way to find Stone, Espo and Ryan talk about how Javier is ready to settle down and have a family but he says that Lanie is happy with how things are and that he might be ready for more. He ruins the moment with a joke of course. They track him down in the city but he heads into the subway, so Espo follows on foot. Stone is acting very jumpy and Espo just manages to get on the subway in time.

As Espo approaches Stone, a transit cop is berating a kid who was going to tag the subway. Stone sees Espo’s badge, freaks, and snags the transit cop’s gun and pulls the subway emergency break. He demands Espo’s gun. Javier is seemingly getting him to relax when Stone sees that his phone is still on (he was talking to Ryan while following him) and freaks out.

The case gets a little bit convoluted but try to follow along: Stone is at first very calm and collected. Javier tries to get him to see reason (why he didn’t just tell him he is in danger and that he is there to help him bugs me) but it’s no use. When the HRT guy calls he asks for his girlfriend’s release but is pretty vague on the details. By this time he has revealed a suicide vest underneath his jacket.

Thanks to a pilot program for the subway system, Tory is able to pull up video feed so the gang can keep an eye on the situation. After Stone asks for his girlfriend to be sent to the Maldives, a non-extradition country, he also allows pizza to be sent down. Espo receives a note saying that a team is about to be in place to handle the situation. Before that can happen, Stone realizes that there is a camera on and shoots it out.

Meanwhile two important things happen: Lanie, who has been watching the entire time, noticed something on the footage. Stone has been showing increasingly intense flu-like symptoms and that he is going to be losing his thinking capabilities which means his hand could slip off of the bomb. While this is going on, Ryan heads to his apartment and finds two things: a planned script of some kind that is identical to Stone’s demands and traces of a deadly virus that is unfortunately airborne.

Back on the train, Javi has been bonding/flirting mildly with the transit cop. It was a bit jarring to see that they actually had pretty decent chemistry when he is in a relationship with Lanie. But they devise a plan to get control of the situation: when Stone takes his next hit of his inhaler Javi will disable him. It works. But just as they are about to exit the train, he calls Ryan and is informed of the deadly virus they are all now susceptible to.

How does this all circle back to the original murder? Turns out Reeves boss, who Beckett and Castle spoke to at the office, has recently purchased stock in Langham Medical company, the same company who created the deadly strain that Stone had been infected with. Reeves discovered that they had increased production on the vaccine, which the only reason to do so was if the virus got out. The boss killed Reeves and used Stone as a patsy to distribute the virus so the vaccine could be used and money could be made.

All in all, not as exciting as Kevin’s undercover episode or the fire episode showcasing the partnership between Ryan and Kevin. But it did have a somewhat happy ending, Javi seems pretty committed to Lanie after he was caught saying her name before he disabled Stone on the subway. So maybe we will get something going on that front soon.

What did you think of ‘Castle’ season 7, episode 7?

Next week finds Castle living in a B movie and loving it. Check back in for more info on Castle later in the week!