Last night’s Castle was the perfect combination of comedy and imitation. Let’s dive in!

We start the episode with Castle helping Kate move out of her apartment. He says he never really liked the place but it of course has special meaning to Kate. They get the call and our murder victim of the week happens to be the star of Castle’s childhood favorite movie, Hard Kill and Hard 2 Kill, Lance DeLorca. He was murdered outside a movie theater that was showing his old movies. Why was he in New York? Turns out he was supposed to be in the new “Indestructibles” movie featuring his old cast mates, Brock.

The case starts off with two threads: his movie star ex-wife and his spy past. The ex-wife, Kat Kingsly, initially told Kate that they were having an amicable divorce after she stayed with him through his cancer treatments. Meanwhile, Gates confirms Castle’s theory about the murder maybe having something to do with his spy past due to a call to a former agent.

Both of these prove to be untrue. The former agent, Gomez, tells Castle and Kate that in order to bulk up his background, he allowed Lance to use his spy past to get into the movies. Castle is devastated. Just try to hear the word goat herder in a more petulant voice. Which is comedic gold for us viewers. Another source of comedy last night? Ryan and his desire for a catchphrase. “Time for prison time.” BAHAHA. You slay us Ryan, never change.

Ryan reaches out to Trey, Brock and Naomi’s son, who is a club promoter. He said Lance reached out to him but because of his drug past he wouldn’t help him because he didn’t want him to fall off the wagon. Meanwhile, Kate re-interrogates Kat about their divorce after they find a picture of her following him. Turns out she got the house in Malibu worth $8 million in exchange for $200,000 in cash. Her alibi checks out.

This leads the team to the actor who played the bad guy in the Hard Kill movies, Henry Allen Booth, who played a drug dealer but is now a club owner who is under investigation for dealing drugs. Full circle apparently. Kate and Castle go to talk to him and figure out what Lance was doing; he was trying to bug the office. Kate is waiting to get her warrant when Brock asks Castle if he wants to get drinks later. Rick is unsurprisingly giddy at the idea.

Castle gets in a van to go drinking and it turns out that is not what Brock had in mind. He has assembled the team to get the bug from the office and he wants Castle to help. The montage of the guys walking down the street is priceless. An elaborate (for a bunch of retired movie stars) plan is executed and Kate gets her to hear what is on the bug.

Turns out Trey knew about the drugs that the club was dealing in. Booth sent some thugs to dispatch Lance but he used his action star past moves to take out the guys. Booth then called Trey and told him to take care of the problem. Trey called his mom who said she would take care of it.

Naomi did take care of it, just not by calling her lawyer. She killed Lance because Trey was Lance’s son and she was covering up her infidelity. Not gonna lie, this writer guessed this right away but it was still a hilarious ride to watch to get there. Bonus arrest: Trey found out what Lance was doing for him and decided to testify against Booth so that his father’s death wasn’t in vain.

What did you think of ‘Castle’ season 7, episode 9?

Next week finds the team solving a Christmas themed mob muder. Check back in for more info on Castle later in the week!