Castle is back! After leaving viewers on the edge of their seat for over two months, will we finally get answers to what happened to Richard Castle?

What’s worse than rain on your wedding day? Maybe it’s discovering your groom’s car in a fiery blaze, and then getting drenched by the hose trying to put out the fire. Poor Beckett is put through the wringer in the opening scenes of the season 7 premiere, “Driven.” That poor dress. Can she dry clean it?

After setting up road blocks for Castle’s abductors and a stop along the highway, a lead finally surfaces and the 12th’s best detectives are on the case. A highway vendor and a tracking device lead the detectives to a car impound lot. After spotting the car that supposedly took Rick it looks good for our heroes. Oh just kidding, the car proceeds to get crushed. Stana Katic’s facial expressions in this episode are just fantastic, all kidding aside. After an extremely well-choreographed chase scene, Kate BODY SLAMS the car crusher to the ground. You go Kate Beckett! “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!?”

After a not-so-professional interrogation of the car crusher, Esposito reminds Beckett to keep calm or else she’ll be dropped off of the case. Another reminder comes from Captain Gates, who is mostly absent for the season opener. The gangs’ only suspect is Vinny Cardano, a mobster from season 5 “Murder, He Wrote” that Rick has ties to, but he informs Kate that he just made the order to crush the getaway car and gets paid, he doesn’t ask questions. While they track down his story, FBI Agent Connors gets brought in and all of the villains get trotted out as suspects: Bracken, season 7 finale mobster Mickey Barbosa, and the most obvious, the 3XK. But these all are too easy. Ryan and Tori (the resident video expert) find footage of the money drop, and this is not a happy find.

The video shows Castle seemingly making the drop and a devastated Kate doesn’t know what to do. Now, I’m not saying I wouldn’t be frustrated but I find everyone’s lack of faith in Castle super disturbing. Hasn’t he proven himself over the past six years?? Espo is WAY too quick to jump to the conclusion that Castle is involved and I don’t know why he has that reaction. I think everyone is way too quick to assume Rick just cold feet and left. Even if he had gotten cold feet, why would he leave Alexis and his mother? It just doesn’t make much sense and this kind of plot point is demeaning to a dedicated viewer.

Thank goodness for the reassuring Martha, and yet again the level of acting on this show ups its game. I have always been impressed with the way the show continually improves episode to episode, season to season in one way or another. “Misgivings? Katherine, that was farthest thing on his mind. He couldn’t wait to be married to you.” Sadly, Kate doesn’t take this to heart like us viewers do, but she doesn’t give up hope either. She pushes the FBI to keep looking but it’s not looking good. And here is our where annual time jump comes in; Kate personally calling leads and making a “murder” board, which I personally think this show does really well. You know, because other TV show murder boards are just so boring.

And finally — our first glimpse of Richard Castle, he’s found floating in a dinghy by the Coast Guard just off the coast of Delaware. Oh Rick, what happened!? Kate and Co. rush to the hospital and unfortunately for her, their reunion is halted as Castle remains unconscious. However, his appearance is concerning so Kate asks Lanie to take a look at him since he is technically the only evidence the police have to help solve his disappearance besides the dinghy. Her discoveries only add to the mystery: Castle was shot within the last couple weeks, a key stamped with “38” on it was sewn into his pants, and he had dengue fever antibodies in his system. WHAT? After talking to the Coast Guard, the guys narrow down where the boat came from. Off we go!

Ahh, Matt Letscher, aka Henry Jenkins. He is one of the actors that you just know is never going to play a good guy, you know the ones. At first glance, he seems super innocent; telling the detectives that he doesn’t come up to his land very often and just assumed the homeless guy, who he identifies as Castle, stole his boat and didn’t think to report it. Fools! A campsite, full of Castle’s wedding day attire and his watch, is also found and it looks like Rick really did leave Kate at the altar.

Kate, now pissed off, heads back to the hospital and confronts a finally awake Castle. Here’s the catch: Castle thinks that a day has passed, not two months. But he swears he wouldn’t just leave and insists on seeing “his” campsite. Kate takes him and Rick swears he would never have set up camp in that area based on research he did for a never written Derrick Storm novel. Also curious: there is a new Henry Jenkins and he is old. You guys got punked!

The scenes back at the Castle’s penthouse are kinda heartbreaking. It is so hard to watch Kate think Castle really would leave her, especially on her wedding day. Castle asks Beckett how she didn’t lose hope and she admits she did but she would always find it. It’ll take a while for them to get back to normal but Castle knows that they will “find their way home.”

I just hope future episodes make this new Castle mystery/backstory a bit more believable and have a satisfying conclusion because so far I am unimpressed. The final scene is just super depressing for Caskett fans and I hope to see more of Castle’s reaction to all of his friends thinking he would just leave. Nathan Fillion is at his best when he has to prove himself, although he’s always the best in my book whether he’s doing drama or comedy.

Side Notes and Quotes:
– Who else loves Kate’s new do? I certainly do!
– Gypsy from Gilmore Girls! Glad to see you!
– I find it hard to believe that drugs played some role in Castle’s memory loss so I hope the answers are better than the setup.
– I still really want more Kate/Alexis scenes. Here’s hoping that those happen in season 7.
– “I do know that I missed you. There’s no way I couldn’t.” Le sigh.

P.S. Hello!
Hi, my name is Kate and I will be taking over all things Castle. I have been watching the show since the pilot, following Captain Tightpants, aka Nathan Fillion from his previous works. I have been in love with this show and Caskett since the beginning so hopefully you enjoy my take!