We are back to the light-hearted side of Castle this week with an episode about the death of the stripper dressed as a cop.
We start with a rather good-looking police officer in an apartment building, approaching an apartment bouncing with loud music and screaming. He knocks on the door saying he is NYPD and has a warrant for the arrest of Jamie Ruiz. The door opens and he is yanked inside.
Early the next morning at Castle’s apartment, Alexis and Martha are doing vocal exercises. A rough looking Castle enters the room, complaining that it is five in the morning and he was having a good dream. Alexis explains that she made the mistake of telling Martha that she might audition for her school’s rendition of Grease. Martha, being an actress herself, has taken on the responsibility of training Alexis, much to the teenager’s dismay. Castle’s phone rings; its Beckett of course and we have ourselves a murder.
Castle meets Beckett and Lanie at the crime scene. Lanie mentions that the homicide is an officer down call. The victim is the cop from the opening. He has a gunshot wound to the chest. While looking over the body, Team Castkett discovers that his badge is not the correct one for his precinct, his gun shoots tequila inside of bullets and his pants are tearaways, which leads them to the conclusion that the victim is a stripper not a cop. Beckett finds his car keys in his pants.
They find his very messy car near by. In the car, Beckett finds his wallet and identifies him as Derek Brookner. Castle finds a piece of paper with an address on it that is nearby. Castle and Beckett go to address and find the aftermath of a bachelorette party. Initially the still drunk women think Castle is another stripper, but Beckett bursts their bubble and takes them down to the precinct for questioning. Ryan and Esposito go through the photos of the party and find Derek in the background of one of the pictures with a visibly upset women. The girls identify her as Camille Roberts.
Camille left the apartment right after the party. Esposito finds out that Derek filed a restraining order against her. Ryan searched Derek’s apartment and found nothing but an empty day planner, a business card with the name Jesse Mandolay on it, and a bunch of Donald Trump books.
Camille is brought in for questioning. She says she was upset after seeing Derek as a stripper. She said she had talked to him about giving up his dreams as an actor, but she didn’t see him after she left the party. Camille tells Beckett that Derek said he was a stripper, because he needed the money and he said that he had another job, but he needed to quit it because it was going to kill him. Beckett doesn’t think Camille was involved.
Esposito and Ryan found Derek’s agent and have his acting reel, which includes a male enhancement a commercial and a dramatic interpretation of Billy Grimm, leader of the Visigoth Motorcycle Gand, for America’s Most Dangerous Criminals. His agent said that Derek hadn’t booked an acting job in over a year. The team rules out that his other gig involves the stage.
Beckett sends Ryan and Esposito to check out Mucho Men, the stripping service Derek worked for to find out if he had any problems at work.
Team Castkett visits Lanie and she tells them that Derek had temporarily dyed his hair gray, probably for an audition. Lanie also found a long blond hair on Derek, that belongs to a man who uses steroids.
Ryan and Esposito go to Derek’s agency. The boss, Lloyd Saunders, assumes that they are there for jobs; he rejects Esposito but wants Ryan because he could be “that skinny guy from Twilight,” and he throws a red g-string at him and tells him to change. Esposito tells Lloyd that they are there about Derek’s murder. Lloyd says that Derek was one of his best strippers, who mostly did bachelorette parties and birthday parties.