Castle learns that Beckett's ex-boyfriend is an FBI agent who has taken over a case regarding a missing two-year-old girl named Angela Candela, which he inserts himself into. Her kidnapper is demanding a $750,000 ransom, and Angela's adoptive mother Theresa makes it clear that the list of suspects is not short.
Tropes that appear in this episode:
- Always Murder: Subverted, as this episode focuses on the kidnapping of a child.
- Big Bad: Nina Mendoza seems to be this since she's Angela's kidnapper, but her sister Theresa Candela was the one calling the shots.
- Bittersweet Ending: Angela has been found safe and sound. But now that the ugly situation between Theresa and Alfred has been revealed, it leaves Angela's fate in the air as to whether she'll stay with Alfred or if she'll be relocated to a new family all together. And at the end of the day, whatever becomes of Angela, Theresa and Alfred's marriage is at a bitter end.
- The Dragon: Nina Mendoza is Theresa Candela's henchwoman and her sister.
- Evil All Along: Nina and Theresa are proven to be guilty of kidnapping Angela, even if they had good intentions.
- Evil Matriarch: Theresa Candela may be Angela's adoptive mother, but it doesn't stop her from ordering for the 2-year-old girl to be kidnapped and held for ransom by her sister.
- Evil Aunt: Angela's adoptive aunt, Nina Mendoza, is the woman who kidnaps her.
- The Faceless: The kidnapper's face is never seen until the culprit is exposed as Nina.
- Five-Second Foreshadowing: Alfred is elated that the kidnapper was apprehended and that Angela is back. Theresa reacts not with joy, but by scowling at him. Ominous background music begins to play moments before Sorenson requests that Angela is taken out of the dining room for now. Only then does Alfred begin to realize that Theresa is the culprit.
- Flash Mob Cover Up: After Castle drops off the backpack with the cash, Ryan and Esposito find themselves in the middle of a crowd of people all wearing the same model and color of backpack.
- Foreshadowing:
- At the start of the case, Theresa is pretty quick to angrily accuse that Alfred being preoccupied with his painting and music is probably why the kidnappers stole Angela so easily. Later, we learn she resents her husband for always neglecting their adoptive daughter in order to paint.
- When Castle reveals he dropped the planted cell phone in the backpack, Theresa looks disappointed, not glad.
- Freudian Excuse: Theresa's motive for masterminding the kidnapping is that Alfred was neglecting Angela even though she asked him time and time again to take care of her. It didn't help that Alfred once turned down a potential job to lift Theresa's burden because he was "busy taking care of Angela", using it as an excuse to stay at home and paint.
- Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: Beckett firmly drives this trope home when she strikes down all of Theresa's attempts to justify Angela's kidnapping. Yes, her husband was neglecting their daughter, but it doesn't change that Theresa still broke the law and violated Alfred's custodial rights, even if he does take those rights for granted as she claims.
- Hidden Disdain Reveal: The ending reveals that Theresa actually hates Alfred for not only neglecting their daughter, but using his "time" with her as an excuse to keep painting while his wife works continually. Alfred doesn't take it so well and is blown away by how much resentment his wife has allowed to fester under the surface.
- Hired to Hunt Yourself: A variation of this trope comes into play. To hide her own involvement in Angela's kidnapping, Theresa points Beckett, Castle, Sorenson, and their team in the directions of Angela's birth parents and a former colleague who got fired due to a report she made.
- Invasion of the Baby Snatchers: Angela's kidnapping, with the kidnapper simply sneaking into the Candelas' apartment through an open window, taking the 2-year-old girl from right under her adoptive father's nose, and walking out the back door with her. There's also the demand for $750,000. The icing on top of the nightmarish cake is that Angela's adoptive mother masterminded the whole thing, having instructed her sister (who is also Angela's adoptive aunt and The Dragon) to commit the crime.
- Irony: Becket reassures Theresa after her first screaming fit where she throws a vase, telling her "Neither you nor your husband is responsible for what happened to your daughter."
- The Kindnapper: Theresa views herself and Nina as this, as she legitimately believes that they did what's best for Angela. They even made sure that no harm came to her during their plot.
- Motive Rant: When she's finally cornered, Theresa goes into quite a detailed tirade, expressing nothing but resentful rage towards Alfred. Beckett and Castle occasionally inject commentary during said tirade, while Alfred is ultimately left stunned beyond belief by Theresa's venomous words.Theresa: I worked fourteen-hour days year after year, killing myself so that we can have a life. And what did you do? Oh, you painted. All you did was paint.
Alfred: That's not true—
Theresa: Really? What about that job you said that you were gonna get so that I can cut my hours?
Alfred: I was taking care of Angela!
Theresa: "Taking care"?! You left her there... in front of the TV every day! Do you know how many times I woke up to her screams... because he was in that room, blasting the music in his ears?
Beckett: It doesn't give you the right to kidnap your own child—
Theresa: How is it kidnapping? She's my daughter!
Beckett: Mrs. Candela, you had your sister climb through that window and take her.
Theresa: I gave her permission.
Beckett: It doesn't matter. You violated your husband's custodial rights.
Theresa: "Custodial rights?" He didn't even notice that she was gone! What kind of a father does that to his two-year-old child?!
Alfred: Why... would you do this? Why would you put us through that? And for God's sake, why not just divorce me?
Theresa: Oh, so that you can sue me for alimony? So that you can get half of everything? So that you can get custody of Angela... because I'm at work all day and you can "be there" for her? No! I've seen what happens to the guys at work—what happened to Doug Ellers. No way was that gonna happen to me!
Castle: You were paying the ransom to yourself.
Theresa: Once Angela returned... I would file for the papers. There would be nothing left for him to take.
Beckett: And if Angela was kidnapped when Alfred was taking care of her, then—
Theresa: The lawyer said that if I could prove him negligent, I would get custody. I wouldn't have to move out of the apartment that I paid for so that he could live here with my daughter! (livid and practically sobbing) Do you know how hard it was to adopt her? How much it cost? TEN YEARS! How many paintings have you sold, Alfred? Huh? How many?
Alfred: How could you hate me so much?
Theresa: You made it easy. - My Greatest Failure: Beckett worked a similar case in the past with Sorenson where the missing boy died, hence why this case is so hard for her.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Castle recognizes that Beckett is getting seriously stressed about the case, so when she asks him to go home, he only pauses for a moment before agreeing and telling her he's just a phone call away, even if all she needs is to talk.
- Papa Wolf: As the father of a girl who had a beloved stuffed animal, Castle takes Angela's abduction pretty seriously and is the one to recognize that the kidnapper knew enough to take the girl's favorite stuffed animal along with her and therefore is close to the family, cracking the case.
- Parental Neglect: Heavily deconstructed. During Theresa's Motive Rant, she recounts how Alfred kept neglecting to take care of their adopted daughter in favor of his art, even responding to her crying by turning up the music he was playing on his iPod. It's the main thing that motivates Theresa to have Nina kidnap Angela. She's especially livid he's neglectful to the point that Nina pulled off the kidnapping right under his nose.
- Rage Breaking Point: Theresa's initially-hidden resentment towards Alfred mercilessly unleashes itself onto him after Angela is rescued from Nina's clutches. It continues even after Beckett essentially tells her that a Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse.
- Ransom Drop: Castle makes the $750,000 ransom delivery in an effort to draw out the kidnapper.
- Red Herring:
- Theresa's former colleague Doug Ellers lost his job because of a report she made, leading to him being a divorced man who blamed her for it all. While a demand for $750,000 does make it seem like he's exacting petty revenge, Doug is conclusively confirmed to have nothing to do with either the kidnapping or the ransom.
- Angela's birth mother Lucia Gomez signed a form to an adoption agency requesting the identities of her daughter's adoptive parents. It turns out that it's not her signature on that form.
- Angela's birth father Juan Restrepo is Lucia's ex-boyfriend, with their relationship resulting in her giving birth to their daughter, who they agreed to give up for adoption. However, a combat injury during his time in Iraq ensured that he could never have biological children again. This led to him trying to track Angela down by forging Lucia's signature on the above-mentioned form. When he's accused of being a greedy kidnapper, Juan truthfully asserts that he just wanted to see if Angela was doing fine, with Juan's colleagues also mentioning he was at work with them when the kidnapping was perpetrated.
- The Resenter: Theresa became this to Alfred because of how he continuously neglected Angela in favor of painting. Having kept her true feelings hidden for so long, she reaches her Rage Breaking Point after Angela's return.
- Security Blanket: Alexis has "Monkey-Bunky" who, despite her denials that she has an attachment to, wouldn't even dream of throwing away. Likewise, Angela has a white stuffed rabbit that she clearly loves very much. This is the clue Castle needs to realize that Angela's kidnapper was someone who had a personal connection to her.
- Sexy Packaging: Castle and Beckett get into it about the just-released cover art for Castle's first Nikki Heat murder mystery novel, Heat Wave, which features an Expy of Beckett herself as the main character... and has her nude silhouette on the cover art, though Castle argues she's also holding a strategically placed gun.
- Siblings in Crime: Nina Mendoza (Angela's kidnapper) and Theresa Candela (her employer) are sisters.
- Shout-Out:
- Castle replies, "the ones on TV seem oddly fixated on their sunglasses" when FBI Agent Sorenson asks him why he's shadowing Beckett.
- When making the drop-off, Castle signs off by saying "five by five."
- Taking the Kids: The plan formulated by Theresa and Nina was to end with the former getting sole custody of Angela after she divorced Alfred.
- Teen Pregnancy: Juan and Lucia's relationship resulted in her becoming a teenage mother who gave birth to Angela at 16 while he was serving in the U.S. military in Iraq.
- Two Dun It: The episode's climax reveals that Angela's kidnapper was her adoptive aunt, hired by her mother.
- Working with the Ex: FBI Agent Sorenson is Beckett's ex-boyfriend. It's unquestioned that she and Castle work alongside him in order to solve Angela's kidnapping.
- Wouldn't Hurt a Child: Theresa and Nina may have worked together to kidnap Angela, but it's clear that neither of them wanted to harm her in the process. It's to the point that when Nina took her, she also took Angela's white stuffed rabbit, knowing that it's her Security Blanket.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Theresa's lawyer. He noted how Alfred could lose custody of Angela should his negligence be proven. Knowing that a divorce would paint Alfred as the better parent in the eyes of the city's Department of Social Services since he spent "more time" with their adoptive daughter, guess what Theresa and Nina conspired to do as a result.
- Villain Has a Point: Theresa may have kidnapped her daughter and she wasn't in the right for denying her husband his custodial rights to give herself grounds for divorce. But whatever her flaws as the antagonist, she makes a scathing point about how Alfred was a lazy deadbeat husband and alone is an unfit guardian for Angela. As a stay-at-home parent, he ignores his daughter in favor of his paintings, to the point he'll turn up the music in response to her crying. As a provider, he hasn't sold even one of his aforementioned paintings for a full decade. Either way you look at it, Alfred is no more a good parent than his own wife. (In addition, Theresa makes another point that as simple as it sounds, a straight-up divorce could've come at hers and Angela's expense, where she might lose custody of the girl, and Angela would be stuck with the negligent Alfred.)
