Knockdown

**Writer:** Will Beall

**Director:** Thomas J. Wright

#### DUSTJACKETS BLURB

The lead detective on Johanna Beckett's case is killed right in front of Beckett and Castle, just as he was about to tell them critical information about her mother's case. Montgomery suspends them from the case, but Beckett and Castle are not about to let that stop their quest to uncover the truth, no matter what skeletons their investigation digs up.

### Guest cast

* Jonathan Adams - VULCAN SIMMONS
* Max Martini - HAL LOCKWOOD
* John Kapelos - JOE PULGATTI
* Brian R. Norris - CHAD RODRICK
* Joel Polis - JOHN RAGLAN
* Brian Goodman - GARY McCALLISTER
* Lisa Cash - DIANE
* Ajay Vidure - CSU TECH
* Chryssie Whitehead - KATHY MOORE
* Scott Paulin - JIM BECKETT (deleted scenes)

### Music

* "Rise" - THE FRAMES (tag)
* "Wonderful Night" - FATBOY SLIM

### Literary and other references

* "A Christmas Carol" is a short story by Charles Dickens about a miserly man, Ebenezer Scrooge, who is visited by the ghost of his old partner, Jacob Marley, and the ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future. Together they show him what his life will be like if he continues on the path he is on, and convince him to change his ways. (Incidentally, Molly Quinn was in the movie version of the story made in 2009.)
* Nancy Drew is an amateur detective in a series of mystery books for girls. They were first published in the 1930's and have been updated several times since then. Most recently the franchise has expanded to include several movies, TV shows, graphic novels, and computer games.
* *Dirty Harry*, *Cobra*, and *Police Academy* are all cop movies.
* *Catcher in the Rye* is a book by J. D. Salinger about a discontented teenager in New York City. There are several famous murders associated with the killers' obsession with the novel, the most notorious being Mark David Chapman's 1980 shooting of John Lennon.
* "Special Forces" are highly trained military units, such as the US Army's Green Berets or the US Navy's SEALs.
* 'Fear does not exist in this dojo' is a quote from the film *The Karate Kid*.
* Chuck Norris is an actor and martial artist known for his action movies.

### Memorable moments

* Montgomery being awesome.
* Castle bringing Beckett flowers to cheer her up, just as she pulled a bouquet from her sleeve to cheer him up last week.
* THE KISS
* THE KISS
* THE KISS

### Quotable quotes

* BECKETT (*about Castle*): He's someone I trust.
* MONTGOMERY: Yeah, but I know you. You’re gonna want to pick up those scissors and run around the house with them.
* MARTHA: Think about how much you love Alexis and that is how much I love you - and don’t you dare ask me where this is coming from. You have gotten through most of your life on your wit and charm and no small amount of talent, but that is the real world out there. And you can’t charm your way out of a bullet.
* CASTLE: It’s not about the books anymore.
* BECKETT: Look, I signed up for this when I put that badge on, you didn’t. It’s not your fight.
CASTLE: The hell it isn’t. I don’t hang around you just to annoy you. I don’t ride up to murder scenes in the middle of the night to satisfy some morbid curiosity. If that’s all this was then I would have quit a long time ago.
* CASTLE: Like it or not, I’m your plucky sidekick.
BECKETT: Plucky sidekick always gets killed.
CASTLE: Partner then.
* PULGATTI: Take it from me, there’s nothing more dangerous out there than a killer with a badge.

### Just the facts

* Beckett's call sign for dispatch (or that of the radio she is using) is 1L40 (one-Lincoln-forty)
* Beckett's mother and several of her colleagues put together a campaign called Take Back the Neighborhood to get drug dealers off the streets in Washington Heights.
* Simmons calls Beckett's mother a 'rich b\*\*ch' so she may have come from money, which would explain Beckett's nice new apartment.
* We see Beckett's new apartment for the first time.
* Josh is in Africa, saving lives (possibly with Doctors without Borders?) which might explain why we haven't seen him in a while.
* Johanna was murdered on Saturday, January 9th, 1999 in an alley on the Lower West Side. Two other women were murdered, both lawyers who volunteered for Johanna at the Justice Initiative (an organization that did pro bono legal work): Diane Cavanaugh on Sunday March 7th, 1999, near 65th and Amsterdam, and Jennifer Stewart on Friday, May 21st, 1999 in Central Park. Scott Murray, a document clerk at the courthouse, was also killed on March 7th, outside a bar.
* A few weeks before Johanna's death she and Kate went ice skating; apparently Kate wasn't very good at it.
* Beckett's mother's ring is hanging on her window murder board.
* Kate started re-investigating her mother's death this summer, while Castle was in the Hamptons. Josh doesn't know about her investigation, or probably about the murder at all.
* Beckett's home computer has the ability to scan photographic negatives and convert them into regular digital photos.
* Johanna Beckett was a civil rights attorney.
* Esposito was in the Special Forces.
* Alexis gave Castle a chocolate badge for his birthday.
* Ryan went to 12 years of Catholic school.
* This is the fourth time that Castle has saved Kate's life (or at least prevented her from being shot).
* Neither Alexis nor Lanie appear in this episode.
* According to the nameplates, Beckett's desk is front-to-front with the desk belonging to Det. Wallis. A desk belonging to Det. Messina is behind hers, and off to one side.
* The episode appears to span two or three days. The last day is January 24th, 2011 (the same as the US air date) according to the cell phone bill.

### Oops

* The shot that killed Raglan came from behind Beckett, so his blood shouldn't have splashed on her, especially in that peculiar splotch on her shirt (which somehow managed to get \*under\* her jacket without getting on it).
* Beckett says that she's "always" worked her mother's case on the theory that [Coonan's victims] were chosen because of a case they were working on. But prior to 1x10, she didn't know that her mother's murder was related to any other murders, and Beckett didn't start studying the case again until last summer.
* Getting the sniper's prints off the woman's skin is definitely questionable - studies have been done showing that it is possible to recover prints off of live skin, but they are generally only visible for 15 minutes or so. ['Fingerprint recovery from human skin surfaces'. Matej Trapecar, Joze Balazic. *Science & Justice*. November 2007 (Vol. 47, Issue 3, Pages 136-140, DOI: 10.1016/j.scijus.2007.01.002)] It's also a bit odd that they manage to get one clear fingerprint when the sniper grabbed her with his full hand.
* If the sniper's identity is only two years old and he's never had even a traffic citation with it, why did his prints come back to that identity?
* There are only two blondes in their 30's living in Brooklyn named Jolene? Really? (The population of Brooklyn is 2.5 million people.)
* Pulgatti says that he pleaded guilty "because he doesn't like needles", presumably a reference to the death penalty by lethal injection. But New York hasn't executed anyone since 1976.
* Pre-ep set photos showed a scene where Beckett's father comes to her apartment while Castle is there. Unfortunately, the scene doesn't seem to have made the final cut.
* Martha says Castle wrote 22 books before he met Beckett, but 1x09 says he had 26 bestsellers.
* Not exactly an "oops," but the flowers Castle gives Beckett when he comes to her apartment look scarily similar to the ones Beckett pulled out of her coat at the end of "Poof! You're Dead".

### Branch libraries

* News
	+ Give Me My Remote - Andrew Marlowe Teases the Castle/Beckett Relationship (7 Feb 11)
	+ TV Guide - 5 Reasons We're Excited About Castle's Big Kiss (24 Jan 11)
	+ EW.com - 'Castle': Writers Andrew Marlowe and Will Beall dish on the big kiss and what's next (24 Jan 11)
* Reviews
	+ Zap2it - Castle 3.13 "Knockdown" Review (25 Jan 11)
	+ CliqueClack - Castle--Who is the sleeping dragon? (25 Jan 11)
	+ Zap2it - 'Castle': There's no statute of limitations on murder -- or kissing (24 Jan 11)
* Promos