Castle (TV Series)

The Way of the Ninja (2014)

Stana Katic: Kate Beckett

Quotes 

• [examining the victim] 

  Richard Castle : Looks like she was stabbed with a knife.

  Kate Beckett : Mmm.

  M.E. Sidney Perlmutter : To the untrained eye, perhaps. But... what you don't know about postmortem analysis could fill a book, Mr. Castle. In fact, it has. Numerous times.

  Richard Castle : Fine. So, it was not a knife.

  M.E. Sidney Perlmutter : Ah, wrong again. It was a knife, but "stabbed" implies the blade was *thrust* into the victim, uh, whereas this wound was produced by it being *hurled* into her chest.

  Kate Beckett : What is this, "Last of the Mohicans"? What kind of knife is it?

  M.E. Sidney Perlmutter : Uh, one with a hilt that matches these small bruises on either side of the wound. It killed her instantly, severing the left anterior descending artery.

  Kate Beckett : Okay, so either that's the luckiest knife toss in the world...

  Richard Castle : Or, she was killed by a circus knife-thrower. Like the Great Throwdini.

  [Perlmutter sighs wearily and walks away] 

• Richard Castle : Does this mean you forgive me for not calling?

  Kate Beckett : Mmm-mmm. Not yet.

  Richard Castle : Well...

  [they kiss again] 

  Richard Castle : How about now?

  Kate Beckett : Hmm, getting there.

  Richard Castle : This is torture.

  [they kiss a third time] 

• Kate Beckett : Are those... cronuts?

  Kevin Ryan : Yeah, have one.

  [she takes one, then grabs one of the boxes from his desk] 

  Kevin Ryan : Hey!

  Kate Beckett : They're not both for me.

  Kevin Ryan : Yeah, sure they're not. Where's Castle this morning, anyway?

  Kate Beckett : He's writing down everything he can remember about the ninja fight and hopes to use it for his next book.

• [first lines] 

  Richard Castle : Hey, so, you wanna go to Lincoln Center and hear some jazz tonight? Wynton Marsalis is playing.

  Kate Beckett : Oh, I would love to, but I can't. I've got that dinner with my old friend from high school.

  Richard Castle : You don't sound very thrilled about going.

  Kate Beckett : Yeah, you know, it's just Carly's always been really competitive, talking about her fabulous life nonstop.

  Richard Castle : I bet no one's basing a character in their best-selling mysteries on her.

  Kate Beckett : True. But the last time I talked to her, she just came back from the French Riviera with a count that she met in Monaco. And now I hear she's married to some big-shot European businessman that she met on a yoga retreat, and she's embraced the spiritual life.

  Richard Castle : Well, you want me to tag along and regale her with tales of our crime-solving adventures?

  Kate Beckett : Definitely not. You are exactly her type. And the last thing I need is to watch someone from my past trying to seduce my fiancée while talking about the goddess that lives in her hoo-ha.

  [phone rings] 

  Kate Beckett : She did ask for a signed book, though.

  Richard Castle : Who did, Carly or the goddess?

• Richard Castle : This must be his lair.

  Kate Beckett : Yeah, and that's some kind of a shrine.

  Richard Castle : A shrine to murder. Check this out.

  [picks up dagger] 

  Richard Castle : Design of this hilt matches the bruises we saw. And I'm betting there's traces of blood on here, too.

  [Beckett and Castle hear a clanging in the distance] 

  Kate Beckett : Someone's here.

  [mouths] 

  Kate Beckett : Wait.

  [Beckett goes to investigate; someone dressed as a ninja appears, swipes the dagger, and disappears in a cloud of smoke] 

  Richard Castle : [pause]  Beckett!

  Kate Beckett : [coming back]  Castle, what happened?

  Richard Castle : A... ninja... stole the murder weapon.

• Captain Victoria Gates : [to Castle]  You were attacked by a ninja?

  [to Beckett] 

  Captain Victoria Gates : And you witnessed it?

  Kate Beckett : Uh, no, sir, not exactly.

  Richard Castle : Because he made a sound and drew her away. Ninjas are masters of the surprise attack.

  Kate Beckett : In any case, we think that he's our killer because the knife that he took from Castle appears to be our murder weapon.

  Captain Victoria Gates : So what you're saying is that...

  Richard Castle : Our killer... is a ninja.

• Richard Castle : Man! Our killer can't be a ballet dancer.

  [Beckett, Ryan, and Esposito all stare at him] 

  Richard Castle : Because it would just be such a huge letdown.

  Kate Beckett : [sarcastic]  Of course. We can't let facts get in the way of a good story.

• Kate Beckett : [angrily]  You didn't call because you were in a *private* room making out with a *geisha*?

  Richard Castle : Okay, we were not making out. *She* was kissing me! An-And for the record, she wasn't a geisha. She was a hostess.

  Kate Beckett : The difference being?

  Richard Castle : Okay, point taken, but I was undercover, and I did get us a lead.

  Kate Beckett : Oh, you know what I would've appreciated was a phone call about this lead. Somewhere around 10:00 because, "That's what partners are for."

  Richard Castle : Right, and I was *about* to make that phone call, and that's when the ninjas attacked.

  Kate Beckett : You've got an excuse for everything, don't you?

  Richard Castle : Okay, I'm getting the feeling that this is about more than me not calling... Wh- What, was it that bad? What, did she go on about camel treks and yacht races? Or did you have a fight with the goddess?

  Kate Beckett : [sitting down and covering her face]  Mmm-mmm, no, worse. Carly was *boring*.

  Richard Castle : Boring?

  Kate Beckett : Yeah. All she did was complain about her husband, saying now that she was married, there's no romance in her life. It's just an endless routine of sameness.

  Richard Castle : So your fabulous friend...

  Kate Beckett : Is not so fabulous anymore.

  Richard Castle : Ah.

  Kate Beckett : I mean, that's not gonna happen to us, is it? You've done this before. Marriage isn't gonna change us, right? We're not gonna become one of those couples that go to the same two restaurants and only have sex on national holidays.

  [Castle scoffs derisively] 

  Kate Beckett : No, I'm serious. 'Cause that place that you were at tonight, it was filled with married men that are bored with their wives. I don't ever wanna be bored with you, and I don't want you to be bored with me, either.

  Richard Castle : Okay, well, then, let's, um, put it into our vows. A promise to each other that even though we're married, it doesn't mean there is no more romance. And we will never, ever, be boring. Deal?

  Kate Beckett : Okay, deal.

  [they kiss] 

• Kate Beckett : A financier? What's Jade doing trying to get close to a guy like that?

  Javier Esposito : Don't know, but I ran Saito's name though the system. It was flagged by Organized Crime.

  Kate Beckett : Organized crime like Yakuza?

  Javier Esposito : Yep. The rumor is he's high up on the chain in the Izumi clan out of Okinawa. His legitimate businesses are just suspected fronts for money laundering, drug trafficking, and extortion.

  Kate Beckett : So, what's a ballet dancer doing going after a guy like this? What could she possibly want from him?

  Kevin Ryan : Well, odds are whatever it was got her killed.

• Kate Beckett : Do you recognize this woman?

  [show a picture of Jade] 

  Michio Saito : No, I'm afraid not.

  Javier Esposito : You sure? From what we hear, the two of you spent a lot of time together at Miyago's hostess bar.

  Michio Saito : I spend time with a lot of different girls at the club... They're not all very memorable.

  Kate Beckett : We understand that she was at your birthday party the other night.

  Michio Saito : Was she?

  Kate Beckett : Mm-hmm

  Javier Esposito : You saying you don't know?

  Michio Saito : I'm saying there were many people at the party.

  Javier Esposito : Well, witnesses said that the two of you had a fight, that Jade was expelled from your party. You wanna tell us what happened?

  Michio Saito : No one was expelled from the party. If she left, it was by her choice.

  Kate Beckett : And I suppose it was just a coincidence that shortly after she left, she was murdered.

  Michio Saito : I am not responsible for what happens to her out on the street. Isn't that your job, Detective?

• [having learned a consular officer is an impostor] 

  Kevin Ryan : Do you remember when she said that she spoke with Jade's parents in Japan?

  Kate Beckett : Mmm-hmm.

  Kevin Ryan : Well, Jade didn't have any parents. Turns out she was raised in an orphanage from age ten.

  Kate Beckett : Jade was orphaned at age ten? How did that happen?

  Kevin Ryan : Well, I tried to find out, but prior to the orphanage, can't find any record of Jade Yamata, if that's even her name. Not a birth certificate, nothing. It's like she didn't exist.

  Richard Castle : Sounds like someone was trying to cover up Jade's history.

  Kate Beckett : Yeah, well, we're gonna have to dig up whatever they were trying to hide. If we know her true identity, it may lead us to why she was killed, so find out everything you can on Jade. Start with the orphanage. Castle and I'll talk to Perlmutter and we'll see if her body can tell us who she really was.

• M.E. Sidney Perlmutter : Well, I checked the victim for any implants or traceable medical hardware, but... I discovered nothing that would aid you in your quest. However, I did find a telling mark on her body.

  [pulls off sheet to show Castle and Beckett scars on the victim's back] 

  M.E. Sidney Perlmutter : This is a *very* unusual scar. Uh, my guess is she sustained the injury ten or twelve years ago.

  Richard Castle : Right about the time she was sent to the orphanage.

  Kate Beckett : In what way is the scar unusual?

  M.E. Sidney Perlmutter : Uh, she took shrapnel. Based on faint, small scars over her back and legs, it was from some kind of explosion, like an IED.

  Kate Beckett : You're not saying she was in combat as a ten-year-old girl?

  M.E. Sidney Perlmutter : Uh, Improbable, but this much I know, she was treated by a U.S. military surgeon.

  Kate Beckett : And you know that based on what?

  M.E. Sidney Perlmutter : Uh, this open type of stippled scarring is the result of a technique called debriding. Uh, military surgeons started using it on blast wounds during the Afghan war, saved a *lot* of lives, but it wasn't adopted by civilian doctors until fairly recently. Only two military facilities in Japan were doing this surgery at that time. One at a base in Yokosuka and one in Okinawa.

  Kate Beckett : Okinawa?

  [to Castle] 

  Kate Beckett : That's where Saito's Yakuza clan came from.

• Javier Esposito : Okay, so this Okinawa lead is paying off big time. We did a search for explosions there back in the day. This article is dated one month before Jade landed in that orphanage.

  Richard Castle : Who are those people?

  Javier Esposito : That's the Ozu family. The dad is a building contractor who had a run-in with the local Yakuza. The Yakuza settled it by stabbing his whole family and then blowing up his house. And... this is the murder weapon they found at the scene.

  Kate Beckett : That looks like the knife that was used on Jade.

  Javier Esposito : Yeah.

  Kate Beckett : Was there a suspect in the murders?

  Javier Esposito : No arrest was made, but rumor had it the family was murdered by the Green Dragon.

  Richard Castle : I take it he's not a reptile.

  Javier Esposito : Reptile, no. Monster, yes. The Green Dragon was a secret ninja enforcer of the Yakuza. All of Okinawa was scared of this guy, and for good reason, he's a ruthless killer.

  Kate Beckett : Okay, so what does all of this have to do with Jade?

  Javier Esposito : Well, I think that Jade was this little girl.

  Richard Castle : Um, I thought you said the whole family was murdered by the Green Dragon.

  Javier Esposito : I got a copy of the police report from the Okinawa Prefecture, and I noticed this. The younger daughter, her birthday is the same as Jade's. What if she actually survived that attack?

  Richard Castle : Well, if she was in that explosion, that would explain the shrapnel wounds.

  Kate Beckett : Someone must have found her and wanted to keep her safe. That's why she was treated at the military hospital.

  Richard Castle : Because if she was treated in a local hospital, the Yakuza would know she was still alive.

  Kate Beckett : And that's also why her name was changed when she was put into the orphanage, to hide her from the Yakuza.

• Richard Castle : So, this is a classic revenge story. Jade was hunting down the man that killed her family, the Green Dragon.

  Richard Castle , Kate Beckett : Saito's the Green Dragon!

  Javier Esposito : The timeline fits. He immigrated to this country ten years ago, just after the murders. And when he did, the Green Dragon disappeared from Okinawa.

  Kate Beckett : That's what Jade was doing at the party. She was looking for proof that Saito was the Green Dragon. He got onto her and then he killed her. And then when you got close, he attacked you.

• Kate Beckett : Hands behind your head and come out where I can see you.

  [Saya comes out from behind a screen and raises her arms in surrender] 

  Richard Castle : You're not a ninja.

  Kate Beckett : No, but you did impersonate a consulate officer. On your knees.

  Saya Ozu : [kneeling down]  This is not what you think, Detective Beckett.

  Kate Beckett : Yeah, that's what all guilty people say.

  [frisking her] 

  Kate Beckett : Is this a badge?

  Richard Castle : You're a cop?

  Saya Ozu : Not just a cop. I'm Jade's sister.

• Richard Castle : Bedford?

  Kate Beckett : Saya, drop it.

  Saya Ozu : All this time, my sister was using you to get to the Green Dragon. But it was you all along.

  Richard Castle : It's the perfect ninja disguise. A white American working as a Yakuza enforcer. He's hiding in plain sight.

  Saya Ozu : [to Bedford]  You... killed my family!

  Kate Beckett : Saya, drop it.

  Saya Ozu : He took everything!

  Kate Beckett : I know. I've been there. You want blood for blood, but it's not worth it. Just let him live with who he really is.

  [after a moment of indecision, Saya throws her dagger away] 

  Richard Castle : And you were afraid we're gonna become boring?

• [last lines] 

  [Castle is struggling to pull the shuriken stuck in his cell phone] 

  Richard Castle : [whispers]  That's gotta be...

  [finally pulls the shuriken out but it slips from his fingers and flies off] 

  Captain Victoria Gates : *Ow*! Mr. Castle!

  Richard Castle : Not boring.

  [gets up and leaves] 

  Kate Beckett : [quietly to herself]  No. No, not at all.