Castle Detailed Live Premiere Recap: Season 7 Driven

Tonight on ABC CASTLE starring Nathan Fillion returns with an all new Monday September 29, season 7 premiere episode called “Driven”. In tonight’s episode, in the seventh-season opener, Beckett embarks on her hardest case as she waits at the scene of Castle’s accident and learns details about the car crash.

On the last episode, in the season 6 finale, Castle and Beckett’s long-awaited wedding was almost here, but when a shocking surprise threatened to ruin the big day, they were sent on a wild mission filled with masked men, angry bikers and a charming ne’er-do-well from Beckett’s past. Did you watch last season’s finale episode? If you missed it we have a full and detailed recap, right here for you.

On tonight’s episode, season 7 begins where the last episode left off when Richard Castle drove to his much-anticipated nuptials and an ominous black SUV bore down on him. Meanwhile, after waiting in vain for Castle to arrive at the wedding, Beckett was called to an accident scene to find Castle’s car in a ravine, engulfed in flames. Who or what caused the car crash? Is there any way Castle could have survived? Tonight’s episode will pick-up at the scene of that accident, right where the finale left off, in a premiere that promises to put Beckett through the toughest case of her career.

Tonight’s episode is going to be great so be sure to tune in for CASTLE on ABC at 10PM EST. We’ll be blogging all the action, be sure to hit up the comments and tell us what you think of this new season.

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Kate runs to the flaming remains of Castle’s car. They tell her to stay back but she won’t. She tries to reach into the driver’s window. Alexis and Amrtha are stunned. Water gushes down on Kate as she sits in her wedding gown. The firemen are their extinguishing the blaze. She rises and goes to look at the car. She looks inside and sees that there’s nothing there. She tells the others it’s empty and that he’s not in the car. She says he must be nearby. She says they have to start a search. Kate calls over a sergeant and asks him to start a search and Kevin asks him to call in search and rescue dogs.

Martha takes Kate to go get changed so she can help too and Espo says he’ll start with the car. The beat cop tells him Castle was in the car when it crashed or the airbag wouldn’t have gone off. Kevin tells him to go look at the back of the car and they notice that he got hit and run off the road. The cop tells Espo that he sees tracks going up to the road and it looks like three people. Two were dragging one of them.

Kate gets back and they tell her he’s been taken and they’ve ID’d a likely car. Castle’s phone has been shut off and they’ve set up road blocks. She tells them he was completely normal when they talked. They go talk to a guy working a roadside fruit stand. He ID’s a few cars including an SUV. He says it was a black Escalade and he saw it coming and going. Kevin says they remotely accessed Castle’s phone and he’s still on the island.

They have him somewhere in Medford in a junk yard. The state police want them to wait but they refuse. They head in and close in on where the signal was. They find the black Escalade and show up just in time to see it crushed. They pull a gun on the guy operating the crusher. He lets go the controller and runs off. Kate gives chase and the guys do too. Kate tackles him to the ground and starts to beat the guy. They have to pull her off him.

Gary Duffin is the junkyard guy and they have him in custody. Kate demands answers. He says he wants a lawyer. She slams him on the table and tells him to start talking. She shows him Castle’s photo and puts pressure on his hand. He says he has nothing to say. There’s a knock on the glass and she lets up. Espo calls her out. He tells her there is no blood or tissue on the SUV. He says that means Castle wasn’t inside. She says they crushed the car to cover their tracks. She tells him to have CSU work the car and she wants Duffin in a holding cell. He tells her the guy is more scared of the bad guys than her.

Kevin tells her the SUV is stolen and Kate says to dig into Duffin deeper. Graves asks her how she’s holding up and she says she’s fine. Kate begs her not to take her off the case and Graves says she won’t as long as she doesn’t make her. She says she called the FBI in and there’s a special agent Connors there. She says she doesn’t have time to bring them up to speed but the guy is there and says he’s already up to speed.

He says he just needs to talk to her about Castle. She says he has no problems like money, gamlbing or affairs. She says he was on the way to their wedding. Lots of people knew he was on the way there and she says she has a list of people he knows. She asks if it’s a ransom based kidnapping and he says it could be and they’re setting up for it. She says he doesn’t think it sounds likely and asks if he knows something. He says it would have been easier to take him in the city but they waited until he was almost there to marry her. He thinks it might have been revenge directed at her.

He tells her to work up a list of possible suspects and he says he’s going to take a run at Duffin. Alexis is scared and Martha encourages her as the FBI sets up in their apartment. Espo brings Kate coffee and she has a moment of sadness since Castle always brought it to her. He tells her Connors got nothing out of Duffin. She has Senator Bracken at the top of the list along with 3XK. She says it could be any of them or none of them. Espo tells her not to think worst case scenario. Kevin says he thinks this is more mob related. He says Duffin got a call from Vinnie Cardano before he crushed the car.

Kate says he and Castle had a problem. They bring Vinnie in and he says things are good between he and Castle. She asks why he called Duffin and asks if it was about the SUV that was involved in Castle’s abduction. He says he didn’t know it was involved. He finally admits that he sometimes makes vehicles disappear for clients. He says he has no names but it was an anonymous call and there was a blind drop at a dumpster.

They ask where the drop is and find it and look at security cam footage from a nearby building. They watch the footage and see a guy come up. They set uyp a canvas and Kate asks to freeze it and zoom in – it’s Castle that dropped off the cash! Kate is shocked and says she needs some air. The guys ask her the tech to rerun the footage but Espo is angry and says Castle is in on it and says he planned the whole thing.

Kevin tells Kate it may not be him. She says it was him – it was his clothes, his body, his walk. She is crying and Kevin says Castle wouldn’t do this. She tells Kevin to find out who Castle talked to before he went missing and to fill in Connors. She says she’s going to talk to his family. Alexis is shocked that he would pay to have the SUV crushed. Kate asks them if he was going through something she didn’t know about. She asks if he was having cold feet about the wedding and Martha tells her he couldn’t wait to be married to her. They are shocked that she would think that. They ask her what’s going on.

Kate says there must be another explanation. Connors says they see no signs of duress. Kate says it’s still a kidnapping and the footage could have been shot a month ago. Connors tells her that Castle withdrew a lot of cash and it’s the same money he gave Vinnie. She says the money he took out was for the honeymoon but Connors says the serial numbers match. Kate says there is something else going on but Connors says it all lines up.

Kate asks why Castle would do this and Connors says people are complex and maybe he had a secret side that no one knows or he had a breakdown or a crisis. Kate tells him that he can’t stop looking for him despite the questions that have cropped up. He says they’ll follow up the leads they have but once those are gone, the investigation is done. She says she’ll find him and Connors says that assumes he wants to have found.

Kate is working the phones calling hotels, checking airlines and all modes of transportation. She starts a board and collects clipping. She calls foreign consulates and runs down every avenue she can think of. We see a rowboat caight in the lights of a Coast Guard cutter. The ship make an announcement asking if they need assistance. We see Castle is lying in the bed of the little rowboat. He’s unconscious or sleeping and alone, covered in a tarp.

They tell Kate that Castle was found in a dinghy with three bullet holes but they have no update on his condition other than he was air lifted there. Espo walks Kate to the hospital room where Castle lies sleeping and she’s relieved. She tells the guys she never thought she’d see him again and she heads inside and takes his hand. She speaks his name to wake him. Alexis and Martha rush in and Alexis asks what’s wrong with him. The doctor says he’s recovering from exposure and dehydration and they don’t know why he’s not conscious.

Lanie shows up and Kate asks her to take a look at him. She says to look at him not like a patient but like a case and see if there’s any evidence of where he’s been and what he’s been through. The guys wonder where he’s been. Espo says he faked his own kidnapping and Kevin says Castle deserves the benefit of the doubt. Kate overhears and tells them they don’t know what happened and they need to start by figuring out who owned the dinghy. It was a guy from Savannah who says he sold it.

The Coast Guard guy tells her they think he was in the dinghy for four or five days. They tell her it was likely it came from a dock. He says he can make a guess of where it came from. He says between Rhode Island and Southern Maine. They tell her they put a bolo out since it had a unique paint job and was all pimped out. A ranger in Gloucester spotted it at a private marina. There’s a mobile home and the dock and trailer are owned by Henry Jenkins. They tell her that guy has to be involved.

Kate and the guys head to Jenkins’ property and the local uni says Jenkins isn’t home. They watch as Kevin says the guy scrubbed himself off the internet. Kate talks to Lanie. She says she found some strange things including a key sewn into the lining of his pants with the number 38 stamped on it. She says she found antibodies to dengue fever – mostly found in Latin American and Asia. She also found a bullet wound graze that was healed – she says he was shot a few weeks ago, maybe even longer.

They see movement at the trailer and Kate says she has to go. They rush the trailer. Jenkins comes out with his trash and he freaks and falls to the ground when he sees them. He says he doesn’t know Castle and he did notice that his dinghy was missing. They ask why he didn’t report it missing and he says he never uses it. He says there was a guy hanging down by the beach and he says late 30s and describes Castle. She shows a photo and he says the guy was camping on the beach in a tent. He says he was on state land so he left him alone.

Kate and Espo go find a tent near the dock where the dinghy was tied up. They look inside and see his wedding shoes and then notice a watchi handing on a hook – it’s his. There are also newspapers showing the search for him. There are food and clothes. He knew he was being looked for. Kate pulls his wedding tux out of a duffel bag and looks pained. She gets a text that Castle is awake. Martha tells Kate that her son will make a full recovery. She says he woke up and asked for her first thing.

She asks if he said where he’s been and Martha says that question may need to wait. Kate goes in to talk to him. He tells her that kissing will speed his recovery but she says that can wait. She asks if he’s joking and asks what happened. He describes the accident and she says after that. He says he woke up there and nothing happened in between. She asks if that’s all he remembers. She tells him he’s been missing for two months. He looks stunned.

Kate asks a shrink what’s going on and she says there are no medical signs to explain the memory lapse. Alexis asks if his memory may come back. Martha asks if they can just take him home. The shrink says some drugs can trigger memory loss but she can’t exclude the possibility that he is pretending not to remember. Kate marches back in to talk to Castle. She looks angry. He says it’s an understatement that he owes her an apology. He says he wouldn’t just leave. She says there’s evidence that he did and he tells her to take her there so it may trigger his memory.

Kevin tells Espo that Castle’s fingerprints and DNA are all over the tent and the stuff in it and that can’t be explained away. Kate walks Castle to the beach where the tent is and he says none of it seems familiar. She tells him to just tell her the truth and he says he was never there. She lists off all the things of his that were there. He says it must have been planted. She says that’s not true. She says she was searching for him and he was right there where he wanted to be.

Castle says he would never camp in that spot. He says he did research for Tropical Storm. She says he never wrote a book called that. He says he threw it out because it was terrible but the research stuck with him. He says he would never camp there and would go for higher ground. She tells him there was a witness. They go knock on the trailer door and a different guy answers who says he’s Henry Jenkins. The first guy was a fake Jenkins.

The guy hacked the DMV to replace the photo when the news broke that Castle was found. Castle says that all this was staged. He says these people have unlimited resources. They tell Castle about the video of him dropping the money and he says he can’t explain it and he says fake Jenkins is somehow in the middle of this. Martha pours her son some champagne and he says there’s no place like home. Alexis asks where he could have been and he says he intends to unravel that web.

He toasts the three women in his life and they all drink. Later he looks at his watch as he and Kate get ready for bed. He says he feels like he just wore this yesterday and they just slept in this bed last night. He asks how she didn’t lose hope and she says she did but then found it again. She says she had stupid rituals like staring at his photo on the murder board thinking it would keep him alive. She says she wouldn’t let anyone touch his chair or sit in it. She sits down beside him and hugs him.

Castle tells her he’s so sorry for everything he put her through. She says it’s not his fault and says he was put through things too and he says it’s not the same since he can’t rememer. He says he knows he missed her because there’s no way he wouldn’t. He says he guesses they can’t just pick up where they left off. She says no and he says they’ll get there and find their way home.

THE END!

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