Castle and Beckett wake up in bed together—handcuffed! Okay, they’re not exactly in bed. They’re on a mattress in the middle of a dark cellar. All of their personal items are missing. A needle mark on Beckett’s back suggests they were drugged. The last thing they remember is meeting up at a seedy motel for obvious reasons. You guessed it. They were there to see a dead guy.

We jump back in time to see that a murder victim’s fingerprints were burned away to conceal his identity. Lanie finds a piece of paper with a café address in John Doe’s pocket. The scrap paper has a postal bar code on it. This leads Castle and Beckett to an abandoned house where they make the disturbing discovery of an elderly woman in a cage. That’s the last thing Castle and Beckett remember before everything went black.

We should note the interesting conversation Castle and Beckett have before entering the house. It’s about all the tension between Lanie and Esposito lately. It’s an amusing, ironic back-and-forth exchange that should bring a smile to anyone desperate to see Castle and Beckett get together. Here’s their dialogue, word for word:

Beckett: They both want to be together but neither of them wants to admit to it.
Castle: Why do people do that to themselves?
Beckett: Maybe they just don’t see it.
Castle: How could they not? It’s so obvious.