Airdate: Monday, September 19, 2011 at 10/9c on ABC

Rating: ★★★★★

After a heart-stopping Season 3 finale, we were left wondering not only if Detective Kate Beckett (Stana Katic) would survive the gunshot wound (really, was there any doubt?) but if she’d heard Rick Castle’s (Nathan Fillion) confession of love. The tightly-wrought Season 4 opener, “Rise,” picks up right where we left off and sets a bit of a darker, more serious tone for the start of this season.

"Everything that happened...happened because of me." - Castle

The first several moments of “Rise” are fraught with the tension you expect to see when a cop—and loved one—is shot. Everyone is there—from Castle’s mother and daughter, to Beckett’s friend and partners, to even her rarely-seen father. And there’s nothing more dramatic than the sound of a flat line.

But, never fear. Beckett is one tough cop—and seriously, only on TV can one go through that kind of surgery and soon thereafter be sitting up in bed, hair slightly mussed, looking a tinge pale, yet altogether gorgeous. My only complaint about how they handle Kate’s shooting is that she heals too quickly; there should have at least been a scar peeking out through her low-cut blouse later in the episode. But…then again, a bit of reality must be suspended when we’re talking about a police precinct with a (ruggedly handsome) murder novelist as part of their investigative team.

Back in the ring to take another swing.

So how do they avoid the ‘Pit of Despair’ many shows fall into when the sexual tension is erased by confessions of love (Moonlighting anyone)? Simple! They play the ‘they don’t know we know they know we know’ game. While Kate tells Castle she doesn’t remember anything prior to the shooting, we see her later revisiting the police psychologist, confessing she remembers everything—which means she remembers Castle saying he loves her. A fiercely independent woman with a train wreck of a love life would definitely need to process something like that. And this pivotal reveal helps explain why she broke up with Josh (Victor Webster), her cardiac surgeon boyfriend, and makes the fact that she didn’t call Castle for three months after the shooting a bit more understandable.

While Kate was busy “getting space,” at her father’s cabin, Castle pitched his hat in the ring with Detectives Kevin Ryan (Seamus Dever) and Javier Esposito (Jon Huertas) to find out why someone tried to kill Kate after the late Captain Montgomery (Ruben Santiago-Hudson) had sacrificed himself to keep her safe. It’s all tangled up in the ongoing mystery of Kate’s mother’s murder and Castle spends his time apart from Kate trying to find a thread of a lead—while at the same time respecting her wishes not to call her. Now that is love, people.

Captain Victoria "Iron" Gates

When Kate returns to active duty (predictably one week earlier than she was supposed to), she finds Victoria “call me Captain or Sir” Gates (Penny Johnson Jerald) has replaced Montgomery as Captain. The jury’s still out for me if Gates’ ‘my way or the highway’ approach is going to cause an intriguing friction with the team or if she’s just going to be irritating. With Castle no longer there, and Ryan and Esposito jumping at the Captain’s every demand, Kate is already snarling at the new boss. But, Gates does have a job to do and she demands results—namely the murderer of a socialite, which Ryan and Esposito investigate while Kate decides to (finally) talk to Castle.

I couldn’t help but feel a bit perturbed at Kate when she goes to Castle’s book signing. She’d ignored him for three months and only after her partners tell her what Castle has been doing during that time (and that he had files pertaining to her mother’s case) does she seek him out. I was pleased when Castle  doesn’t melt at the sight of her; instead showing her just how angry he is  for how she’d treated him—all of her friends, really. Both he and I relent a bit when she explains no relationship is going to work until she removes the wall she’s put up due to her mother’s death. Besides, these two are the Mulder and Scully of cop shows. They need each other.

While the socialite murder may be secondary to Kate’s return and the team’s reunion, it’s a handy tool to showcase how well this team really does work together when they’re a unit—as well as giving Kate a vehicle for working through her post-shooting anxiety that she refuses to admit to anyone, even after Castle sees her shaking hands. Being honest with himself about his feelings for Kate has given Castle a sense of balance he hasn’t previously displayed. He’s able to get Kate to listen to him and take a breath, backing off her relentless search into her mother’s murder after he receives a call from a mysterious man (Geoff Pierson) who tells Castle that he has the files Montgomery collected on the case.

Can't keep a good cop down.

The man now in possession of those files can keep Kate safe—but only if she stops digging, a thread that will definitely be woven throughout the rest of this season. Castle knows Kate won’t give up her search, but he also knows she is “the one who honors the victims,” and in a very subtle way, he reminds her of that, centering her once more and bringing her back from a scary ledge where control ends and obsession takes over.

He doesn’t know Kate remembers what he said, but it doesn’t stop him from being willing to go the distance for her, time and again (including a secret ‘murder board’ for her mother’s murder in his office). And if that doesn’t start dismantling that wall inside of her, I don’t know what will.

Tune in to Castle, Mondays at 10/9c on ABC. For more information on the show, visit http://abc.go.com/shows/castle/.

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