Weve spent eight years with these characters.
Beckett reasons that the shooters caution means that the gun must already be in the ballistics database.
(Esposito wouldnt know; he lived off-site to better facilitate menages with cop groupies.
Credit: ABC/Richard Cartwright
To no ones surprise, Beckett was the star of the place.
Deputy Commissioner Malone calls her a legend and reintroduces her to her investigation liaison and former mentor, Sgt.
Beckett likes people who challenge her.
Apparently she always has.
Ortiz tells his former pupil that Bardot had been faltering during exercises lately and blamed a personal issue.
He was aware that Bardot had overcome some circumstances to get where he had been.
The pool of suspects is narrowed significantly when Lanie discovers the fragment of a bullet still in the deceased.
The gun was academy-issued and part of Bardots companys assigned artillery.
Special Guest Instructor Beckett strikes a combination of fear and starry-eyed respect into Company 38.
She basically infiltrates their training, using standard exercises and demos to spot inconsistencies.
Whos slower on the trigger than usual?
Whos too stoic when she prods the recruits about their classmates death?
(I have been at the edge of that map, and monsters lie there.)
These students have advantages that no civilian killer does: intimate knowledge of how these cases are worked.
Fortunately, Beckett is nothing if not an adaptable investigator.
The captains classroom sting shakes a few relevant pieces of information loose.
Rysposito do some legwork on the 38s whereabouts and pin one alibi as the exact opposite.
In the guise of an interrogation methods demo, Beckett straight-up interrogates the recruits who were at the fight.
A guy named Chambers freaks when the drugs come up and makes a run for it.
He was selling, yes, and the threatening note in Bardots locker was from him.
But they settled the matter with a bribe: $5,000 that Bardot desperately needed.
Chambers figures that Bardots secret academy girlfriend might know what that payoff was for.
Thats Rachel Decker, an overly competitive, highly ambitious, little-liked superstar who reminds the captain of herself.
He wasnt out for a midnight jog, as he told Decker.
Flanagan taunts her with his years of freedom and an offer of a great deal on crotchless panties.
Beckett barely blinks, leaning in to say, Its the cocky ones who are the easiest.
Flanagans stink is on another recruit in the company, complicating matters further.
Its recruit Decker who went to college on Flanagans dime.
To save her reputation from exposure of her parentage, Bardot took her place in Flanagans operation.
Beckett supposes that Flanagan must have put Bardot down as soon as he got what he needed from him.
Becketts projecting herself onto Decker.
She sees their similarities so clearly that she forgets that Decker is nowhere near as experienced.
She also glosses over the fact that Decker is mourning someone close to her.
Not everyone is as strong as you, Esposito cautions.
Beckett doubles down: She can handle it.
She cant, though.
Decker pulls a gun on Flanagan and tearfully demands a confession.
Beckett and Rysposito defuse the situation, but Lucky Jack isnt budging.
He took the files and considered the transaction over.
Bardot walked out of that office alive; Flanagan remembers a car following him down the street.
Decker looks to Beckett for approval; she believes Flanagan is, in this case, being truthful.
The car Flanagan heard that night was as police-issued as the weapon that killed Bardot.
Decker is broken by her failure to keep her cool.
Its proof of Deckers idealization of the job that she assumes one mistake spoils her for it.
Beckett convinces her to keep on doing what shes doing, with one important change.
You cant do this if you go it alone, she says, and Decker understands.
(This is our fight now.)
Lets put the Caskett back inCastle.
