“The trick is not to find struggle, it’s to find balance. Once you find struggle, you start to fall.”

It seems Detective Kate Beckett has finally met her match on this week’s Castle, as she meets hot-shot Inspector Zhang from the Hong Kong Police Department.

We’ll have more on that, but firstly, let’s recap:

So the episode begins with a jogger stumbling across a crime scene in the dead of night in Central Park—Note to self: never take a jog in Central Park in the dead of park. It just seems like a good rule of thumb—and sees a silent assailant with a gun rooting through the pockets of the dead man’s coat.

Beckett gets the call to arrive at the crime scene while lamenting the fact that she has yet to move up in the NYPD, while her class mates are being made Captains of precincts around the state. While Castle does point out that his wife is the best homicide detective in the city, Kate still seems uneasy over the whole matter. Bring on the murder.

Murder Victim Henry Graham was shot dead in central park. The jogger who found him informed the police that the person rooting through his pockets was an Asian woman, whom he had never seen before. Castle and Beckett go on the hunt for the murderer, which takes them to a restaurant in Chinatown, The meet the proprietor and the staff, who say they knew Henry well as he frequented the place on a daily basis. One of the staff, Su Jin, tells them about Henry which leads Ryan and Esposito to cornering Inspector Zhang. Or should we say she corners them, as in one fell swoop, she has grabbed both their guns. After Captain Gates tells Beckett, while interrogating her, the Zhang was not the murderer as she had an alibi, she is released. She was a friend of Henry’s and is investigating his death, and working with both the Hong Kong PD and the police in San Francisco over numerous drug cases.

In other words, she’s the one person in the world who could make Kate Beckett feel inadequate at her job. The two head to the shooting range to subtly measure each other up, talking about work and balancing personal life with career aspirations.

However, when Zhang sees a video of her friend being abducted, she sees red and heads to the gym of the head honcho. The scene is pretty spectacular, as twenty muscular men are taken down by one tiny, kick ass woman. Beckett arrives just in time, before Zhang loses her cool. It turns out she’s not as collected as she would have everyone think, and she struggles just like Beckett.

They find out the Henry had ordered half a pound of cocaine, and wanted it split to be sold. Zhang is adamant Henry would have nothing to do with drugs, but the facts are the facts.

Back at the precinct, Ryan and Espo tell the gang that a local real estate tycoon had been arrested for possession of half a pound of cocaine days before. It turns out Henry had framed him. If he was arrested, his bids would fall through and the next highest bidder, the proprietor of his oft frequented restaurant, would seal the deal.

It turns out she is involved in human trafficking and her staff are all in debt that needs to be worked off to secure their freedom. Henry had garnered a deal, as he was in love with Su Jin, to frame the tycoon in exchange for the girl’s freedom. It ultimately cost him his life. In a twist, it is revealed that Su Jin’s friend and work mate killed Henry because he was getting Su Jin freedom and she didn’t want her best friend to leave her.

Pretty compeling stuff, am I right?

So Castle fans, thoughts on the episode? Let us know.

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