Nope, nope, no way, no how.

Can we just forget that happened?

The second part of the Castle season eight premiere brought its fair share of trials, tribulations, and shockers, and none more shocking than the last five minutes.

Let’s recap:

We meet up with Beckett, who is hiding out with Vikram, the Attorney General analyst, in a seized house that was taken in a drug bust while she is unwittingly being hunted down by the men in black. She thinks back on the phone call from a life that seemed like a forever go, and not 24 hours, where Vikram called her and gave a classified code for a life or death situation. She met him at the abandoned warehouse where five agents were killed and he was the last man standing. The black ops agents narrow in on the pair, who hide in the shadows trying to escape. Vikram knocked over a lamp, and a barrage of bullets assaults the pair and Beckett is grazed.

Beckett snaps back to reality with the breaking of glass outside their safe house and the pair make a run for it. They are nearly captured, when a stranger rescues them from certain death.

Hi, Castle’s step-mom.

Rita, who is married to Castle’s CIA ghost of a Dad, saves Beckett and Vikram and finds them a new safe house while we find out the ins and outs of what the pair went through.

Beckett and Vikram visit the New Amsterdam hotel, where the analyst hacks the CIA data base for a redacted memo that started all this. It turns out, when Beckett was in the AG’s office, she ran a search for Bracken’s criminal activity and it finally generated a result.

Lokset 2011BD.

The memo featured this phrase, and the man hunt commenced.

Beckett visits Bracken in prison and asks him about Lockset, the sociopathic senator is visibly scared and warns Beckett that her looking into this is a death wish.

Later on, when Castle visits Bracken in prison to ask about Lockset, they find him murdered in his cell.

So, for once, maybe he wasn’t lying.

The attorney general’s office turns up at the 12^th precinct looking to assist the gang, while Castle, Alexis and Hayley are running their own investigation.

This leads Castle and Beckett to realise that 2011BD is an airplane tail number.

Rita informs Kate that Bracken’s presidential campaign was funded by drug running that was accessed through CIA resources. That’s life time imprisonment, a political nuke and a death sentence.

Castle and Beckett arrive at the bunker, and have a long overdue reunion, after Castle saves Beckett’s life when it seems like Vikram is about to shoot. But the analyst is saving Beckett’s life, contrary to the info that the AG’s office supplied.

Keep that in mind.

They lure out the black ops guys by holding a reported exclusive on the local news about the allegations, advertising everywhere.

Castle is followed to the Castle P.I. offices, where Ryan and Esposito jump out from behind the secret door and tazer the assailants.

Hayley is dragged in by another secret operative with two guns.

That’s the definition of overkill, right?

And the flying gun desk finally comes in handy, as Castle shoots the shooter straight in the chest. The man happens to be wearing a Kevlar shirt, but it still looks like it hurts.

And Castle looks pretty badass.

Back at the 12^th precinct, Castle asks everyone to welcome Captain Beckett, and she starts her job as the precinct’s captain.

On the street, she runs into Rita, who says she will hunt down Lockset and Kate can stay with Castle.

But Kate has other ideas, as she has the animal drive inside her to get to the bottom of this mystery, as it’s connected to her and Bracken and she can’t let go.

Rita tells her that she can’t be with Rick if she wants to hunt this person down as family is a liability and you always have something to lose.

Kate returns to the apartment, smiling when she sees Rick but sadness in her eyes.

This is mirrored by Castle, once he notices her packed bag.

Kate tells Rick that she has to go, and she hopes that he will open his door to her again when this is all over. She tells him she love shim, and that’s why she needs to leave.

He tells her that she should stay because they can work through this together. Like always.

And Kate walks out the door, crying in the hallway, while Castle stays behind.

It’ll be interesting to see what happens next, but for the moment I’m numb.

It turns out “always” might not always be the case.

Castle fans, sound off below–how did you like the episode? And what will happen next?