Castle (TV Series)

Secret Santa (2012)

Seamus Dever: Kevin Ryan

Quotes 

• Kevin Ryan : We're putting up the tree the other day, Jenny says to me, "It just doesn't feel like Christmas without kids." She wants to try. But I come to work, I watch the news, every day... it seems like the world's falling apart. How am I supposed to bring a kid into that?

  Javier Esposito : The world's always falling apart, bro. Since the beginning of time. But having kids, making a family, that's what keeps it together.

• Captain Victoria Gates : There's a Manhattan flight corridor which doesn't require you to radio in if you stay under 1,300 feet. My mother-in-law is a licensed pilot, as she keeps reminding me. Part of a larger effort to make me feel inferior.

  [pause] 

  Captain Victoria Gates : I'm sorry.

  [chuckles] 

  Captain Victoria Gates : Did I just say that out loud?

  Kevin Ryan : Sounds like she's staying with you, Captain?

  Captain Victoria Gates : One day soon, your in-laws will visit, too. And when they do, think hotel. Oh, Lord, I hate the holidays.

  [walks away] 

  Richard Castle : [quietly]  Yet another quality she has in common with the Grinch.

• Captain Victoria Gates : Remember that class-action suit against SunCove Funding?

  Kate Beckett : Yeah.

  Captain Victoria Gates : My contact at the SEC dug these up. SunCove's original Articles of Incorporation, showing the name of the account signatory. Look familiar?

  Kate Beckett : [reading]  "James Edmund Smith." The victim.

  Richard Castle : *Santa* is the shark who bilked those people out of their homes?

  Captain Victoria Gates : He has more blood on his hands than that. Tim Cabot's father died in a car crash. Fell asleep at the wheel working *three* jobs to pay his inflated mortgage, courtesy of Edmund Smith. That was Christmas Eve five years ago.

  Kevin Ryan : The Christmas that Edmund walked out on his life.

  Richard Castle : So... it was a tale of redemption. Edmund moves next door to the family whose lives he destroyed, dedicating his life to repairing theirs. Never telling them who he really is.

  Javier Esposito : But what if Tim found out?

  Richard Castle : Then it's a very different tale.

• Kevin Ryan : [sighing]  Hey, so I just talked with the family. They didn't see or hear any planes overhead.

  Kate Beckett : That doesn't make any sense. He had to have fallen from somewhere.

  Richard Castle : I'm sorry.

  [chuckles] 

  Richard Castle : Are we overlooking the obvious here? He hit some turbulence, slipped out of his sleigh and fell to his doom.

  Kevin Ryan : Santa, lying there dead. You gotta ask yourself something. What kind of world do we live in?

  Kate Beckett : A world in which there is no Santa and people don't fall out of nowhere. Can you check with Air Traffic Control and find out what flights were in the area?

  Kevin Ryan : Sure. Bah, humbug.

  [turns and leaves] 

• Kevin Ryan : Hey, so I heard from Air Traffic Control, but you're not gonna like the news. They have no record of anyone flying over the park during the time our guy hit the ground.

  Kate Beckett : How is that even possible?

  Richard Castle : Santa had his sleigh in stealth mode.

• Kate Beckett : Did you find out what Santa job Edmund was doing?

  Kevin Ryan : His agency said he wasn't booked on any gigs last night.

  Kate Beckett : So why was he wearing a Santa suit? And how'd he end up dead?

  Richard Castle : Well, if this was a *story*, it would all come back to Edmund's character. Why he became a Santa in the first place.

  Javier Esposito : [approaching]  Turns out, it's a mystery all by itself. I've been looking into this guy and check it.

  [adds picture to murder board] 

  Javier Esposito : *That* is Santa five years ago. Meet James Edmund Smith. He was a private equity manager at some big firm.

  Kate Beckett : That's the same guy?

  Javier Esposito : Yeah.

  Kate Beckett : What happened?

  Richard Castle : Dedication to his craft

  Javier Esposito : Like De Niro in "Raging Bull".

• [discussing the victim's dramatic transformation from private equity manager to professional Santa] 

  Javier Esposito : It's pretty extreme, I know. And I'll tell you this much, he didn't go all Santa for the money. Back in the day, he used to pull down a half a mil a year. As Santa, he made a tenth of that...

  Kevin Ryan : You can make that much as a Santa? Maybe I should switch jobs, huh?

  Javier Esposito : What? Gain two hundred pounds and have a bunch of rugrats sitting on your lap with dirty diapers?

  Kevin Ryan : [in disgust]  Yeah, thanks for that visual.

  Javier Esposito : Oh, here's another thing. I pulled Edmund's financials. On the night he was killed, he withdrew two grand from his ATM.

  Richard Castle : He didn't have that money on him when we found him. His wallet was empty.

  Kate Beckett : All right, take a look at the ATM footage and see if anyone was with him. He might have been robbed.

  Richard Castle : Uh, robbed and then launched into space?

  Kate Beckett : And how is that less plausible than your sleigh?

  Richard Castle : I think you mean less "clausible."