‘Castle’ Season 7 Premiere: There’s
No Place Like Home
By Lisa Caputo
2014-09-30
The seventh season of ‘Castle’ kicks off with a
stunning and shocking premiere, opening the door to what promises to be one of
the most intriguing seasons yet.
Last spring’s season finale of Castle
left fans of the long-running series split on the cliffhanger ending. Some felt
scorned by the wedding that never was, while others, this reviewer included,
were intrigued by this new mystery and how it would shape the coming season.
After all, it has always been the tragedies and heartbreaking moments
throughout this series that have paved the way for these beloved characters to
grow closer and stronger together, particularly Castle and Beckett. It has
always been their struggles and their challenges that have given way to the
most uplifting and joyful moments on the series, moments that are heightened
even more because of what they have had to overcome to get there. As Beckett
herself once said; “that’s what the great love stories are about, right?
Beating the odds.”
With that in mind, the shocking cliffhanger ending this past May,
while gut-wrenching and highly emotional, brought with it the promise of more
dramatic and compelling storytelling to come in season seven, along with the
beginnings of a stunning new mystery to take the place of the now-resolved
mystery surrounding Johanna Beckett’s murder. While it was abundantly clear
that the seemingly fatal car crash would not have claimed Castle’s life, being
that he is the title character of the show, the vast array of possibilities
regarding who was targeting him, why they were targeting, and what may have
been relevant in the timing of when he was targeted certainly added a great
deal of anticipation for the season seven premiere.
Penned by the show’s newly-appointed showrunner, David Amann, and
directed by the masterful Rob Bowman, Monday’s aptly-titled “Driven” began
immediately after last season’s finale ended, with Beckett discovering the
horrific sight of Castle’s car in flames in a ditch, having never made it to
their wedding. The opening scene set the stage perfectly for the episode, a
powerful and visually stunning depiction of Beckett’s struggle to find the
truth while facing her greatest fears head-on. It was both agonizing at times
and yet hopeful at times as well, truly painting an ominous picture as to how
the rest of the hour would play out.
The investigation itself followed much the same pattern as a typical
Castle case, though with the stakes
higher and the emotions deeper, everything operated at a much more intense and
dramatic level. Interestingly enough, some of the clues that were mentioned
throughout the episode were not directly investigated, leading this reviewer to
believe that these unresolved clues will begin to make more sense once the
mystery resurfaces throughout the season. Both the evidence that pointed
towards Castle being involved and the evidence that was seemingly overlooked
throughout the hour all added to the mind-blowing nature of the episode. With
so many thought-provoking questions and confusing pieces of evidence, as well
as the plethora of seemingly unexplainable pieces of the puzzle, the Castle team has truly constructed a
mystery that seems impossible to solve just yet. And while there are
similarities to the nature of this mystery and the nature of the Johanna
Beckett mystery, the difference this time feels as though we may have already
been given all of the clues we need in this episode, yet we still have no idea
how to piece it all together.
Of course, many of these likely vital clues were never focused on as
much as they normally would have been during the episode because Monday’s
premiere delivered one sharp punch after another in terms of much more massive
and twisted pieces of evidence that would quickly have us, as well as Beckett
and her team, wondering what the truth really was and whether or not Castle was
actually involved in his own abduction. This was, in fact, one of the most
interesting elements of the episode in terms of what it forced the characters
and the viewers to ask themselves. When the evidence continued to point towards
Castle having staged his own disappearance, evidence that became more and more
convincing as the episode progressed, it was difficult not to let those doubts
creep in, something that put the viewers squarely in the same state of mind as
the characters themselves, not only helping us to understand their conflicting
thoughts but even perhaps agreeing with them at times, even when we did not
want to believe what we were seeing.
It was interesting to see Esposito and Ryan fall into their typical
roles in the episode, with Esposito immediately relying on his head and
believing the evidence as the hard facts, quickly wanting to protect Beckett
after having already witnessed the depths of what Castle’s disappearance was
doing to her. Meanwhile, Ryan refused to believe what he was seeing, instead
relying on his heart and finding anything he possibly could to discredit the
evidence. And when a devastated Beckett overheard the two partners arguing over
whether or not Castle could have and would have staged his own abduction, we
saw the pain and conflict within her yet we also saw her resolve not to let
herself believe the evidence in and of itself, reminding Esposito that none of
them knew the truth and if his accusations proved to be wrong, then Castle was
the real victim in all of this.
The only reaction that struck me as suspect was that of Martha
herself. There were a number of key moments throughout the episode that had me
wondering why she was not set on finding out the truth and even very strongly
prompted others not to, including Beckett. Her consoling Alexis at the loft
felt like it may have been more than just hopeful optimism, rather a sense of
knowing confidence that he would return home safely. And her urging Beckett not
to question Castle about what happened to him at the hospital seemed oddly
forceful and almost foreboding in tone. Was it simply her “live and let live”
mentality, only caring that Castle was alive and well and not wanting to dwell
on what possible horrors he could recall if pushed to do so, or could it be
possible that the Castle matriarch knew the truth already?
At its core, as always, the episode was centered heavily on Castle
and Beckett’s relationship and what this ordeal meant for them. Both Stana
Katic and Nathan Fillion delivered remarkable performances throughout the hour,
with Fillion carefully and skillfully causing us to question whether Castle was
being completely honest at first before revealing how truly difficult it was
for him to deal with the fact that he could not give Beckett the answers she so
desperately needed. Meanwhile, Katic’s masterful control over each emotion
Beckett was feeling allowed the audience to go through those same emotions with
her in each and every moment. At times, it took only a subtle look on her face
to reveal the conflict within her character, those detailed nuances delivering
a powerful punch without ever taking it too far or making it feel forced. From
the heartbreaking moment where Esposito handed her a coffee and she believed,
if only for a second, that Castle had come home to her, to the moment she
stopped dead in her tracks at the hospital when she first saw the love of her
life was still very much alive. Or the moment at the hospital where she had to
eavesdrop on the doctors explaining Castle’s condition to Martha and Alexis
because she, not actually being his wife yet, was not privy to being a part of
that herself, to the conflict she felt as she challenged Castle for the truth
and fought between her heart and her mind to believe him despite the evidence
to the contrary, Katic brought us along on Beckett’s journey through the most
difficult two months of her entire life.
Despite the heartbreak and the emotional turmoil of the episode,
there were also some truly heartwarming and hopeful moments as well, giving us
the remarkable balance that the Castle
team has always delivered in spades. One such moment was when Beckett first saw
Castle at the hospital, occurring at that very special midway point in the hour
that is typically reserved for a memorable moment between the two. Overwhelmed
by seeing him for the first time in months, Beckett sweetly held his hand and
tried her best to coax him to wake up. In that moment, none of the evidence
mattered to her as all that mattered was that Castle was alive and she was by
his side, exactly as she should be. Of course, in true Castle fashion, their timing was most certainly off, with Castle
failing to wake up until after Beckett had been faced with another round of
incredibly incriminating evidence, thus preventing the two from having the
loving reunion they could have had if he had been able to wake up when she
first visited him in the hospital.
But the pair would soon find themselves back together and standing
by each other as strongly and confidently as ever before. The episode wound
down with a couple of beautiful scenes back at the loft, where Castle, Beckett,
Martha, and Alexis gathered to share a champagne toast to celebrate Castle’s
return. Toasting his family as well as the love of his life, it certainly
seemed as though he was ready to move forward despite still very much needing
to figure out what happened to him and why. For now, though, he was just glad
to be home.
The episode concluded with Castle and Beckett getting ready to spend
their first night back together after months of being apart. While Castle’s
memory loss gave him the benefit of feeling as if no time had passed at all, he
lamented over how much it pained him to know that Beckett had spent the past
two months in agony over his disappearance. The two shared a heartfelt moment
when Beckett explained that she had kept her hope alive by constantly looking
at Castle’s picture, as if that would will him to stay safe and come back to
her, as well as a much-needed laugh over how Beckett nearly shot the night
janitor when he tried to move Castle’s chair at the precinct. Finally letting
out her fears and letting go of her pain, though still overwhelmed by what she
had gone through, Beckett fell into Castle’s arms and buried her head in his
chest. Knowing that she would be the one to carry the scars of this mystery with
her forever, he sweetly apologized to her for putting her through that. In
return, a tearful Beckett reminded Castle that none of this was his fault and
that he had suffered too, even if he could not remember it. Castle promised her
that even though he could not recall his time away, he knew he had missed her
dearly because there was no way he would not have felt that way without her by
his side. As the hour came to an end, the two shared a tearful moment as they
realized there was no way for them to pick up where they left off as if nothing
had happened. Yet despite that heartbreaking realization, Castle’s final words
instilled in them, and in us, a sense of hope and promise for their future, one
that would shine ever brighter because of the darkness they had survived;
“We’ll get there. We’ll find our way home.”
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