Season 8, Episode 14 - "The G.D.S." Review

‘Castle’ : The Crossroads

By Lisa Caputo

2016-03-09

Castle heads to LA with Hayley and Alexis to find answers to his mysterious missing time but when the truth is revealed, he is left an at impossible impasse

Storytelling is an art, a craft honed by a creative team who are dedicated to developing their characters, exploring compelling stories, and finding a way to reach an audience emotionally through their chosen medium. But the television industry is also a business and while it would be ideal for these two conflicting areas of the behind-the-scenes world of our shows to never intersect, the reality is that the ideal is simply impossible. The result of the very real and unavoidable intersection of these two realms of creating a television series is that there are times where creative compromises must be met and both the cast and crew must roll with the punches and attempt to tell the best story they can even with the challenges they may face along the way. Monday’s episode of Castle, one that saw lead Stana Katic absent for the duration of the hour due to scheduled time away from the set while the episode was shot, was a prime example of how a creative team can still tell a stellar story even under challenging circumstances. While it will always be apparent that this series lives and dies by the exploration of the love story at its core and any episode that veers too far away from that story will be at risk of not being approved by the masses, Monday’s episode truly showed the talents of the creative team for their ability to overcome the challenge and exceed expectations.

Penned by co-showrunner Alexi Hawley and directed by the legendary John Terlesky, Monday’s “The G.D.S” found Castle, Alexis, and Hayley in Los Angeles, the trio on a mission to find answers to the mystery of Castle’s missing time. After recovering some scrambled memories in the previous episode, Castle was intent on travelling to Hollywood to track down whatever leads he could and, perhaps, provoke some more memories that would help him get the answers he now needed desperately. As much as he has tried to put that mystery to rest and not pursue the truth, knowing he may regret it in the end, there has always been a sense that he would never be able to walk away, just as Beckett has never been able to walk away from finding out the truth, the whole truth, about her mother’s murder and the people behind it. Thus, it seemed perfectly fitting that this episode would unravel just enough of the mystery of Castle’s disappearance to tie it all back to Beckett’s mission to take down Loksat. But the episode did well to not delve too far into the heaviness of it all at one time, instead providing a wonderfully entertaining hour along the way. It was infused with witty comedy, playful cat-and-mouse plots, clever throwbacks to past seasons, and an impressive dose of the chemistry between other various characters, all of which did well to distract from the lack of on-screen chemistry in the episode between Castle and Beckett with one half of the pair missing in action.

Speaking of which, this reviewer felt the story itself was actually the perfect way to explain the absence of Captain Beckett. After all, she and Castle are in the midst of their public separation to keep Loksat off of their scent so she certainly would not have been able to accompany him to LA, nor should she have. Had she been there, the revelation of what his time spent there during his disappearance would have had a completely different impact on the storyline going forward and would have limited the possibilities now open to the creative team. Castle knows the truth now but it is a truth he forced himself to forget in the first place to keep Beckett safe and now he no longer has the option of erasing his memory again, leaving him at a difficult and somewhat impossible impasse. This twist would not have presented the same opportunities for some truly deep and dramatic storytelling down the line had Beckett been there to learn the truth along with Castle and, instead, it would have likely resulted in her being more reckless in her mission to take Loksat down, knowing they went after Castle while he was in LA. It will certainly make for an interesting path to head down as the second half of the season continues, a path that would not have been open had Beckett been able to accompany Castle to LA in the first place, giving the story of this episode a great deal of merit despite the absence of one of the leads.

The episode also allowed for more time to be spent with the ensemble cast, something that is always a treat, especially when the storylines revolve around some playful fun and games amongst the characters. While the show’s bread and butter will always be the relationship between Castle and Beckett, there is also a steady need for those other dishes, the relationships between the many other vital characters. And perhaps the best way to distract from the absence of the show’s butter (or bread) was to do exactly what the Castle team did; showcase the other beloved relationships instead. Watching Tamala Jones, Jon Huertas, and Seamus Dever provide their classic brand of hilarious comedy, the two guys attempting to mess with Lanie after she asks Ryan to run a background check on a potential new beau, was so incredibly entertaining as always. There is a playfulness to these three, a sort of sibling rivalry amongst them, and the trio of actors portraying these characters bring so much fun and joy to these storylines that they are so often the highlights of an episode. This one was certainly no exception, especially with the much-needed payoff at the end when Lanie turned the tables on Ryan and Esposito and got them back for what they had done, even though they ultimately did her a favour by helping her discover the truth about her new beau before she got too invested.

Likewise, there were wonderful aspects brought out in this episode that revolved around the various pairings between Castle, Alexis, and Hayley, relationships that were certainly challenged throughout the hour but eventually found their way to be strengthened by it all. There has always been something seemingly suspicious about the character of Hayley, swooping in as she did at the same time that Beckett first discovered the Loksat connection to Bracken and staying in town indefinitely, despite supposedly being a worldwide private investigator with a very busy business to attend to. Toks Olagundoye has always done well to portray Hayley with such great likeability while also maintaining that slight edge of mystery, even after she had found a way to fit in quickly with the rest of the characters. Her friendship with Alexis has been one of the more moving elements of the season as well, something that was tested greatly in Monday’s episode when Alexis stumbled on the fact that Hayley had been involved in some way in her father’s disappearance. It was somewhat ironic that the one time Alexis opted to go on her own rogue mission, she ended up seemingly in danger, perhaps finally learning how easily her father finds himself in trouble so constantly. And after watching the absolutely heartwarming friendship that had been forming between Alexis and Hayley all season, it was truly a profound punch to the gut when we discovered, at the same time Alexis did, that Hayley had been deceiving her the whole time. Molly Quinn and Toks Olagundoye played these captivating and shocking moments so perfectly, with Alexis faced with crippling fear as she looked into the eyes of someone she once believed could never hurt her, leading to Hayley being taken aback and hurt by the idea that Alexis felt that way. After all, as we soon learned, it was true that she had deceived everyone for months but she had the best of intentions and she had actually been protecting Alexis and Castle all this time.

Of course, this led to Hayley being prompted to reveal the truth to an equally stunned Castle, outlining how she had met Jackson Hunt and was recruited to protect Castle while he was in LA during his missing time, ultimately losing him and eventually tracking him back down in New York. And then she opted to stick around despite her job seemingly being done because she had become fond of both he and his daughter, wanting to stay to help protect them in case they got themselves into trouble and because she had come to enjoy being around them. These revelations once again pulled at the heartstrings, showing a side to Hayley that she has hidden well all season, a certain sense of vulnerability and a longing to be part of a team, a family, just as Castle once did before he met Beckett and became a part of her team. For someone who spent much of her career going it alone, it must be a nice change to be part of something more. Despite the unavoidable and inappropriate sexual innuendoes that Castle could not help but blurt out to Hayley in certain points along the way, there is truly a brother/sister type of vibe between these two and knowing that Castle seems to get along better most of the time with women than men, it seems fitting for him to have a friendship like this in his life. But for those questioning whether the creative team is testing the waters for possible romance between these two, let us remember that Castle only cared to go home to one detective, the one on his mind and in his heart the entire time he was in LA… even though she’s technically not a detective anymore. Bygones.

In the end, despite Hayley’s sound advice to walk away from his quest for the truth, knowing that he had gone to such great lengths to erase his own memory and forget all he had been involved with during his missing time, Castle was just not able to let it go. After all, he has spent his entire life chasing the story, finding the truth and meaning behind every action, no matter how seemingly small and insignificant, so even knowing that he had chosen to put those memories away, never to be found, that was not enough to keep him from needing to know the truth now that he had stumbled on someone who could help him find it. With that, Hayley gave him the means, showing him a secret website he had used to lock away a video explaining his decision to wipe away his memories of what he was involved in while he was missing. The choice was his and only his, the password to that safe being a character’s lock combination from one of his unpublished short stories, thus giving him the power to either unlock the truth or leave it hidden. Not surprisingly, he opted to unlock it, revealing the devastating truth that he had actually uncovered the connection between Bracken and Loksat long before Beckett did, something that nearly cost him his life and prompted him to erase all memory of his time away so as to protect her from finding out herself and being exposed to that same danger.

The brilliance of this bombshell is that he will now be forced to choose between the honesty he so desires to have with Beckett and keeping a secret to protect the love of his life, something Beckett herself was forced to do earlier this season when she first discovered Loksat’s involvement with Bracken. It seems to be the proverbial turning of the tables, the evening of the scales, a remarkably brilliant opportunity for Castle to be on the other side of those secrets and understand the pull one would feel to hide the truth, even at the expense of sacrificing complete honesty, all in the name of protecting the one person he could never live without. Likewise, it was an interesting way to force Castle to wonder if what he stumbled on was really what provoked Loksat and eventually led to the deaths of Rachel McCord and her entire team. This guilt has been weighing heavily on Beckett’s shoulders and now Castle will undoubtedly feel that weight himself, again putting Castle in Beckett’s position. This mirroring of the two characters is perhaps the most intriguing aspect of the twist; how will Castle deal with being at the same impasse Beckett was at just months ago? Will he stay true to his ideals of honesty or will he come to understand that sometimes it really is “complicated”?