THE EVOLUTION OF CASTLE AND BECKETT
Written By: Lisa Caputo
A five-part article detailing the evolution of the characters of Castle and Beckett and their relationship over the first seven seasons of the series.
PART ONE
03-09-2015
Today marks the 6th Anniversary of Castle.
Yes, six years ago to this day was when Castle and Beckett first
appeared on our television screens and immediately captured our attention. So it seems only fitting that this next post
should explore the evolution and growth of these two characters. Thank you to the folks who suggested this one
via Twitter; @NortheyBrian, @Redshiner, and @Meryame26. I hope this includes what you each separately
wanted to know. If not, I hope you enjoy
reading it anyway. Lol.
Since their journey is a long one, I will be writing this in
two parts. The first will cover seasons
one through three and the second part will cover seasons four to the current
season. I can’t really get into all of
the details that I could as that would take ages to write and I don’t think
you’d want to read it all anyway.
Lol. But I’ll touch on the major
plotpoints in their relationship and their growth together. Perhaps one day I’ll write more about each of
them separately but for now I’d prefer to concentrate on them together and how
they’ve learned and grown over the years as partners, friends, and a couple as
that is plenty in and of itself. Of
course, in doing that, I’ll also touch on who they each are and have become as
individuals along the way.
We began this story back on March 9, 2009, and we were
introduced to two characters whose paths crossed in a complete twist of
fate. Kate Beckett was a by-the-book
detective, someone who was dedicated to her work and had found great success in
her years on the force because of that dedication. She had been defined by the death of her
mother, something that innately changed who she was and made her who she had
become by the time we first met her. She
was tough, savvy, sophisticated, and stoic in her ways, throwing herself
completely in her work because she believed it was for the greater good. But she was also very closed off, and while
she clearly believed in love and marriage, she didn’t feel that was something
meant for her in many ways. Perhaps she
was afraid of loving someone that deeply because she had already seen what
losing that type of love could do to a person, both in the way that her father
was destroyed by her mother’s death and how she herself lost faith because she
was left behind by Will when he chose his career over their future
together. Having lost or nearly lost
everyone she had ever loved, it was no wonder she was as closed-off as she was,
never wanting to feel that kind of loss and pain again. But her mother’s death also defined who she
became as a detective. She was so
focused on finding justice and the truth for other victims because she felt she
had never been given that herself following her mother’s murder. Yet she was also someone who put a great deal
of worth on the evidence itself, most likely because the police who
investigated her mother’s murder had seemingly overlooked the evidence in such
a careless way. In turn, she put all of
her faith in the evidence and in the facts themselves, something that served
her well in her career but something she would soon learn wasn’t the only
factor to consider because facts and evidence don’t always yield the truth.
So enter one Richard Castle; a famous mystery novelist with
a penchant for living the good life and not apologizing for it. He may have come across as childish and
immature at times, playing the role of the playboy celebrity bachelor well, but
it also became evident very quickly in the series that this was more of an
image than anything else. After all, he
too had been burned by love that was lost.
Twice divorced and neither time seemingly his choice, Rick himself once
said that while it seemed he didn’t believe in marriage or commitment anymore,
perhaps it was just that he hadn’t met the right woman yet. Of course, when he met Kate Beckett he seemed
to immediately become drawn to her. She
was the polar opposite of the women he had previously been married to and she
was seemingly oblivious to the charms that had made so many other women fall at
his feet. She didn’t care about his fame
or fortune and didn’t seem wooed in any way by his charm and charisma. Some may say that she was the ultimate
challenge for the bachelor, a woman that could match his intelligence and wit while
never letting him win or get the upper hand.
But she was more than that because she was also everything he perhaps
wanted to be; someone with a purpose, someone with strong morals, and someone
who was dedicated to a greater cause other than their own.
In a way, Castle and Beckett started out as very different
people, yet it was obvious that they each possessed the characteristics that
the other seemed to be missing. More so,
they possessed the characteristics that the other had kept hidden within themselves
for so many years, a product of the pain and suffering of their past. And that’s what drew them to one
another… that and their undeniable
chemistry, of course. They were both
intelligent and stubborn people, something that tends to lend itself to the
type of banter they have always engaged in.
But even in their worst fights, they more so challenged one another and
pushed one another to see things differently or see themselves
differently. Their bantering, their
arguments, and their all-out fights only served to open their eyes to things
and challenge their own views and perspectives, as well as keep us entertained
and captivated by them.
Along the way, they both learned from one another and grew
to be more like one another. They
brought out sides in each other that had long been forgotten; for Beckett,
Castle brought out her enjoyment of life, her joy, and her carefree self who
longed to break free and have fun once in a while. And for Castle, Beckett brought out his
desire to belong, his serious side, and his protectiveness. Castle found himself part of a team,
something he had never really felt for himself outside of his own family, while
Beckett found herself a true partner, something she hadn’t had in a very long
time even with Ryan and Esposito working with her.
And somewhere in amongst it all, the two fell in love with
each other, though neither would admit it, often not even to themselves let
alone to anyone else. But they felt it
and it was obvious to everyone except for each other. They were always a couple in many ways and
acted more like husband and wife than some husbands and wives do, minus the
physical stuff, of course. And that was
an interesting thing about them through those early years as well, as they
almost avoided any physical contact.
Rarely did we see a hug or a handshake or any personal contact
whatsoever, as if both knew what would happen if they allowed themselves to
touch the other in any way. And in those
rare times where they did share some kind of physical contact, it was clear
that the sparks were flying. It’s funny
to think of that now because we were so capable of going for many episodes at a
time without any type of physical contact, reveling in mere looks between them
and cheering when they did shake hands or touch hands or hug or kiss those times
that were few and far between. Think
about it this way, who else could make a simple handshake seem like the most
passionate type of contact two people can have?
Only Castle and Beckett.
When we got close to the end of season two, we saw a change
between them. The events of “Tick, Tick,
Tick” and “Boom” seemed to bring them closer than ever, both finally seeing
what existed between them. Kate learned
a lot from Agent Shaw, seeing first-hand proof that a woman could be a highly
successful professional while also being a devoted wife and mother, something
that made her question her own choices and her inability to let Castle in and
see where things could go between them.
But on the heels of a near-death experience that seemed to propel Kate
into the realm of wanting to explore that kind of relationship with him, Castle
himself went out and got himself into a meaningless fling with Ellie
Monroe. Not knowing that Kate was on the
verge of letting him in, and taking advantage of a chance encounter with an actress
who he had long had a crush on, Castle went for it with Ellie and while it was
short-lived, it certainly put a bit of a brick back in Kate’s proverbial wall,
telling herself that it was clear that Castle didn’t have feelings for her
after all.
So enter Tom Demming.
I know not a lot of people liked this storyline, nor any other storyline
that found Kate with someone else (though it’s odd to me that very few seemed
to be bothered by Castle’s flings or relationships over the years… but that’s a whole other rant that I won’t
get into), Demming played a monumental role in getting Kate and Rick to admit
their feelings for one other, at least to themselves if not to each other. As with any storyline on Castle, it had to happen this way to push them to that next
level. With that said, along comes Tom
Demming, the perfect match for Kate in so many ways. He’s charming, intelligent, a successful
detective himself, and someone who really seems to be the type of guy that
would never hurt her in any way. Was he
a safe choice? Of course he was. But Kate had just started to believe that she
wanted a relationship with Castle and he went off and had a fling with an
actress instead so she came back down to earth and realized that maybe she was
ready for ANY relationship. If Castle
wasn’t the one, maybe Tom could be. But
it was a big step for her character and it told us that she was truly opening
up her heart and wanting more in her life than just her career. Unfortunately, as much as she wanted Castle
to be that “more” in her life, she wasn’t convinced that he wanted to be that
guy and Demming came along at just the right time for her to consider that
maybe he could be that guy instead.
I always found this storyline interesting because Kate also
asked Rick a number of times, as did Tom himself, if he was okay with what was
going on. She was looking for him to
give her a reason to say no to Demming and say yes to him instead but he
couldn’t see that and he shied away, not wanting to be the one to hold her back
if she really wanted to be with someone else.
As much as it killed him, he wanted her to be happy and he believed that
she could be happy with Demming. But the
roles were quickly reversed when Castle opted to leave the precinct, hurt by
seemingly loosing Kate and not being okay to watch her with another man, and
now he put the ball in Kate’s court to give him a reason to stay and be with
her. That season finale was certainly a
painful one to watch but it completely turned things around for Castle and
Beckett and forced them to see how much they really wanted to be with each
other, even pushing Kate to the point where she was ready and willing to
finally admit that to Castle himself, taking the ultimate chance and putting
her heart out there for him. Of course,
before she could do that, in another twist of fate, she found out that Castle
had reconciled with Gina and the two of them rode off into the sunset in the
Hamptons while a now very much single Kate was left to question how she could
have been so wrong, again, in thinking that Castle really did have feelings for
her.
Season three brought about the infamous “SO” storyline (ie:
“Significant Others” storyline) where Castle and Beckett spent much of the
season dating other people. Again, while
not all of the fans were crazy about this storyline, I certainly was. This was the perfect way to take the pressure
off of Castle and Beckett and take that “will they / won’t they” question out
of their own minds, even if it was always on the minds of the audience at that
point. It allowed them the opportunity
to not have to be burdened by the question of whether or not the other had
feelings for them because they saw each other in new relationships and that
took the possibility of them dating off of the table for a while.
What happened as a result of that was that they were
actually brought closer together than ever, all under the guise of just
becoming closer as friends and partners, and when they were put through some of
the most horrific circumstances together throughout the season, it made them
both realize more than ever that they wanted to be with each other. They delved into Kate’s mother’s murder that
season, to depths they had never gone before, they faced near-death together on
multiple occasions (even on multiple occasions through just the two-parter
itself), they “adopted” a dog together, albeit temporarily, and they learned
more about each other and truly came to understand each so much better over
time. And that first kiss… yeah, that was no act on either of their
parts and that just kicked them both into the realization that there was most
definitely something between them.
But they were still wary about each other. They had both been burned so badly in the
past by losing the people they loved and they had each already felt the
terrible sting of being hurt by each other.
The biggest fallback to loving someone to that extent is that you open
yourself up to the greatest pain possible as well and the thought of how much
the other could potentially hurt them was enough to keep them both at bay. That scene in “To Live Or Die In LA” with
Beckett struggling with her own feelings as she stayed behind her hotel room
door, debating whether to give in and just go for it with Castle was
heartwrenching, especially as she finally made her decision and yet he was no
longer on the other side of that door.
So, too, was Castle’s pain at seeing her turn to her boyfriend at that
time when they had survived one of their many brushes with death, finally
having the courage to tell her how he felt until he was interrupted. At times that season, they were playful with
each other, they were flirty with each other, they fought the fires of their
passion to keep them hidden, and yet they also came to understand one another
so much deeper than they ever had before.
They had become true friends and partners and so much more of a couple
than even they were willing to admit.
They fell in love, 100%, and although neither would admit it to the
other, they both felt it themselves and opted to suffer in silence because they
so loved what they had together, even if they couldn’t give in to their own
feelings. They had learned what it was
like to be apart and neither wanted to feel that sense of loss again,
especially after growing so much closer over the season. So they kept their feelings silent and just
reveled in their deep friendship and partnership instead.
Until, of course, Beckett gets shot and Castle was unable to
save her, again just as the two seemed to be getting closer to that point of
admitting their feelings for one another in the wake of Montgomery’s death and
everything that was happening with Beckett’s mother’s murder. But before either could really tell the other
how they felt, Kate was shot and Castle was helplessly unable to save her. And in that moment of sheer panic, the fear
of losing the love of his life now so real for Castle, he blurted out that he
loved her and begged her to stay alive for him.
That finale still remains one of my favourite episodes of the entire
series and one of the most emotional and shocking finales I’ve ever witnessed
on television. And Castle telling
Beckett that he loved her while she was slipping away from him, a beautiful
mirror to Kate’s attempts to tell Castle that she loved him while they were
slipping away in the freezer during the two-parter that season, it was just the
most gut-wrenching ending possible. Yet
it was the beginning of a change for Castle and Beckett, one that would take
another full season to get to but one that truly began in the closing minutes
of that finale.
Enter “Rise”, the episode that I always felt was the most
pivotal turning point in Castle and Beckett’s relationship, perhaps even more
so than “Always”. Season four’s premiere
was the first time that I knew with 100% certainty that they would be a couple
by the end of the season. And by the
third episode of that season, I knew it was exactly how the season would end…
This is the second part of my musings on the evolution of
Castle and Beckett throughout the years on Castle. In writing about season four, one that I have
always felt was the true season-long turning point between Castle and Beckett. Season four just
has so much development and so much that can be said about the changing
relationship between Castle and Beckett that it seems right to dedicate an
entire post to this portion of the series and then continue with the post-“Always” chapters in Castle and Beckett’s journey together. So please stay with me and I hope you enjoy
it all.
I left off speaking about the season finale in season three,
one of my favourite episodes of all-time and one that set the stage for
everything to change for the better between Castle and Beckett.
Enter “Rise”, the episode that I always felt was the most
pivotal turning point in Castle and Beckett’s relationship, perhaps even more
so than “Always”. Season four’s premiere
was the first time that I knew with 100% certainty that they would be a couple
by the end of the season. And by the
third episode of that season, I knew it was exactly how the season would end…
The season four premiere may have begun with one of the most
heartbreaking openings of any episode of the series, with Beckett fighting for
her life as Castle tormented himself for not being able to save her, the fear
of losing her for good absolutely tearing him apart. And despite his professing his love for her,
in the immediate aftermath of her surgery and the early part of her recovery,
Kate simply couldn’t wrap her mind around the reality of everything. I always felt that she was just so
overwhelmed by it all that she just couldn’t have that conversation with Castle
in that moment, painfully asking him for some time and space. As much as that answer, and Beckett seemingly
not remembering his “I love you” to her, absolutely hurt Castle, it was also
clear how much it hurt Kate herself as well.
But in that moment, for her, it was necessary. She wasn’t sure how to process it so she did
what she had to do to push it aside in order to ensure she didn’t say or do the
wrong thing. Of course, lying wasn’t
exactly the right thing but it did seem like the right thing to do at the time,
a mantra Castle himself had lived by for much of his adult life.
With that, we jumped ahead and found Castle and Beckett once
again feeling the pangs of separation after Beckett had retreated to her
father’s cabin for the summer following her shooting in order to clear her mind
and give herself the time and space to come to terms with everything that had
happened and what it all meant to her. But
it really didn’t take much for Kate to find a way to get to him, and while
arguments at the time seemed to be that she only went to him to find out what
he knew about her case, to me it was always abundantly clear that she had
actually sought him out to make amends and to share her feelings in the only
way she could in the hopes that he would understand why she put so much time
and space between them over the summer.
And that scene at the swingset was one of the most deeply
meaningful scenes between these two in their post-couplehood chapters. For me, this was their turning point. Kate, through some very beautiful and
well-written subtext, did her best to explain to Castle that she had done a lot
of soul-searching after her near-death experience and that she had come to the
conclusion that she wanted more from her life.
But to get to that point, she needed to find closure with her mother’s
murder. She needed to put those pieces
of her heart back together before she could offer her heart to someone else and
give it freely and completely to that person.
Of course, she was really trying to tell him that she loved him too but
couldn’t be with him until she was able to be the woman he deserved to have
beside him, someone who wasn’t broken or complicated, someone who could put her
past behind her and commit to their future together. Thus, she was asking him to wait for her, to
be there with her every step of the way until she was able to put her mother’s
murder in the past and get the closure she needed to move on. And then, she would be all his, able to
finally give her entire heart and soul to him.
Now, Castle didn’t quite read between the lines the way the
audience did, of course because he didn’t have the advantage of knowing how
Kate really felt about him, but he did seem to understand that there was hope
in what she was saying. If he really
loved her and if he really wanted to be with her, perhaps this was the way to
give her the chance to love him back and want to be with him as well. And while she never came out and said how she
felt about him or that he was the one she wanted to be in a relationship with
once she had the closure she needed, it was enough for him just to know that he
had a chance at that point. He was
willing to wait, willing to give her the time and space, and more so willing to
be there for her and help her achieve the peace she needed to be able to move
on with her life. That’s what love is,
isn’t it? So of course he wasn’t going
anywhere. And, in a sense, her opening
up to him and bearing her soul to him, even despite hiding her true feelings in
the process, was enough for him to feel as though perhaps he could be the one
for her, the one she would want when all was said and done, because these bonds
they shared were unlike any other that they shared with anyone else in their
lives.
The beauty of this setup was that it added this
foreshadowing sense of hope to the season, as if they were already telling us
in some way that Castle and Beckett would find their way to one another by the
end of the season. But it also took that
pressure back off of them again because neither was in any hurry to push
ahead. They were open to taking things
slowly again, building more and more on that friendship and partnership and
also the pureness of their feelings for each other. They were able to get to know one another
even deeper, develop more of a kinship, and really strengthen those bonds that
they shared throughout the season. And
it was in the third episode, with that brilliant exchange of dialogue between
them in the closing minutes, that really sold the foreshadowing for me… Kate finally shows Castle that maybe, just
maybe, she does believe in fate, and she shocks him in the best way possible by
also showing that she’s got quite the sense of storybook romance after all by
telling him, “That’s what the great love stories are about, right? Beating the
odds.” And as the two smile at each other and trade lines of “I hope they make
it” and “me too”, it seems abundantly clear that these two are definitely on
their way to making it.
That’s what season four was all about for me. From this
point onward, there truly were no episodes that I would skip over or never
watch again as each one added something to the story… their story.
Even “Heartbreak Hotel”, which was definitely not a fan-favourite, was
one that I felt did focus on some interesting elements of the overall story and
pushed it forward, and while I feel it was the victim of some horrible timing
for an episode like this, wedged amongst some of the strongest episodes of the
first half of the season, I don’t skip past it when rewatching the season
because it has its place in the larger story.
And everything in that season pushed these two forward and continued to
open their eyes to their now-blossoming romance. Prior to this, Kate was fighting her feelings
for Rick and Rick was fighting his feelings for Kate. They exchanged moments of poor timing when
they finally got up the nerve to tell the other how they felt, only to be
crushed by signs that they were facing harsh rejection by doing so and they
both made their fair share of mistakes and miscues in those first three
seasons. But season four was entirely
different as they had both come to the very real conclusion that they were
fully in love with the other and were willing to do whatever it took to
eventually be together. From that point forward, there were no significant
others and no denial, just two people who were friends and partners and who
loved each other deeply but weren’t quite ready yet to admit that to one
another.
Through episodes like “Cops and Robbers” or “Cuffed” in
those early parts of the season, the two simply grew closer and closer
together, ever more so like a real couple minus the romance, and it was a
beautiful thing to watch unfolding. Of
course, every story needs conflict to push it forward from time to time, so the
“season of secrets” became more focused on the threat of those secrets being
exposed at the worst possible time.
Castle had been lying to Kate about what he knew of her mother’s murder
in order to protect her, even though he knew she desperately wanted closure in
order to move on with her life.
Meanwhile, Kate had continued to act as though she had no memory of
Castle’s professing his love to her after her shooting. But, pushed forward by their confidants in
their lives (Martha for Castle and Dr. Burke), they start to consider expressing
those feelings for one another sooner than later. And by the time “47 Seconds” rolls around,
the two are already on the precipice of wanting to confess their feelings. With the theme of this episode, one that made
them take stock of how short life can be and how there’s no sense in wasting
precious time, they were right at that point when the most devastating thing
came to pass; Castle found out the truth about Kate remembering all along that
he had told her he loved her.
Personally, I’m a fan of conflict because it does push the
story further and it puts the characters in situations where they’re challenged
and pushed past their limits, something that develops them even more than under
normal circumstances. So not only did I
welcome the drama this plot twist would bring to the end of the season, I also
felt it was an appropriate lesson to be learned and I though the Castle team did a fantastic job in how
that secret was inevitably revealed.
Really, Kate being caught in her lie in the very room where she so often
exacts her need for the truth was poetically ironic as well as being absolutely
intense and very heartbreaking. I’ve
never blamed Kate for hiding the truth from Castle at all but I felt that the
truth needed to come out and if she wasn’t ready to tell him the truth herself,
this was the perfect (albeit extremely painful) way for it to come to the
surface.
And as much as Castle was stunned and beyond hurt by the
truth, I don’t really think it was the fact that Kate had lied to him that
caused the most pain, rather his wrongful assumptions that she had done so
because she didn’t want to hurt him and thus that she didn’t share those
feelings. I think that was the hardest
part of it to watch because he was hurt for all the wrong reasons, all based on
his own false conclusions that she wanted to spare him the pain and
embarrassment of rejecting him instead of the very real truth that she had
panicked at the time and just didn’t know what to say to him. And, at least to me, I can understand both of
their points of view and both of their feelings involved so it made it a very
challenging thing to watch yet it also made it so compelling as well. I have no problem with angst and heartbreak
when it comes to storytelling because it’s a challenge to emotionally impact a
viewer, especially one like me, so if a show can do something that gets me that
deeply, I have even more respect for the people behind that.
Even still, while Castle may have been wrong about why Kate
had lied to him, his pain was very real and very understandable, and he did
what he had always done in the past; he acted out to hide his pain and he ran
away in some ways to protect himself. He
took time away from Kate, started having a meaningless fling with a flight
attendant after a whirlwind trip to Vegas, and he was very cold through it
all. And while it was understandable, it
was also painful to watch because while he was lashing out from his hurt
feelings, Kate was left more confused and hurt than ever before as well as she
had finally been seemingly ready to confess her own feelings to him.
It took a few episodes but when Kate stood by Castle even
despite his somewhat childish behaviour and his getting caught up in a
dangerous partnership with another detective, the hilarious Sgt. Slaughter
(okay, I know he wasn’t a sergeant but it sounds better that way, doesn’t it?),
Castle finally came to realize that maybe he wasn’t being fair about his lashing
out at her. After all, she didn’t know
that he knew the truth and he hadn’t given her a chance to explain her side of
it, so his actions were doing nothing but hurting her in return and needlessly
so. Whatever her reasons for hiding the
truth from him, he also knew he was hiding things from her as well, so he
backed off and stopped lashing out to punish her.
With that, the two worked together again in “Undead Again”
and the case seemed to bring them closer together once again. In an excellent exchange of dialogue partway
through the episode, Castle and Beckett were at odds over the motives of their
suspect/witness. When their conversation
seemed to hint at their own situation, with Beckett almost offering her own
explanation and apology of sorts for why she kept the truth from him for so
long, Castle finally seemed to clue in.
The ending of that episode perfectly set the stage for “Always”, with
the two 100% back on track and quickly on their way to exploring that
relationship they had longed for for so long.
I loved everything about that scene, from the beautiful and meaningful
dialogue, the subtext that wasn’t completely subtext anymore as they both knew
exactly what the other was saying, and the sheer love and comfort between
them. If you don’t remember that scene,
please go and rewatch it because it will immediately fill you with joy.
And that brought us to “Always”, an episode that truly
changed everything for Castle and Beckett but did so in a very natural and
“right” way. With Beckett finally ready
to give a relationship with Castle and chance, despite not having closed her
mother’s case yet, everything was threatened when that infamous case came back
to haunt her once again. Despite
Castle’s desire to protect her and his best efforts to do so, even coming right
out and telling her that he loved her and leaving no doubt about whether or not
she heard it this time, Beckett was like a lioness on the prowl and nothing he
could have said would have stopped her at that point. Their fight in that episode was one of the
most powerful of all of the many fights they’ve had over the season (and yes,
that’s also love… lol). Someone asked me today if I could discuss
more about their arguments over the season so I’ll save whatever I was going to
say about this particular one for that later discussion. For now, all I’ll say is that it was
heartbreaking and powerful but it left Castle and Beckett completely at
odds. Beckett was hot on the heels of
her mother’s killer and the person who tried to have her killed as well, and Castle
couldn’t stand to watch her walk back into the fire again, this time believing
that she really didn’t stand a chance.
Of course, Beckett faces nearly dying yet again, and this
time the thought of dying alone, without Castle there with her in her final
moments, is enough to push her past her need for closure or for justice or the
truth. All she wants and needs in her
life is him and while it’s taken her bring thrown off a rooftop to convince her
of that once and for all, she’s finally ready to accept what her father told
Castle he had always hoped she would come to realize; that her life is worth
more than her mother’s death.
For this final part, I’ll share something I wrote just after
this episode aired, a description of the final scene of the episode and what it
all meant for Castle and Beckett:
“We cut back to Beckett, still sitting on the swings alone
in the rain. There is something so significant about rain, the cleansing and
healing properties of it, washing away the old and bringing about the new. As
Beckett lets the rain wash over her in this moment, the change that has been
coming over her for a while is complete. As the rain pours down, so too do the
final bricks in the wall that she had long built to protect her heart.
Back at the loft, Castle is reassuring Alexis on the phone
that he will be okay on his own. If we recall the brilliantly subtle set-up as
Castle and Beckett arrived at the crime scene at the beginning of the episode,
we know that Alexis is attending an all-night event after her graduation and
that Martha has headed off to the Hamptons, leaving Castle alone at the loft
for the entire night. He hangs up with his daughter and shares a moment
reliving her rite of passage from that night’s graduation.
The smile on his face fades when his phone rings and he sees
Beckett’s picture on the call display. He’s ready to move on, so he turns his
phone off, ignoring her call. He picks up the remote for his big-screen
monitor, ready to face the final phase of his putting his life with Beckett
behind him. It’s a somber yet meaningful
moment as he takes this symbol of these last three years of his life, of
everything between these two, and, without hesitation, he deletes it. But it’s
easier to delete this file, with just one quick swipe of his finger, than it
will be for him to erase the memories and the feelings that will undoubtedly
plague him as he attempts to move on with his life, a life without the woman he
has come to love more than anything.
A knock on the door pulls him out of his thoughts. Despite
Castle ignoring her call, Kate has brought herself to Rick’s door, to the place
where she knew she truly belonged. Rick opens the door to her, just as he had
long done to her heart, but as soon as he sees her, his smile fades again and
he pulls himself away, trying to keep the distance from her that he needs to
have between them right now. With an angry tone in his voice, filled with the
hurt and pain that he has felt since she rejected him and his loving pleading the
other night, he asks her the question that he didn’t realize she finally has
the answer to; “Beckett, what do you want?”
In that moment, looking at the man who she loved, who she
needed and wanted more than anything else in her life, the man who held her
heart and was now, completely and truthfully the most important thing in Kate’s
life, she responded with her honest and emotional answer three years in the
making, simply telling him, “You.”
While Castle backs away from her at first, Kate is ready for
this moment and she’s got Rick in her sights. She pulls herself towards him,
reaching out for him, and kisses him with no hesitation, no abandon, and no
second thoughts. This is what her heart wants and she’s not going to turn away
from it or hide from it any longer. She
pulls back from his lips and tells him, repeatedly, that she’s sorry. The
desperation in her voice is evident and it’s heartbreaking. She needs him to
understand, she needs him to know that she made a mistake but she’s here to
make amends for that.
She kisses him again and Castle pulls her away from him.
He’s not sure what her intentions are or what has propelled her to tell him
these things, but he’s also not ready to give in to what his heart wants
because he’s not sure that Kate’s heart is in the same place. So he pulls her away from him, still upset
and hurt and in pain because of what she said and did just the night before.
But when he looks into her eyes and she looks into his, he can see that
something is different, that she’s been through something profound, and he
anger melts away. He asks her, with
great care and concern in his voice and in his eyes, to tell him what happened.
Kate begins to tell him, with all of the honesty and raw emotion that is ready
to pour out of her, and she looks him directly in the eyes as she confesses
everything to him.
This is such a beautiful moment between them, and such a
turning point for them as well. Kate may not say that she loves him, not yet,
but she tells him that very thing in her own special way. She tells him that
her shooter got away and she didn’t care, and the greater power and meaning
behind that statement begins to sink in for Castle. She goes on to tell him
that she almost died and all she could think about was him. With all of the
emotion overwhelming her right now and being so close to the man that she
loves, she needed him to understand what she was saying to him and she needed
him to accept her and her love for him. She had chosen him, over everything
else that she ever believed she needed in her life, and now she needed him to
choose her too.
So, with such emotion and such love pouring out of her heart
and through her eyes and her voice, she told him, again, that all she wanted
was him. I loved the way that Kate broke eye contact with Castle at that point,
focusing on his lips instead, not only as a way of communicating what she
wanted here but also as a way of breaking her eyes away in that one moment
where she had become the most vulnerable to him. She moves towards him, trying to initiate another
kiss, but Castle pulls himself away and Beckett doesn’t push. Instead, she
pulls back, ever so slightly, and reaches up to his face, to his lips. For
those who remember the scene in the freezer in “Countdown” well enough, this is
the same thing she does in that scene as she tries to tell him how she feels
about him, and the same thing she does in “Knockout” when he’s pined her
against the car outside of the airplane hanger while Montgomery confronts
Lockwood and his men.
With that simple gesture, and with her words and the look in
her eyes truly letting Castle know that she is ready, finally, to give him her
heart and her soul for the rest of their lives together. He understands and he
lets all of the anger and pain that he had felt within him just fade away,
replaced by that fire of love for her that has burned for so long. With a beautifully and symbolically timed
flash of lightning and crack of thunder, signaling the end of the dance and the
start of their future together, Castle lets himself go and gives in to what his
heart wants. He chooses Kate.
On a lighter note, I love that he pushes her against the
door, slamming it closed, bringing a whole new meaning to “shut the front
door”…
I know a lot of people have commented on the choppy editing
of the scene as it continues on, but I thought it was a fantastic stylistic
choice. The point of it all is that when
Castle and Beckett first give in to their feelings, feelings that have been
growing strong and stronger over time for the past three years without any real
way of being released, there’s a strong sense of urgency between them. There’s
passion and desire and need, and neither of them can get enough of each other.
They kiss with all of the firepower that you had to expect they would in this
moment. Castle wants to explore every inch of Kate and kisses her neck. Kate
clutches him, holding him as close to her as she can get, her hands running
over his shoulders and his back and through his hair. They have given in to
their passion and they are caught up in the moment. The quick editing and
choppy cuts back and forth are meant to produce that same feeling of urgency
and that sense that everything that’s happening between them is just a blur of
passion and desire and need. I thought it was very effective.
And notice that it all slows down, becomes much more calm
and so much less urgent, as Castle first sees Kate’s scar. Suddenly, in that
moment, everything becomes so much more tender and loving and calm. The editing, as well, slows down and, for a
large portion of this part of the scene, is really just one long and fluid
moment, again effectively changing the feeling of the scene as well. The
passion has not subsided, not by any means, but now they are both ready to just
enjoy the moment and let their love shine through over their raw desire. Castle cautiously opens the button on
Beckett’s shirt and pulls the fabric away to reveal the scar over her heart, a
reminder to them both that life is so precious and that they need to hold on to
what they have now, what they have finally found and accepted with one another.
Taking Castle’s hand in hers, Beckett holds his hand up to
her heart, overtop of the scar, in such a beautiful and symbolic moment between
them. She’s healed, and it’s because of him. And now it’s her turn to heal him
as well. They kiss again, this time
slowly and tenderly, with all of the love and emotion pouring from their hearts
and into each other. As they part lips, though still staying as close to one
another as they can, Beckett smiles with the most genuinely happy and in love
smile that we’ve perhaps ever seen. She opens her eyes and locks hers with his.
In a beautiful and emotional conclusion, Kate takes the hand
of her partner, her friend, and the love of her life, intertwining their fingers
and holding onto each other tightly, leading Castle towards their future
together.
The last we see of them are their hands firmly clasped
together, something we’ve come to see fairly often between these two, always a
wonderful symbol of their bond, and yet this time there is something entirely
new about it, something so significant because we know that they are finally
headed down the path towards the rest of their lives together as one.”
PART THREE
03-16-2015
As I’ve started writing about season five, just as I did with
season four, I came to understand that there was so much in terms of the
evolution of these characters and their relationship in this season that it
warranted having its own chapter in this ongoing article of sorts. So here is part three, an in-depth look at how Castle and
Beckett evolved together and apart through season five. I hope you enjoy it!
We began season five knowing that Castle and Beckett were
beginning a new chapter in their relationship, a chapter where the two were not
only partners in crime-solving and in friendship but also in a committed,
romantic relationship. While some may
have questioned that going into the episode, the Castle team had always been very much committed to not turning back
once they had crossed that bridge so it seemed obvious without any additional
commentary at the end of “Always” that them taking that step meant Castle and
Beckett were in this for the long haul.
Within the opening scene of the episode, that was confirmed,
as the newly-established couple quickly assured each other that their night
together wasn’t about a one night stand or a need to feel something, rather a
commitment to each other and a full-fledged relationship. “After The Storm” was one of the strongest
season premieres up to that point in that it established just how solid that
commitment was, throwing Castle and Beckett into a difficult position as they
were faced with the opportunity to track down Beckett’s mother’s killer despite
Kate having just resigned from the police force.
What was truly outstanding about this scenario was that Kate
herself was still quite certain that she didn’t need to go down that path again
and it was Castle who pushed her to dive back into the case, this time with his
full support, in order to get the closure that she had once so desperately
needed. Looking back, this was a pivotal
moment in that storyline as without Castle showing that support and dedication
to helping her solve this case, we never would have found the resolution that
eventually came in season six. And as
much as Kate felt that she could walk away from the case and never get the
closure she had once desired, it was obvious once they delved back into the
case that she most certainly needed to find out the truth and get both closure
and justice for her mother’s murder.
The beginning of the season found Castle and Beckett trying
to keep their relationship a secret from everyone, wanting that time and space
to sort out what this relationship really was and get used to being a couple
without the prying eyes of their friends and family. They also knew that working together while in
a relationship could complicate their partnership at the precinct as there was
no way in their minds that Gates would accept their working together while in a
relationship. So they did their best to
hide what was really going on at home between them and while they struggled at
times, it was an interesting thing to watch because as much as they actively
tried to hide their feelings, it was almost like they were overcompensating too
much and that was what made others suspect something may have been going on. Had they just acted as they always were with
one another, nobody would have suspected, especially being that they had always
been more of a couple-ish way about them anyway.
But the early part of the season also gave us some really
great moments as the two tried to hide their newfound relationship. We had the “best handshake ever” and their
secret rendezvous to the Hamptons, finally taking that trip there that they
were so close to sharing way back at the end of season two. In fact, 5x04 was one of the most interesting
episodes of that part of the season because it took Castle and Beckett out of
their normal setting and into a place where they were free to be themselves,
something we wouldn’t see much of until later in the season once their
relationship was fully out in the open.
It was a fun ride to experience their figuring out their relationship
just as we, too, were figuring out how everything would take shape for
them. For anyone who has been in a
relationship like theirs, it’s always those early days that are filled with the
most confusion and intrigue as you figure out how to navigate these new waters
with someone, so the Castle team did
a great job of emoting that type of feeling through the early part of the
season.
And, of course, we had so many other great episodes through
the first half of season five, perhaps the strongest front half of any season
of Castle. It was simply one after another after another
of really strong episodes, giving us a peak into Castle and Beckett’s
quickly-establishing couplehood and domestic life together, especially once
their families and friends found out about their relationship.
In fact, part of the enjoyment of season five came from
finding a new way to explore that tension between them. Since they were now a couple, they of course
didn’t have the same level of sexual tension that came from wanting to be
together but being too terrified to go that route in the early seasons. But in season five, that tension instead came
from their being in a relationship but not being able to be open about that in
too many settings, most notably any that found them at the precinct where they
could be caught by Gates or anyone else who may start up office gossip that
could get back to their Captain.
And in episodes like “Probable Cause” and later “After
Hours”, “Secret Santa”, and “Significant Others”, the string of episodes that
took us from 2013 into 2014, we found the couple tested in a number of ways,
asking themselves some important questions about how strong their relationship
really was, how much they trusted each other, and how deep their love ran for
one another. Those questions were ones
that they, along with the audience, really needed to dive into and the results
were exactly as we thought they would be; these two were so deep in love and so
committed to their relationship that nothing would tear them apart, not even
during these early months of their newfound romantic relationship.
Along the way, the two found their stride together, finding
ways of keeping their relationship professional at work while enjoying their
private time together outside of work and becoming much more domestic. We had all of the great moments of that first
year of a relationship, all with the added level of commitment that these two
shared because they had really been “together” in a lot of ways for four years
before that. Think of those great
moments like putting aside their own individual traditions to form their own
new traditions for the holidays, or Kate giving Rick a drawer in her apartment
and letting him in completely to her home, or Kate finding acceptance with
Martha and Alexis (though it was on and off for some time) as part of the
family, even rather early on into her relationship with Rick.
As season five went on, we had some really intense episodes,
starting with Recoil, which pushed Kate to her limits in terms of her job
versus her personal battle with her mother’s killer, and moving into the
two-parter that found Castle finally coming face-to-face with his own father
while going to extreme lengths to protect his daughter. Recoil gave us a chance to see a new side to
Kate, one that maybe would be willing not to serve and protect if it meant
avenging her mother’s death, though in the end she proved to be the stoic woman
she always had been, choosing to do her job even if it meant having to swallow
her own pride and protect the man who had murdered her mother. And while that was the hardest decision she
had ever needed to make, it was also one that would rather brilliantly come
back to save her in season six’s “In The Belly Of The Beast” (not THAT is
continuity, folks… planting seeds in the
middle of one season to come back into bloom later in the next season).
Meanwhile, “Target” and “Hunt” gave us and Kate a chance to
see a whole new side of Castle, both in exposing his feelings about never
knowing his father as well as exposing just how far he would go to protect
someone he loved, things that certainly gave Kate something to think about in
terms of what Castle would be like with her and whatever potential family they
would create together down the line.
As the season began to wind down, we celebrated the 100th
episode in the perfect way, with Kate setting up perhaps the greatest possible
murder-mystery birthday present for the love of her life, truly a sign of just
how deeply she loved Castle and how much she wanted to be able to give him a
first birthday together that he would never forget. It was the perfect Castle episode, one that truly celebrated this huge accomplishment
within the series while also pushing the storyline forward between Castle and
Beckett, the two becoming even more domesticated than ever before. Of course, things can’t always be happy and
joyful in a well-told story as there always needs to be times of conflict and
struggle. It’s in those moments of
overcoming the worst of the worst that we truly appreciate the best of the best
and the Castle team has always
understood that and been committed to using some tragic and powerfully dramatic
storytelling to push their characters into new territory and challenge who they
are and what they want in their lives.
With that said, we were presented with “Still” and “The
Squab and the Quail”. Now, I know a lot
of people have had a lot of issues with the latter here but I definitely had no
qualms with it and here’s why… if you
take these two stories in their original airing order (and yes, I know “Still”
was more of a standalone episode but it also works as a pretty great prequel to
“TSATQ”), we have Beckett nearly die because of a massive bomb being rigged
during a rather routine investigation.
This was a massive test for she and Castle and while the episode was
filled with some rather fantastic flashbacks and montages of their time
together (something I surprisingly really enjoyed despite my pure hatred for
typical flashback episodes), giving us that enjoyable walk down memory lane,
but it also pushed them into a very meaningful and heartwrenching situation
where Beckett was faced with losing her life just as she had truly found it,
all while Castle was faced with having to decide if he should walk away and
fight for his own life to stick around for his family or if he should stand by
the love of his life and be with her until the end, if it ever got to that
point.
“Still” forced the two to finally utter the words that they
had held off on saying to one another through it all, words that lay under the
surface of everything they said and did for one another throughout the season
but had still been fighting back the urge to blurt out until this life-or-death
situation; “I love you.” And when they said it, despite the fact that Kate’s
life was on the line, they both meant it with every ounce of their being, every
depth of their heart and soul, and every piece of themselves that now rested
within one another. It was a deeply
meaningful moment yet also so heartbreaking that they had been saving those
words for the perfect time and place and were now saying them because they
feared that perfect time and place may never appear for them ever again.
The moment the bomb was defused and Kate was able to move,
not hesitating one bit to jump into Castle’s arms and find safety and solace in
his loving grip, they were filled with a sense of life and of an opportunity to
no longer waste another minute waiting for the perfect time or place for
anything in their lives. It was also the
perfect moment for Gates to reveal to them that she had known all along about
their relationship, proving she was much more observant than they perhaps gave
her credit for throughout the season, and her reaction was something that they
were not expecting; she gave them her blessing and assured them that if they
kept things professional at work, she would do nothing to get in the way of the
happiness they clearly brought to one another.
After the events of this episode, is it any wonder that
perhaps Kate had begun to think of what was most important in her life and
began to feel a desire to move things along with Castle? After all, she had
nearly died and didn’t want to waste another second on moving slowly rather
than taking their relationship further.
But just as she began to think about their future and attempted to spark
some romance into their very comfortable and domesticated relationship, Castle
started to take it all for granted, perhaps so comfortable and happy with what
they already had that he was unable to see Beckett’s desire to push forward
into new territory. It was here that a
lack of communication between the couple started to pull them apart ever so
slightly, something that isn’t uncommon at all at this stage of a
relationship. When one person starts to
feel like it’s time to move forward but the other is content with the way
things are, it can lead to doubts and a feeling of uncertainty, especially when
the couple is too afraid of ruining everything they already have by having that
conversation about “the future” if they feel the other may not be ready for
that.
This is where I always felt we found Castle and Beckett in
“TSATQ”, an episode that many fans say they still can’t watch while I feel it’s
a rather important episode in their journey because it pushed them into
ultimately talking about and thinking about what their relationship really
meant to them and whether or not they were ready to move forward into a new realm
of that couplehood. So in comes Eric
Vaughan, a man who has a lot of similarities to Castle but is also quite
different in a lot of ways, namely the way that he gives Kate the attention she
may not be getting from Castle at this point.
And it’s not that Kate really wants that attention from Vaughan, in fact
she tries to avoid it throughout the episode, but when she’s assigned to
protect him and the two get to talking, Vaughan plays on her insecurities
within her relationship with Castle and tries to manipulate her. Now, the scene between them right before Kate
saves Vaughan’s life has always been hotly debated. I’m one who didn’t see it at all that Kate
kissed him back when he tried to kiss her, not at all, though I also agree that
she didn’t immediately pull away either.
To me, she was in a bit of shock at that point. Here was someone who was pointing out all of
the faults in Castle and faults in her relationship, someone who was able to
say all the right things and do all the right things, yet she still didn’t feel
that urge to give in to his manipulations.
The fact that she didn’t lean in and kiss him back, rather that she just
stood there and froze, is something that told me that in that moment, she still
loved Castle with all of her heart, despite the issues in their relationship,
and while she was shocked by what was happening, and all of it at a pace where
her mind couldn’t keep up, she also wasn’t giving in and going along with the
moment at all.
And while the initial scene where Castle found out about
exactly what was going on at the time that Vaughan was shot at and Kate pushed
him away and saved his life was fairly awkward, it was also rather honest and
upfront and Kate pulled no punches about what did and didn’t happen between her
and Vaughan. But even more so, it
propelled Castle to see that he had been taking Beckett for granted, becoming
too comfortable in what they had already to really show her that she meant the
world to him and that he always wanted her to feel loved and protected and
happy with him. I loved the end scene
where Castle tries to make amends by offering Kate a romantic massage, going
above and beyond to add that spark of romance that she had been longing for
earlier in the episode. But again, their
miscommunication is a heartbreaking end to the episode as Kate asks Castle
“where are we going?” as she is ready to break the ice and have that serious
conversation with Rick about their future.
But Rick, not exactly being the best at reading the true meaning in her
words and her tone yet, think her question is a much more simple one, lovingly
telling her that they’re going to the bedroom.
It’s at that point that the two are just so clearly in different places
in their relationship; Kate is ready for more and ready to talk about where
they see themselves down the road together, whereas Castle is living in the
here and now, just trying to keep Kate happy and keep their relationship going
the way it has been. If either Rick
understood what Kate was really asking him or if Kate pushed further and
clarified her question, they would have avoided a lot of undue heartache to
come. But they just weren’t on the same
page and as heartbreaking as that ending was for all of us watching them cross
their signals, it was also something that would once again push them to their
limits in the final two episodes of the season and truly allow them to
challenge themselves, challenge each other, and ultimately move forward in a
stronger and much more secure relationship as the season closed out and season
six began.
So from here we get Beckett being offered the opportunity of
a lifetime to take a job as a federal agent in DC. While she was never a fan of the Feds, that
simply comes with the territory of being part of a city-based police department. Nobody likes having others, especially those
above them, encroach on their territory, so it’s typical for detectives to have
a disdain for the Feds and the Feds for the CIA agents and so on. But it doesn’t mean that a detective would
likely pass up the opportunity to move up the ranks and take advantage of a
rare opportunity to join one of those agencies, adding to their credentials and
their salary while also taking on a bigger role in protecting their communities
and their country as a whole by doing so.
For Kate Beckett, someone whose life had been defined by her desire for
truth and justice, being a federal agent would give her the ability to save
people’s lives and find justice for so many more people in one single case than
she would in a month at the NYPD. And
Kate was always career-focused, proud of her success, and clearly someone who
wouldn’t pass up an opportunity to improve on her career as long as it didn’t
jeopardize anything else in her life.
So this job offer was a pretty difficult one to pass up,
though her initial hesitations were a clear-cut sign that she didn’t want to
leave Castle behind and give up that part of her life that she had fought so
hard to finally have for herself. She
was finally allowing herself to be loved, to be happy, and that was something
she found impossible to consider giving up and walking away from as she was so
in love with Castle and knew she could be happy with him for the rest of her
life. But there was still that lingering
doubt, doubt that sprung from everything that happened in “TSATQ”… after all, could she really throw away this
opportunity to advance her career in such a massive way in order to maintain
her relationship with Castle if she didn’t even know that he wanted this
relationship to lead anywhere further?
This was a life-changing decision for her as she would either have to
give up her relationship, a love that she had wanted for so long and had
finally found, or she would have her give up what could be her biggest
opportunity to advance her career in such a huge way. That’s not an easy decision for any woman but
it’s one that too many are forced to make along the way. I thought it was interesting to see Kate Beckett
seemingly forced to make that decision and I didn’t fault her for keeping this
one to herself while she pondered what she really felt she needed in her life
at that point. After all, as much as
some may have despised her “it’s my life” comment in the season five finale, it
was the harsh truth in her mind at that moment.
To her, Castle may not have been invested enough in wanting a future
with her to warrant him being a part of that decision. If he wasn’t planning on being part of her
future, why should she put her career on hold for him? So yes, without any sign that Castle wanted
to commit to a future with her in any way, shape, or form, Beckett felt that
this was her life and her decision to make.
Of course, their massive blowout over this didn’t help
matters any but it was a tough one to watch because they were both right from
where they stood. As the audience, we
have to remember that we’re privy to things that not all of the characters are
privy to. So to look at the situation
from the separate viewpoints of Castle and Beckett, we have to leave behind
what we know and just focus on what they individually know. To Castle, Beckett is considering taking a
job in another state, away from him and away from her life, perhaps a sign to
him that she’s been scared off by something and this is her way of running away
from something, maybe even him. But to
Beckett, Castle doesn’t seem to be committed to a future with her and she has
no idea where their relationship is even going.
Is he just having fun with her for now?
Does he ever want to get married again?
Will he eventually get bored of her and leave her as she probably
believes he did with his former wives (since she doesn’t know the whole story
at all)? So she’s presented with the
opportunity of a lifetime to advance her career in a massive way and she was
seriously considering it. She didn’t
seek it out, she didn’t go looking for it, but life throws us choices sometimes
and it’s hard to know sometimes if an opportunity like this will change your
life for the better or for the worse.
Ultimately, “Watershed” is an emotional rollercoaster ride
that sets the stage for Beckett to make this choice on her own, seemingly
having to choose between her relationship with Castle and her career, and she
goes to her sounding boards for advice, first from Lanie and then from her
father. While both seem to agree that
this is a choice she needs to make and that she needs to sort out where her
heart really is and what she really wants for her life, there’s also a bit of a
hint that she may be choosing the job over Castle because she feels terrified
that if she chooses Castle and he doesn’t choose her back, she will resent him
for the rest of her life and will kick herself for not pursuing her career
ambitions instead.
Likewise, Castle goes to Martha for advice, and again we’re
led down the path that perhaps Castle himself doubts whether or not he is truly
committed to this relationship with Beckett, even Martha, who has always been
supportive of the two of them being together, seems to pose that question to
him and asks him whether he’s not just lying to himself about this relationship
working out.
But the brilliant thing about all of this is that the two
end up feeling so lost without each other and so thrown for a loop about
everything. Beckett has come to the
conclusion that she’s ready to move forward with her life, with or without
Castle, so she secretly takes the job without us knowing yet. We know she made the call but we don’t yet
know her decision. We’ll never truly
know if she had planned on telling Castle that she was leaving for DC but that
she wanted to try to make their relationship work even with the distance
between them or if she would have told him that as much as she loved him, she
needed to do this for herself first and gave him the option to either hang in
there with her or wave goodbye to her for good.
I believe the former, that she had come to the very much correct
conclusion that she shouldn’t have to choose between her relationship and her
work because she could at least try to maintain both, provided that Castle was
on board for that.
Meanwhile, Castle had been thinking about what his mother
had said to him but instead of coming to the conclusion that what she said was
true, he actually found that what she said was so far from the truth that it
pushed him to realize that he was ready to take that next step with Beckett,
even if she was going to take the job in DC.
Had Martha said those words to him about Meredith or Gina before their
marriages, he probably would have run the other way as he realized she was
right. But Kate was different and Castle
wasn’t holding back because he was afraid things wouldn’t work out. Rather, he was maybe just holding back
because he knew things would work out this time but he was afraid of pushing too
far too fast with Kate, who had been known to have one foot out of the door in
her previous relationships. But he had
decided that he would stand by his woman, allow Kate to make whatever decision
she needed to make for her career and for her life in that sense, but that he
would make sure she knew that he was in this for the long haul and that he
would go wherever she wanted to go in life, by her side every step of the way.
So “Watershed” ended with this sense that the worst could
potentially be on its way, Castle and Beckett agreeing to meet to talk at the
swingset that had ultimately changed their lives. It was a fitting setting, the place where
Kate had first told Castle that she wanted to be with him, albeit through
subtext that he didn’t quite understand, and the place where Kate also came to
realize that her life meant nothing without Castle in it, the place where she
decided to lay it all out on the line to be with him. So too, was it now the place where Castle was
ready to lay it all out on the line to be with her, no matter what she had
decided to do about the job. It was
truly a fantastic scene, and even someone like me who always believed with
certainty that they would stay together no matter what felt the heartbreak of
the way the scene was set up. It wasn’t
that I really believed Castle was going to break up with Beckett, not at all,
rather just that it was gutwrenching to see how she believed that’s what was
going on. Of course, it made it all the
more special and heartwarming when Castle spun around onto one knee, pulled out
that gorgeous diamond ring, and asked a very shocked Kate Beckett to marry him.
PART FOUR
03-18-2015
So this may come as not much of a shock but this original
“two-part” article on the evolution of Castle and Beckett has now become a
five-part series instead. Once again, as
I wrote my thoughts on season six, I came to realize that it would be
impossible to skip through these details and not give the entire season the
in-depth look that it deserved. A lot
happened in season six, especially through a few really character-driven
pockets of the season, and I wound up with a lot to comment on in terms of the
growth of these two characters during this season. So in an effort not to skip through too much
and give season six its place in the spotlight that it should have, I’ve opted
to focus Part Four of this series of musings on this season alone. I’ll finish it all off with a look at season
seven in Part Five, which I hope to complete later this week.
And yes, I know this is a long thing to read so if you want
to bail now, I won’t hold it against you.
But you don’t have to point out how long it is to me as I’m well aware
of it’s length, especially considering I’m the one who sat here and wrote
it. Lol.
So I apologize to anyone who doesn’t like lengthy articles and I hope
the rest of you enjoy it in all of its wordy glory.
Season five ended with Castle proposing to Beckett and this
led to perhaps the most active summer hiatus for the fans as speculation waged
on for four months as to what Kate’s answer would be and what her decision
regarding the DC job offer would be. It
was something that kept the viewers engaged and debating for the entire hiatus,
which is not only an incredible thing to have experienced as a fan as it
increased the anticipation for the season six premiere, but it was also a
really great example of why ending a season with such an interesting
cliffhanger ending is a prime tool for storytellers on television. Nobody’s life was hanging in the balance,
there was no question that Castle and Beckett would be together, and there was
no great mystery to be solved, yet this simple and emotional ending kept the
fans guessing, speculating, theorizing, and debating about what would happen
next for four months. It was a brilliant
twist in the story, one that kept the attention squarely on the show throughout
its downtime.
It was also a great example of how one can get caught up in
their own emotional response to an episode that they lose sight of exactly
where the story could go from there. I
feel no shame in admitting that I was not convinced that this proposal was the
right thing for Castle and Beckett and that I questioned how it would all pan
out. I felt, at the time, that it was
wrong for Castle to propose to Beckett as a means of asking her to stay in New
York with him, that the moment itself wasn’t right for them in that a proposal
is a once in a lifetime moment for a couple that should be special and
memorable and nothing about this proposal, to me, fit that bill
whatsoever. I felt that this moment for
them should have been a joyful one, prompted by sheer love and a desire to
commit to one another for the right reasons and I was left that summer
believing that it was, instead, something prompted by fear and that neither
Castle nor Beckett seemed all that joyful about it because of their current
situation. For most of the hiatus, I
firmly believed that Kate couldn’t accept this proposal, that she would tell
Rick that the timing wasn’t right and that as much as she loved him and wanted
to share her life with him, she didn’t want him to make that commitment out of
the fear of losing her. But for all of
the reasons that I believed that had to be the outcome we’d see in the season
six premiere, I was happily proven wrong.
After all, the continuation of that scene when “Valkyrie”
began gave me everything I had felt was missing about the beginning of that
proposal back in “Watershed”. And as
much as I loved the deeply emotional journey that “Watershed” had taken us on,
I was thrilled to see that the continuation of the proposal gave us the great
combination of comedy, romance, and heartfelt drama that hadn’t been able to be
there to make that cliffhanger ending really work. I loved Kate calling Rick out for proposing
to her after making her believe he was going to break up with her, as well as
Rick being completely oblivious to how his stark seriousness must have come
across to her. The two shared this great
exchange of dialogue in that opening scene, moving through their usual banter
and challenging words into such heartfelt words of love and joy as they both
told the other that they wanted nothing more than to be with each other for the
rest of their lives. It was a beautiful
scene and it was perfect to see Beckett come clean to Castle about her taking
the job offer and why she took it while he proved to be nothing but
understanding and supportive of her. It
was affirmation to both Kate and to the audience (myself included) that his
decision to propose to her wasn’t due to his fear of losing her or as a means
of convincing her to stay in New York, rather because he meant every word of it
and couldn’t live without her, even if it meant living apart while they sorted
out the logistics of her working in DC while he stayed back with his family and
his writing obligations in New York.
I felt the DC arc worked really well because it challenged
Castle and Beckett’s relationship at a time where they were perhaps more secure
in their relationship than ever before.
There were no doubts, no questions as to how they could make this work, and
no fears that they would fail miserably at being an engaged couple. Rather, they were committed to making it
work, they did everything they could to maintain their long-distance
relationship and make time for one another (even if it was only through phone
calls for a number of weeks), and they were both supportive of each other’s own
individual pursuits, something that was a challenge they overcame with
ease. After all, Castle was out there
promoting his new novel while Beckett delved deep into her training as a
federal agent, and despite their separation and the strain that had to have put
on actually enjoying their newfound engagement, neither asked the other to
change their lives and their personal commitments to make things “easier”.
But it also changed things up for Castle and Beckett and
gave the show a new angle to explore their professional relationship. After all, Castle was no longer Beckett’s
partner and Beckett was out there trying to prove herself and prove that she
was fully capable of being a great investigator without Castle helping her
out. So it changed their situation and
put them in a position where they were a couple and only a couple now,
struggling to deal with the very real change in their lives that prevented them
from seeing each other all day and all night as they were so used to. Anytime a story shifts the setting and
circumstances for its characters, it always leads to great things and I felt
the DC arc did exactly that. It made
Castle and Beckett better appreciate what they had together, both
professionally and personally and it also allowed Kate to really take stock of
what she would have to become in order to be a great agent, pushing her own
morals and values aside to do the job as expected.
When Beckett’s job as a fed came to an end and she wasn’t
exactly welcomed back to the NYPD right away, it was another shift for the
couple, especially when Castle was called in to help on the case in “Number One
Fan”. Now we got to see Castle take the
lead in an investigation, using his keen insights and trustworthy charms to
solve the crime and clear the name of an innocent woman while also diffusing a
potentially fatal hostage situation.
Meanwhile, Beckett could do nothing to protect him, forced to stand on
the sidelines and trust his judgement while doing whatever she could to help
him from the outside. Her concern was
obvious, as was her love for him, and when all was said and done, the two were
stronger than ever and showing how great they would truly be as a married
couple soon enough.
As the season continued, we saw Castle go through some very
difficult growing pains with Alexis, his daughter clearly rebelling and lashing
out at her father perhaps because he had made this life-changing decision to
welcome Kate into their family without even telling her about it himself. While there were fans who disliked seeing
this side to Alexis and still hold onto those changed opinions of her even
today, I thought it was an interesting thing to see Alexis grow into more of a
typical younger woman and actually acting her age for a change. We hadn’t seen her rebel much before, though
there were hints of it here and there, and we hadn’t seen her truly lash out at
her father’s relationship the way that a lot of kids do in that situation, so it
was rather refreshing, to me at least, to see her experiencing and going
through the things that most young women her age or most single-parent children
would experience in her given situation.
It also made for some great drama between Alexis and Castle,
something that was resolved quickly enough and added even more depth to their
relationship when all was said and done.
It also gave Kate a chance to be Castle’s sounding board again when it
came to Alexis, something that was always such a strong part of their bond as
Kate had always been able to help Castle understand his daughter from a woman’s
perspective through Kate and it did a lot to improve his already remarkable
skills of being a great father to her.
And, eventually, it seemed to also give Alexis and Kate a chance to come
together through their own individual love for Castle.
As the first half of the season ended, fans got to see
Castle and Beckett exploring the realm of what they would potentially be like
as parents. “The Good, The Bad, And The
Baby” was perhaps one of the most pivotal episodes in terms of their
relationship in that first half of the season, especially once the DC arc had
been wrapped up. It allowed the two to
broach the subject of whether or not they each wanted to have children
together, a subject that had been briefly and very subtly hinted at in past
episodes, including “Time Will Tell” from this same season, but it also
afforded them the opportunity to put themselves in that parent-like situation
of taking care of baby Cosmo for a few days during their investigation. Not only was this a brilliant way for the
writers to have Castle and Beckett playing the role of parents with an adorable
baby, something fans were cheering for ever since the “little Castle babies”
comment was delivered by Maddie in season two’s “Food To Die For”, all without
actually having to take Castle and Beckett fully into the world of being
parents for keeps, but it also gave both of the characters a chance to see
themselves and each other in those roles.
For Castle, it had been a long time since he had taken care of a baby
but he immediately reveled in it, something that was so endearing for Beckett
to get to see for herself. Meanwhile,
the self-professed “I’m not exactly a baby person” Kate found herself in a
hilariously challenging situation as she tried to play mamma for a day to baby
Cosmo. And while she had her initial
moments of failure (holding him awkwardly like he was a ticking time bomb), she
quickly took to it and proved that she was a natural when it came to
motherhood. Again, this was something
that Castle saw as incredibly endearing in her, clearly seeing her as the
future mother of his children in a big way.
But more than anything, it was the teamwork between these two and their
way of working perfectly together to take on this challenge, along with the
exhaustion they felt afterward, that was the truly spectacular and beautiful
part of this story. It affirmed, even
more than ever, that they really were the perfect team, the perfect couple, and
that they could achieve anything and overcome anything as long as they were
together.
The second half of season six continued to push the couple
through the stages of planning their wedding, something that was always
interesting in that it never really felt as though either wanted to plan a big
wedding and yet that’s exactly what they almost ended up having. It kind of made it even more justified, to me
at least, that their big, fancy wedding didn’t happen and that their eventual
nuptials ended up being the most quiet, intimate, and family-driven moment that
they had always wanted it to be anyway.
But the second half of the season was also about bringing them closer
together, helping them to learn more about each other and experience more
facets of their life together and as individuals. Castle having his father resurface was one
such example, something that forced him to come to terms with his true feelings
about his dad while it also affirmed how much of a family man he was himself
and how much he wanted Kate by his side and his mother and daughter there with
them.
Meanwhile, Kate had some ghosts from the past to deal with
as well when she was starkly reminded of the fact that her mother wasn’t around
to share these wedding moments with. As
hideous as that dress was from “Dressed To Kill” (an episode where Castle also
got to learn about Kate’s past as a model), that moment between Kate and
Matilda was so beautiful and so heartbreaking at the same time as Kate finally
realized how much it pained her to not have her own mother there to share all
of this with. She was the happiest she
had ever been in her life and yet she didn’t have her mother there to revel in
that with her. I always felt this was a
really interesting element to their storyline because it was so right for
Kate’s character and added that challenge for her between being so thrilled to
plan her wedding and yet also so reserved about it, almost as if she’d rather
not go through all of those normal moments if she couldn’t share them with her
mother, again justifying why a simple and intimate wedding would have made her
more comfortable. But it also set the
stage perfectly for that scene between Martha and Kate in the finale as it gave
Martha the chance to be there as a mother to her, showcasing the fact that even
though Johanna was no longer there to take care of her and share in her
happiness, she had now found Martha who would happily take on that role and
give her a mother-daughter relationship that she hadn’t had in such a long
time.
The scene at the end of “Dressed To Kill” between Castle and
Beckett was also a beautiful scene as Kate opened up to Rick about how the loss
of her mother was truly weighing on her while they were planning her
wedding. And when she came to terms with
all of that, with Castle’s help, of course, it was such a great moment for her
to tell him how much her mother would have loved Castle, something that clearly
meant the world to him to hear as well.
After that, we saw Castle and Rick relive their high school
years in “Smells Like Teen Spirit”, an episode I really truly enjoyed because
it opened them up to talk more about their own pasts and what kind of teenagers
they were. Those moments are always
great because they helps us to see how far they’ve come as individuals while
also giving us some really great stories about their childhoods. I loved that Kate and Rick had both not
experienced their own high school proms, something they both seemed bothered by
even to this day, thus they were able to share this really great and joyful
moment together at the dance at the end of the episode, a twist of fate that
gave them an even stronger memory than they could have possibly had of their
own high school prom. It was a beautiful
little expression of how in love they were and I loved that Rick showed his romantic
(and brilliant-minded) self in that moment, not only giving Kate the perfect
prom moment and giving them their very own song, but also showing that he would
do anything to make her happy.
There were two great lines in this episode that spoke volumes
about the depths of their love and their joy.
First was during their toast halfway through the episode as they
lamented about their missing their proms and Castle proposed they toast to the
things they had missed out on while Kate added, “and to those we didn’t”, a
beautifully-delivered line that showcased just how much they had brought to
each other’s lives and how much they were able to give each other over the
years and in their years to come. The
other was during their dance when Kate asked Castle if he regretted missing his
prom and he replied, “Everything I’ve ever done, every choice I’ve ever made,
every terrible or wonderful thing that’s ever happened to me, it’s all led me
to right here, this moment with you.”
That, my friends, is the very definition of love and believing that no
matter what happens to us along the way, fate will bring us where we need to
be. Fate has always played a big role in
Castle and Beckett’s relationship and I loved Castle bringing attention to that
in this way and essentially saying that any pain or sorrow he had been forced
to go through in his life was worth it because it led to him meeting Kate and
being given all of the love and joy and bliss that he could have ever needed.
But their happiness and joy was about to be put to the
ultimate test in “In The Belly Of The Beast” when Kate opted to go on a very
dangerous undercover mission, only to have her cover blown in the worst
possible way when she came face to face with the target of the investigation
who turned out to be none other than Vulcan Simmons. I still remember, very vividly, watching the
screener for this episode and having my heart absolutely sink when that
revelation came out in the episode.
Seeing it before any of the spoiler articles had come out left me
relatively “spree” for the episode and while I suspected that Bracken would
somehow be tied in to all of this, I certainly hadn’t expected that moment in
the episode to go the way it did. But
it’s the power of a well-told story as even when we think we know what’s coming
or when we feel we’re prepared, it can suck us in and make us forget about
everything else, allowing us to be shocked when the truth we should have seen
coming does come to pass.
Anyway, this episode did a fantastic job of not only pushing
Beckett to her emotional, physical, spiritual, and mental limits, forcing her
to show more strength, more character, and more bravery than we had ever seen
before, but it also pushed Castle to his limits as well as he struggled
desperately to find the love of his life and save her from the danger he knew
she was in. I kind of really loved that
it wasn’t Castle or the team who saved her, rather that it was Bracken repaying
his favour to Kate, bringing his promise to repay her for saving his life (more
than a year before that) full-circle.
Perhaps proof that no detail is forgotten and every seed that’s been
planted will bloom when the writers feel the time is right?
And that scene with Beckett writing her goodbye letter to
Castle was beyond emotional, again a prime example of how deep their love had
become as despite her life being in danger and her time to forge a plan being
limited, she opted to take the time to make sure that she left something behind
for Castle, something that would hopefully let him know how much she loved him,
how much he had changed her life, and how truly incredible he was as a man, a
partner, a father, and a fiancé, and how incredible he would have been as her
husband as well. If she never got the
chance to say goodbye to him, she at least needed to leave this letter for him,
hoping it would give him the peace of mind and solace to know that she left
this earth loving him more than she ever thought possible. And when she survived and the two were
reunited, she made sure that he knew that it was him and his love for her that
kept her fighting through the torture, fighting to survive and fighting to make
it back home to him. Even to think about it now actually brings tears to my
eyes because that is the very essence of loving someone to the depths that
these two love each other. And if anyone
ever wonders again why I felt that this episode was only of the best of the
series, even more so than “Veritas” in some ways, that’s exactly why… even the mere thought of these moments a little
more than a year later has the ability to hit a chord within me. It’s the emotional impact of this episode,
the sheer power in such short but brilliant moments, that’s what will forever
stand out in my mind as one of the very most incredible episodes of Castle.
Following this, we had a string of really great episodes
ranging through many different genres and tones, all of which had wonderful
moments and a lot of fantastic storytelling.
And there were a lot of crucial wedding details being hashed out, again
pointing towards the fact that they were making a huge mistake having a big
wedding when all they really wanted was a private, intimate wedding between
them and perhaps with a few family members around as well.
But the next episode that really pushed Castle and Beckett
into new territory in their evolution together was “Veritas”, again one of the
very best episodes of the entire series and one that would truly change
everything and pave the way for past foreshadowing to once again prove to come
true.
For me, “Veritas” was the perfect episode to have at this
point in the season because Beckett had told Castle in “Rise” that she didn’t
feel she could have the kind of relationship she wanted without first finding
closure for herself in regards to mother’s death. While she had already accepted that she may
not get that opportunity for a while and she had opted to forge ahead in her
relationship with Castle and committed herself to making a happy and loving
life with him, it seemed incredibly fitting to have her end up with that
closure before marrying him. I loved the
way that while Castle was by her side through most of the episode and that we
found out that they had been hiding her secretly investigating the connection
between Vulcan Simmons and Senator Bracken that had been evident in “In The
Belly Of The Beast”. But I was also
really pleased that Beckett was forced at one point in the episode to face off
against Bracken on her own, a way of confronting the demons that had plagued
her for so long and pulling herself through it without Castle beside her this
time.
It was also quite fitting that in her unconscious state, it
was Captain Montgomery who ultimately led her to the truth she needed to find
to finally put Bracken away for good. It
brought that whole story full circle and showed that the truth had literally
been right in front of her for years and it was finally the right time for her
to find it and set herself free by locking up the man who murdered her
mother. That scene where she storms into
his press conference to confront him was absolutely brilliant. Here’s what I wrote about it at the time:
“In a highly moving
and climatic ending, one that certainly resonated in a profoundly touching way
after watching this emotional six-season saga unfold, Beckett finally found the
justice she had long been searching for. Armed with the evidence of Bracken’s
many crimes, including the murder of her mother, an emotionally charged Beckett
interrupted the Senator’s latest press conference, walking with the confidence
and determination that have long been the calling cards of this character, yet
also showing an awe-inspiring sense of disbelief that this moment had finally
come. Facing her mother’s killer one last time, the look on her face saying it
all before she even uttered a single word, Kate Beckett found herself able to
do the one thing she had been dreaming of for well over a decade; she placed a
set of handcuffs on her mother’s killer, finding the ultimate justice for her
family and freeing herself of the demons of her past.
As the hour
concluded, Castle and Beckett shared one final memorable moment together, with
Castle telling Beckett how proud her mother would be of her and Beckett telling
Castle that she never could have done any of this without him. Without any more
words needing to be spoken, the two shared a loving embrace, both beaming with
the pride and joy of finally ending this ordeal together. Perhaps there could
have been no more perfect an ending to this lead-in to next week’s highly
anticipated season finale, allowing Castle and Beckett to exchange their
wedding vows with that final piece of the wall inside of Beckett’s heart
finally broken down. Johanna Beckett may have lived by the mantra that truth
conquers all, but her daughter has learned that one other thing does as well;
love.”
This, of course,
brought us to the season six finale, one that will likely always have fans
divided. I did write an article on this
episode and why I felt Castle’s supposed kidnapping had to happen, something I
feel very strongly that we’ll see when more about his disappearance comes to
light before this season is over. The
post is here on my blog if anyone is interested in reading my theory and my
overall thoughts on why I felt this ending may have been absolutely necessary
for the story.
I also thought it
was appropriate to have a more comedic episode following “Veritas”, even if
we’re used to having more dramatic season finales. I felt it was like we had two episodes rolled
into one as we had the “anything that can go wrong will go wrong” screwball
comedy for most of the episode and then the fairytale romance of the
pre-wedding festivities in the second part of the episode, all followed up with
one of the most intense, dramatic, and emotional cliffhanger endings we have
ever witnessed on Castle. For me, it was a truly interesting
progression for the episode, essentially giving us everything the show has to
offer but all in one hour-long episode.
And as much as some
fans may never find enjoyment in this episode because of the ruined wedding
plans and the ending that took Castle away from Beckett on the precipice of
their seemingly perfect wedding day, I have always felt that so much beauty and
brilliance was delivered in those pre-wedding scenes, scenes they couldn’t have
possibly fit in to another wedding episode without devoting an entire episode
to just the wedding itself (which I never believed we would see as it steps too
far away from the formula and dynamic of the show itself).
Look back at what we
got in those scenes leading up to the cliffhanger ending, those perfect scenes
that we had always wanted to see; Lanie and Kate sharing a precious moment
together as best friends preparing for a wedding Kate likely never thought she’d
experience and one that Lanie likely knew all along would come to pass. Kate wearing her mother’s wedding dress, the
perfect choice for her and the perfect way to invite Johanna’s spirit into the
biggest day of her life. And, of course,
Martha welcoming Kate into the family in a scene that brought these two
together in such a moving way. Martha
was the mother Kate hadn’t had for her entire adult life while Kate was the
daughter Martha never had. Now they were
both able to complete that family circle for one another, all because they
loved Castle with all of their hearts and both had so much respect for
that. I loved that Martha was handing
down a family heirloom to Kate, something Kate will one day hand down to Alexis
as well, a sign that she was very much a daughter to Martha. It was also a scene, as I mentioned earlier,
that gave Kate that motherly figure to stand beside her on her wedding day,
something that likely made it easier to deal with the pain of not having her
own mother there with her to share her happiness with. These were scenes that we had always wanted
to see and they were perfectly delivered, even if the actual wedding was about
to be halted in a devastating way. These
were the moments of sheer joy that came before the storm and they were worth
every second of the heartbreak we were about to experience. Besides, as I’ve said before, no story worth
telling is told without heartbreak or suffering or conflict. It’s those moments of hitting the bottom that
make the climb back up worth watching.
Success doesn’t feel as good without being sprung from failure. Joy isn’t as strong when it doesn’t follow
pain. And love isn’t quite the same if
you haven’t felt some heartbreak first to make you better appreciate it.
With that said,
here’s what I wrote at the time about that cliffhanger ending:
“When Castle called
on his way back from the city with their marriage license, the absolute love
and happiness shared by he and Beckett simply radiated through the screen, a
testament to the sheer chemistry between Katic and Fillion as the two were able
to embody everything that one shows and feels when they are in love, even when
they were not in the same room together.
But there was an almost foreboding sense about it all, with the clock
ticking down on the final minutes of the season and the shadow of Castle’s
previous words to Beckett hanging over them despite the perfect weather in the
Hamptons; without obstacles, a story is not worth telling. After professing
their love for one another one last time this season, Castle hung up and looked
back in his mirror to find someone tailing him in a dark SUV, the vehicle soon
pulling up beside him and threatening to run him off of the road. Meanwhile,
back in the Hamptons, a clearly worried Beckett answered her phone and got the
news she could have never been expecting; something had happened to Castle on
the way to their wedding.
Draped in her
stunning white wedding gown, Beckett raced down the road that Castle had been
on, her worst fears coming true as she came upon the most devastating scene she
could have ever imagined. With tears streaming down her face, she looked down
over the barrier of the road at Castle’s car, the flaming inferno inside a
horrific sign that on what should have been the happiest day of her life, she
may instead be facing the most heartbreaking loss instead.
With that, the
credits rolled for the final time this season, the Castle team delivering perhaps the most brilliantly stunning and
emotional cliffhanger ever witnessed on network television. And while it should
be clear that Castle certainly had to have survived the crash, just as it was
clear at the end of the also extremely shocking season three finale that
Beckett would survive her near-fatal shooting, the mystery of who ran Castle
off of the road and why, along with how he and Beckett will overcome this
latest obstacle, will surely keep the audience speculating through the long
summer hiatus. But with this stunning and heartbreakingly devastating conclusion
comes the reminder that their love story is far from over and that this hurdle
is just one more reason why their story is worth telling. They will get their
happy ending, believe in that. But this is not the end yet, it is just another
chapter in their incredible love story.”
This is the fifth and final installment in my “The Evolution of Castle
and Beckett” series of musings as we take a look at the first half of season
seven. While the
season was touted as being one that would further explore the titular
character, I’ve never felt that season seven was as “Castle-centric” as others
assumed it would be. In fact, I agree that it’s explored his character much
more than normal but it’s done so in a way that also explored the character
through his interactions and relationships with the other characters, most
notably with Beckett, thus I have felt that this was a major season in terms of
the evolution of these two characters and their love story.
We began the season with a fantastic two-parter of sorts
with “Driven” and then “Montreal”, two episodes that did well to explore the
mystery surrounding Castle’s supposed kidnapping while on his way to his
wedding to Beckett. I’ve always felt that there was a greater purpose to his
disappearance and, more importantly, the timing of it. I wrote a bit of a theory
on that in a previous article on this blog but I still feel strongly that we’ll
have those questions addressed and answered before season seven has concluded.
These first two episodes were a stunning way to start the
new season, with Castle missing and Beckett frantically searching for the love
of her life. The opening scene of the season in “Driven” was one of the most
powerful and emotional scenes we’ve ever seen, both in its strong visuals of
Beckett desperately running into the ravine to search Castle’s car, now roaring
in flames, terrified of the idea that she may find her fiancé dead inside of
the wreck. It was heartbreaking to see her foiled in her attempts to get close
enough to examine the car, the flames licking her hands and preventing her from
getting the answers she so desperately needed. And just when she seemed to lose
all hope, the water from the firefighters’ hoses came raining down upon her,
washing away the flames and giving her a path to the truth, allowing her to
look into the car to find that Castle was gone. With this new hope glowing
within her, Beckett jumped immediately into detective mode, working feverishly
to find any clues as to where Castle could have gone.
While her search would take two months, time that weighed
heavily on her as she had no answers whatsoever as to where Castle was or if he
was even still alive, she forged on as best she could, showing us once again
how incredibly strong she is. And even when evidence surfaced that seemed to
point towards Castle being involved in possibly faking his death and running
out on her, Beckett did as well as she could to look past that evidence and
remember Castle’s own mantra that there was always a story behind everything.
While she couldn’t possibly know what the story was behind his disappearance,
and while she wavered at times in her belief that the evidence was pointing at
the wrong thing entirely, she ultimately believed he was innocent and found
some solace in knowing that he was at least alive and out there somewhere.
When he was eventually found, she was understandably a
little hesitant to welcome him back with open arms, still incredibly confused
about the evidence that she had uncovered while he was gone, but those moments
before he woke up said it all to me; she was thrilled that he was alive and had
come home, and she wanted nothing more than to be by his side when he opened
his eyes. But she’s someone who has had it ingrained in her mind that the
evidence rarely lies, so she was understandably a bit hesitant to give in to her
relief and her happiness that he was home, if only because there were so many
questions left unanswered and his reaction when he woke up made even me suspect
that maybe he wasn’t telling her the truth and was hiding something. While we
would quickly learn that this wasn’t the case at all, that he truly didn’t
remember what had happened to him, it was clear to me why Beckett would be a
bit hesitant to just move ahead as if nothing had happened.
But as soon as Castle found out about the evidence that she and
the guys had found, he immediately sprung into action to discover the full
story himself, something that soon made Beckett stand by him and believe in his
side of the story, knowing that not remembering what had happened to him and
what he had done while he was gone was weighing heavily on him and knowing that
she needed to work with him as they had done so many times before to find the
truth and set them both free from this ordeal.
What I found most interesting about the truth emerging that
Castle had asked to have his memory erased was that it seemed to be a rather
extreme measure for someone like him. After all, Castle has based his entire
life on discovering the story, of learning the truth behind everything, and his
innate desire to find the story would have made his decision to erase his
memory of his time away even more difficult. He had to have known that it would
torture him every day to not be able to remember what had happened to him and
why, never knowing the truth and the story behind it, so there had to be a very
good reason for him to sacrifice that part of himself. To me, he had to have
made that decision because it was the only way he could return home to Beckett
and perhaps protect her from the truth as well. To me, that is the ultimate sacrifice
that he could make, pushing aside his own innate need for the truth and the
story in order to be with Beckett and move forward with their lives together.
It was also interesting that Castle turned to Beckett for
advice on how to move forward upon his return, how to get back to being them
and forget about what had happened to him. He knew that so much of Beckett’s
life had been focused on finding out the truth about her mother’s death and so
he wanted to know how she would have felt not knowing, but Kate was quick to
point out that their situations were entirely different because he was the one
who chose to forget and never know the truth, suggesting that maybe he needed
to trust in his decision. Of course, it was obvious that while the two would move
ahead with their lives and get back to living their lives again, Castle would
never truly be able to handle not knowing what had happened to him and why he
asked to forget the truth.
Even still, moving on is exactly what they did. “Clear and
Present Danger” was an episode that truly got Castle and Beckett back to being
themselves again, putting their recent ordeal behind them and moving on to find
their own sense of normalcy again. They were back and better than ever,
engaging in their flirty banter, their challenging of each other, and their
mind-melding theory-building, and they even worked to get back to normal in
terms of their romance as well, admitting that they had kept their own desires
in check since Castle returned because they believed the other needed more time
and space than they really did. It was quite wonderful to see them get back to
being themselves and to take steps towards finding that solid ground again that
they could only find in each other.
“Time Of Our Lives” was, in my opinion, such a beautiful
episode, not only because it found Castle and Beckett finally exchanging
wedding vows in what turned out to be the most intimate and meaningful wedding
ceremony they could have ever had, much more fitting than the large-scale
ceremony they would have had at the end of season six had Castle not
disappeared, but it was also a great look at how their lives would have been
had they never met. I loved this idea, looking at who Castle and Beckett would
have ended up becoming had they never met each other and been so inspired and
affected by one another. I thought it was really great that Castle admitted
that he had been thinking he wasn’t good enough for Beckett and that she
deserved better, never really understanding that he was everything she could
ever want and need and she deserved every bit of love and happiness that only
he could give her. This episode was a brilliant bit of a journey for Castle to
make him understand that and come to terms with that in order to move forward
and take the step needed to cement their commitment to one another. And I loved
that we got this great sense throughout that episode that even if Beckett and
Castle had never met previously in this alternate universe, there certainly was
that pull between them and had that AU story continued, it was evident that
they would have found their way to be together in that reality as well because
they were always fated to do so. I thought that was a really strong element to
the episode because fate has always been a big part of their story and it was
perfect to see those signs that nothing would ever keep these two apart in any
world or any reality they existed in.
But it was the end of this episode that really pushed these
two character forward in their relationship. Despite saying that they should
take some time to get back to normal before even considering taking another
chance at getting married, Castle’s AU experience forced him to see that he
didn’t want to waste another second not being her husband. Regardless of
whatever time and space they may have believed they needed, and regardless of
any curse they may have felt was hanging over their nuptials, none of it
mattered in the end because all they wanted and needed was each other, thus
getting married was the right step to take. So with Castle proposing to Beckett
for the second time and a delighted Beckett agreeing to just go for it and not
look back, the two were wed in a very intimate and private ceremony in the
Hamptons, with just their immediate family there. While some fans were upset
that their friends weren’t with them, I found it appropriate in that they had
always said that they didn’t need anyone else there to witness their nuptials
aside from each other. It also allowed for some really great moments in the
following episode and it made the ceremony so much more intimate and delicate,
more about Castle and Beckett than a celebration amongst their loved ones. I
would have been happy had they been there entirely on their own with the
justice of the peace but I did think it was sensible that they would have at
least had Martha, Alexis, and Jim there to witness the joining of their
families.
I thought it was the perfect wedding for them, putting the
focus entirely on the couple and nothing else, allowing us to join them so intimately
as they exchanged the most beautiful and meaningful vows possible and were even
invited to seeing their “perfect” dance together to celebrate their marriage.
This, for me, was the culmination of their love story, the perfect ending to
their journey towards this moment and the perfect start of the rest of their
lives together. And, to be perfectly honest, I think it was even more
meaningful because of what had happened to prevent them from getting married
months before that, so for me it made it completely justify Castle’s
disappearance because this, to me, was the wedding they should have always had.
Plus, how much more did their vows mean when they pledged to be true to each
other until death do they part when, really, they both knew what it felt like
to lose one another to a near-death experience? From my point of view, that has
always been something that the Castle
team has done well, putting these characters through experiences that lead to
their bond being stronger than before and giving them more to value in what
they share together by forcing them to nearly lose that altogether. Timing is
everything when it comes to telling a meaningful and powerful story and their
timing has always been right, even when it’s seemed to us to be wrong, if that makes
sense.
From here, we moved on to their honeymoon episode, which I
thought was a fantastic way of not only introducing Castle’s disappearance
again in that they weren’t able to take time off for an actual honeymoon
because Beckett has used all of her vacation time to try to find him, but it
was also a great way of getting them out of the precinct and into a different
setting, something that always allows Castle and Beckett to show new sides to
them and be able to be slightly less professional. In the same way that this
was true in “Murder, He Wrote” when they spent time together in the Hamptons,
even while working on a case there, so too was it in “Once Upon A Time In The
West” that Castle and Beckett were able to balance working their case with
enjoying personal time together, and it was the perfect idea to have them
“posing” as newlyweds when they actually were newlyweds. It was that
work-imitating-life sort of concept that we’ve seen so often yet it allowed us
to be there with Castle and Beckett through their makeshift honeymoon, which
was both hilarious and romantic at times, exactly what it should hav been for
them.
I know some fans may long to see these two in a strictly
personal situation for an entire episode and would have loved to see a
full-fledged honeymoon with these two escaping to a tropical paradise together,
as I’ve heard of plenty of fanfics that were based on that concept. But to me,
as usual, I’d really rather prefer not to delve into that type of story on this
show because it’s so far removed from the premise altogether and doing that
even once will change the way we see the show. For me, it’s always been about
their professional relationship as it relates to their personal relationship so
having no case or no mystery whatsoever to solve and focusing entirely on a
personal storyline isn’t the way I’d want to see them go at any point. That was why I was always okay with not
having a full hour-long episode detailing their wedding, rather leaving it until
the final act after an interesting case where we got to see them exploring that
professional relationship and having it pave the way to taking the next step in
their personal relationship as well. In
my point of view, these two elements must go hand-in-hand for the show to
maintain its original premise and its consistent focus. And I think the Castle team has done well in the past
few seasons since getting Castle and Beckett together as a couple of showing
their domestic sides and showing their home life together with great balance to
their working together as well. For me, “Once Upon A Time In The West” was a
perfect example of that, balancing Castle and Beckett’s rather interesting
honeymoon experience with them working together to solve a case.
I also loved that we started to see more growth here between
these two, particularly in how they adjusted so easily to married life because
they’ve always sort of acted like a married couple, only now their banter and
playfulness had an entirely more intimate side to it where the teasing and the
challenging and pushing one another as an unintentional act of foreplay had
become very much intentional instead. And look at how well Castle has started
to truly understand how to use his wife’s morals and her drive to find justice
as a means of getting her to agree with his plans for their western honeymoon.
That’s very true to life, couples finding ways of really getting through to the
other by appealing to their beliefs and their motivations in order to try to
find a compromise that will make both partners happy. In this case, Castle knew
Beckett would be motivated to solve the case and get justice for their victim,
so when their case hit a border-crossing roadblock, he knew exactly how to
convince Beckett to go along with his idea to go undercover and split their
time honeymooning and solving the case. It was a win-win situation and he knew
exactly how to achieve that end.
We’ve already seen a softer side to Beckett throughout the
years, something I would definitely attribute to Castle’s influence and just her
wanting to soften up and show him that she could be playful and carefree and
fun as much as she could be driven and dedicated and serious. Both found things
within the other that brought out sides of themselves that they had kept
relatively hidden for years before they met and their evolution is one where we
can see them becoming more complete as individuals and also as a couple and as
partners because of their influence over one another. It’s the perfect example
of what love can achieve when it brings two people together and allows them to
learn and grow because of each other. Perhaps that’s why they say that
opposites attract, because two vastly similar people really can’t learn as much
and grow as much together as two people with plenty of fundamental differences,
such as Castle and Beckett, would be able to. We see a bit of that in this
episode as well, especially with Beckett, as she clearly isn’t a western kind
of gal early on but quickly adapts and learns to love the atmosphere just as
much as Castle does, all because she’s forced to see the beauty in that
lifestyle and experiences it with someone she loves who teaches her to
appreciate it.
Let’s skip ahead to “Last Action Hero”, which was an episode
that I was surprisingly impressed with. Sometimes the premise of an episode or
what we’ve given in press releases and spoilers doesn’t have me very excited,
but I’ve found more often than not this season, it’s been those episodes that I
was less than enthusiastic about that have proven to be truly surprising to me,
and this was definitely one of them. I loved Castle and Beckett settling into
their roles as husband and wife (and since I didn’t say this earlier, I still
love the line where Castle calls Beckett “Mrs. Castle” and Beckett doesn’t even
bat an eye or use any sarcasm whatsoever in returning his comment by calling
him “Mr. Beckett”) and I loved seeing Castle showing respect for his new role
by asking Beckett for permission when he wants to go and hang out with the
action star crowd. But the surprising part of this episode, for me, was how
deeply personal it got when they explored the storyline of Beckett letting her
apartment go for good. It was moving and
emotional and I loved every bit of it, from Castle doing the typical guy thing
of not understanding how one can be emotionally attached to a building, to
Beckett not wanting to admit to Castle that she was sad about subletting her
apartment because she didn’t want him to think that she wasn’t happy to be
making a home with him at the loft (which she was already living in pretty
permanently since he returned at the start of the season), to Beckett and Lanie
sharing a fantastically emotional scene together as they spent one last night
in the apartment, to Beckett’s very touching goodbye to her former home.
For me, this was a big thing for Beckett, as saying goodbye
to a place that held so many great memories is never easy and having that
apartment around was always sort of a fallback for Beckett if she needed some
space for herself. By letting go of it, she was showing us and Castle that she
was ready to move on with their life together and that she no longer needed
that home away from home anymore because if she wanted to escape somewhere, it
would be right to Castle’s arms that she’d run anyway. But what Lanie said was
so true, that apartment was where she started over after her previous one was
blown up, it was where she picked up the pieces of her life, where she solved
her mother’s murder, and of course where she fell in love. All of those memories existed within those
walls and something like that, a place that was home to you during the years
that truly defined who you became, that’s a tough thing to say goodbye to. But,
in the end, that apartment was nothing more than a structure, just walls and
floors and ceilings. The memories weren’t captured within them, rather they
were captured in her heart, and that’s really all that mattered as she said
goodbye to her former home and closed that door one last time. And I did rather
like that Beckett didn’t share this with Castle as much as others may have
wanted her to. Being married or being in a committed relationship of any kind
doesn’t mean that you can’t still have things that you hold near and dear to
your own heart, that you experience for yourself, and that you don’t
necessarily share with your significant other. This was something deeply
personal for Beckett, something that had nothing to do with Castle or her life
with him, and she needed to say goodbye to that home on her own, in my opinion.
After this, we came to “Bad Santa”, an episode that
certainly left us stunned as the show began its lengthy winter hiatus. It was
one of those episodes that had fans utterly torn; some loved the idea of Castle
being temporarily banned from the NYPD and were excited at the type of movement
that would mean for the story, while others were fuming over this decision and
were lamenting having to watch Castle and Beckett separated because of his
banning. But I never felt like we would see them separated and I think that was
sort of the point of exploring this storyline in the first place. After all, it
was time to throw a bit of a challenge their way, one that didn’t have to do
with Castle’s disappearance or anything that heavy in nature, rather something
that would force them to confront the type of couple they were without their
working relationship and something that would force them to find new ways of
spending time together and maintaining that dynamic without relying on their
partnership to achieve that so easily.
So I loved that Castle was banned and I thought it was
justified in that his involvement with the mob was what gave them access and an
open invitation into the bullpen at the 12th precinct, something
that also gave them access to information on the real killer and gave them the
opportunity to strike, ultimately killing him on his way to booking. That’s a
huge breach of security for a police precinct, to have one of your own
ultimately pave the way for an arrested man to be murdered on your watch and
all before he was given his right to a trial and due process and whatnot. It’s
a big hit to the justice system whether the man was scum or not, and it would
certainly have raised questions from the public and the media in regards to the
level of security and competency of the entire precinct if something like this
could so easily happen. So while Castle wasn’t the one who pulled the trigger,
he certainly gave the mob the information, access, and opportunity for them to
get the job done, and the pressure on the mayor and the D.A. would have been
incredible, enough to certainly justify needing to ban Castle from his work at
The 12th just to save face with the public and the media and assure
them that the issue was resolved and measures were taken to rectify the mistakes
that were made.
But it was also a great plot twist, not only because it
would completely throw Castle and Beckett into a whole new world for the P.I.
arc, but also because it came at a time where they were truly finding their
groove as husband and wife and nothing should ever be so joyful and
conflict-free in a well-told story. You can only allow for so much pure
happiness and bliss before you throw a conflict or a challenge their way to get
deeper into their story and really explore something new and fresh and
compelling. I thought this was a
fantastic way to approach that because it really hit Castle and Beckett at the
core of their relationship, testing how strong they really were as a couple
when they didn’t have their working partnership to provide the foundation of
their relationship that it always had. I
thought that was a really interesting change in the story and a challenge that
would make them once again appreciate how lucky they truly are and how much
their partnership meant to them even now that they were married. It also allowed the writers and the cast and
crew to explore more of the couple’s personal life, giving them less scenes
working the cases together thus more
scenes together at home or at Castle’s office or out and about anywhere other
than the precinct most of the time.
For me, I never feared that Castle’s banishment would hinder
the show whatsoever, even with a slight change in the premise or dynamic
because I always felt that Castle and Beckett would find ways to work around this
latest roadblock and that it would ultimately provide a lot of great
storytelling because of it. I believed there would be some great competition
between the two, which there was. I believed Castle and Beckett would try to
find ways to get their work to intersect so they could still somewhat work the
overall case together, which they did. I believed we’d actually see more of
them together than separated, even more so than in episodes prior to Castle’s
banishment and that’s largely how it played out over the three-episode arc. But
most of all, I felt strongly that this would bring them closer together, that
it would challenge them to find new ways to be together and would make their
time together mean even more now that they couldn’t spend every minute of the
day working their case together and then every minute of the night sharing time
together at home. I felt that it would make them better appreciate their
working relationship and how fortunate they were to be able to spend that much
time together on a daily basis because of their partnership. I felt that
perhaps they had taken that for granted over the past few years and it was time
to make them see how easily it could be taken from them, thus making them
cherish it and protect it even more that they used to.
For me, that’s what the P.I. arc promised; a new challenge
for them to overcome together, a chance for each of them to re-establish their
own individual talents as investigators, and an opportunity to really
strengthen their love and their partnership while finding a stronger
appreciation for being able to have both their marriage and their working
relationship. So I spent the winter hiatus counting down the days until we
would experience all of this for ourselves and to really see how great this storyline
would be. While I’ll talk more about this in the future and in my reviews, I will say here that the storyline
didn’t just live up to my rather high expectations but it actually exceeded
them. And season seven has only gotten better in this new year, at least as far
as I’m concerned.
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