SEASON FINALE: Castle - Walls, Watershed and at the end of the day In Marlowe I Trust

Castle is one of my favorite shows on TV right now and has been since season 1. It isn't a perfect show and it isn't breaking new ground in storytelling or plot innovation. What makes Castle a great show is that elusive chemistry. Not just between Nathan Fillion and Stana Katic or the supporting cast, but the chemistry that comes through from the show's creator Andrew Marlowe and the world Castle embodies. This show has built a story arc and characters that we've watched evolve over the last five years, sometimes at an infuriatingly slow pace, but always true to these complicated, deeply flawed people capable of great emotion. This year Andrew Marlowe and co. had the unenviable task of following up what was arguably the show's best season finale and one of their best episodes all time in "Always". 

While I think the episode was uneven, this is the first time since season 2 that the show has not closed its season somehow connected to Joanna Beckett’s murder. Taking the show 'quiet' and making this about emotional and deeply personal nuanced decisions, for both Castle and Beckett was a departure from the larger than life moments of the past. For that reason I found it to be a very satisfying end and jump off point for season 6. And truth be told, I didn’t think Andrew Marlowe would go there and the surprise of the ending was equally satisfying.

Andrew Marlowe’s obsession with the 35 minute mark of an episode

Each of the last three seasons Castle and Beckett have a critical moment of unguarded honesty. Each season it ranks among my favorite scenes. Each season Castle is storming out of Beckett’s apartment. And each time Rick is trying to reason with Kate’s myopic instincts that drive the voice in her head. This time however Rick is the one who has been betrayed. This time it was Kate, not Rick keeping a secret that will have a major impact on his life as well as her own. It was clear that the hurt and retreat Castle does in this scene isn’t about the potential job, it’s about the potential of being shut out and that another wall of Kate’s is going to erect itself. What I love about these moments is the raw willingness to not pull punches. It’s an emotionally heavy fight between two people who have no real compass for considering other people in their life decision-making.

Father/Mother Knows Best

One of this show’s greatest strengths lies in the well-defined families of our two leads. Understanding and knowing where Beckett and Castle come from informs so much of who they are individually and as a couple. Having back to back conversations with their parents gives a ‘viewers’ perspective to the show. What I mean is we see all facets of what makes these characters tick. There is information we have as an audience that the two characters do not. Using their parents as a sound board gets to this knowledge because no one knows you better than your parent. Both Martha and Jim hold a mirror up to their children forcing them to face who they are. Forcing them to consider who they want to be because ultimately that is what will determine the course of their relationship. The scenes serve as great bookends and in my opinion get to the very heart of this episodes title “Watershed”. Watershed moments are about a pivot to a new place, coming through the past to land somewhere different. I don’t believe the true watershed of this episode was Kate’s job offer, but the decision by our leads to own up to their part of this central relationship. Martha forces Rick’s hand. She cuts through his nonsense to the core of what he truly believes, not simply what he feels. Rick can’t write the ending to suit his needs in this relationship. He has to look beyond what he loves and decide if he can accept who she is. In the same token Beckett’s conversation with Jim forces her hand as well. Her pragmatic assessment of her choice and Castle’s reaction is countered by her father in a way that forces her to make a decision that isn’t embedded in fear. Because the fact is, Kate’s decision to be a cop, her hiding in her work and her keeping Castle at arms lengths are fear driven. Our choices have consequences and are rarely without collateral damage.

Me vs. We

Kate talks about the job being about her life and her decision. When Rick comes to the swings he talks about how he has made a decision. These are two people who are cut from the same emotional cloth. One that has built a level of self-reliance within them that makes it nearly impossible to consider what changes they need to make. Castle talks about “seeing things for how they really are.” Being with Kate means accepting the frustrations and moments of keeping things from him and in the episode we are left to wonder, is it too much for a man whose build his life on fiction and bravado.

For Beckett, her realization comes in the place where she is most herself, the interrogation room. The magnitude of the change she is facing and the implications hit her when she delivers the loaded statement, “how many years of your own life are you going to sacrifice for someone else’s future? Or are you ready to deal?” It’s loaded because I believe at that moment she has decided not to take the job. I think it harkens back to Roy’s “We speak for the dead, but we don’t owe them our lives”. For Kate when she got what she thought she wanted, she realized she had all she needed.

Swing Decision

The swings have served as a confessional for this couple. The truth of their emotions has always been on display there. It is the place where hope for this couple is renewed and restored. It is the only place that makes sense for Rick to propose. I realize there are a lot of conflicting opinions about this move by the writers but the more I think about it, the more I like it. Castle comes to that meet up resolved. He knows what he wants and after 5 seasons of watching this couple trip over their hesitations I think Castle’s watershed moment was wrapped up in this proposal. For a man who has built his life on shallow charm, this was a moment of great humility. Proposing before he knows her decision is pivotal. It gives us Rick realizing that he can’t change Kate, being in love doesn’t change who they are; he has to accept who she is in order to love her. That is what makes the moment so vulnerable and somber. This couple isn’t 20, and their lives have contained enough missteps and near misses that the sobriety of the moment felt earned. I appreciated Castle’s insistence on the proposal in advance of anything Beckett had to say. Not because I think he sought to trump her decision, but because he wanted her to know that her decision is hers, he respects it and it isn’t the thing that would undermine them having more. Castle talks a lot about the walls Beckett has, this moment was about Castle removing the one wall he had failed to acknowledge stood in the way of he and Beckett. For me that made the whole finale work.

Where we go next season is anyone’s guess. I would have never called Andrew Marlowe ending the season on a proposal. I know that Andrew Marlowe gave those of us who are invested in the relationships surrounding Castle a treat of a season. He gave us real payoff to the four season dance of will they or won’t they and he did so in a manner that kept the personalities of these two leads in tact while building on the extended cast of supporting actors to round out this love affair. Castle isn’t a favorite show because of its originality (although it has a great deal) It is a favorite because of the ingenuity and commitment to the nuances of these characters who I love spending time with on Monday nights. And really what more can you ask of something that is structured to entertain you.