It was all my friend Baj's fault. Castle wasn't really in my radar at all, but he kept talking about it. He was also the type of friend who would make you watch something if he really, really liked it. Heck, he even gave me a copy of the first season just so I would understand why he liked it so much and why it was a TV series I just had to watch. And so I was hooked.
Now... well, it's been eight years and Castle aired its last episode a few weeks back. No more Castle. No more Beckett. No more Ryan and Esposito. No more Lanie. No more Martha and Alexis. No more pop culture references. No more fun cases that bring out the crazy theories in Castle. No more over the top conspiracies that seem to hound both Castle and Beckett. No more sweet moments that undercut the more ridiculous plots thrown our way. No more of any of that.
My Tuesday mornings every fall TV season will now be a little lacking.
In the eight and final season of Castle, Richard Castle (Nathan Fillion) and Kate Beckett (Stana Katic) are happily married, especially with Kate's assignment as the captain of the 12th precint. But instead of the first day of meetings that she was supposed to attend, she disappears after a shootout and Castle scrambles to find her. They reunite, but Kate, armed with knowledge of the threat of the mysterious LokSat, decides to continue the investigation in secret along with tech analyst Vikram Singh (Sunkrish Bala) and tells Castle that they have to separate. Unaware of the real reason why she asked for a separation, Castle tries to once again woo Beckett to convince her to get back together.
Admittedly, this particular season isn't strong for Castle standards. Firstly, putting another hurdle in their happy ever after now that they're married just seems like a sadistic move. It takes the show half the season to get over that particular hurdle, and then struggled with the rest to get audiences to care about LokSat. The drug ring leader who uses CIA assets to run his/her empire just didn't seem compelling enough to drive a whole season, unlike the specter of Senator William Bracken (Jack Coleman) and his involvement in death of Beckett's mother, or even the occasional appearance or influence of Jerry Tyson or the 3XK (Michael Mosley). Even tying in the LokSat mystery with the previous season's disappearance of Castle doesn't make it any more intriguing to me as a viewer. And Beckett's decision to exclude Castle in her investigation seems like such a backward thing to do for her character, considering how much she has opened up and the closure she has achieved in the previous seasons.
But, there are redeeming factors that make a viewer stick around to see how things are for the couple. There's always been an underlying sweet core to the series, and it's not just the romance between Castle and Beckett. There's the friendship between Javier Esposito (Jon Huertas) and Kevin Ryan (Seamus Dever), which weathers the same amount of turmoil as any romantic relationship in TV but stands strong in the end. Beckett and Lanie Parish (Tamala Jones) always have sincere exchanges, with Lanie dispensing the much-needed advice to Kate. Castle's relationship with his mother Martha (Susan Sullivan) and Alexis (Molly Quinn). And the addition of Hayley Shipton (Toks Ulagundoye) was probably the last season's highlight for me, because she offered friendship to both Castle and Alexis despite their troubled initial meeting. In as much as the TV series has jumped the shark (several times for me, definitely) or explored some pretty incredulous storylines over the years, the characters are what draws me time and again. Them, and the comedic moments that punctuate what they still insist to label as a drama series, help in keeping a viewer's faith.
No, season eight was far from perfect. Heck, the series as a whole had some pretty laughable moments. But when they run away with their ideas and not take themselves seriously, and especially when they focus on the relationships between the characters, Castle makes it hard not to miss it from my TV viewing lineup.
With all of the hubbub about how the series would not have featured Stana Katic and Tamala Jones the following year, I found myself actually relieved that ABC decided to end the series even if it was ending on a weak note story wise. I could gripe about how they should have been better prepared for a possible end of a series run, given that they were eight seasons in and running on steam. I could gripe about how they should have ended it with season six, without Castle disappearing and with a wedding that didn't have a green screen generated backdrop. I could gripe about how backward they made Beckett seem for the first half of the eight season.
Then, they give me that final scene after what would have been a cliffhanger ending leading to what could have been season nine. That scene that reminded me why I stayed to watch Castle for eight seasons. It was as perfect as it could be for Castle and Beckett, because every Castle season should always end with their story.
Always.
Happy viewing!!Labels: ABC, Castle, Comedy, Drama, Must-Watch, Procedural, TV, TV Series
