Confirming that which Brolin told AntennaFree.TV back in November, Castle creator Andrew W. Marlowe says that when Jackson Hunt, a ruthless assassin for the CIA, resurfaces and father and son are “flung together once again, Castle begins to wonder whether he can trust this mysterious stranger.”
The reunion is tentatively set to air Jan. 20, 2014.
More at TVLine
The reunion is tentatively set to air Jan. 20, 2014.
More at TVLine
Brolin has already let slip that Hunt is not the goog guy that he seemed... I am looking forward to this storyline.
ReplyDeletewonder how beckett will react that castle's father is also a killer and wanted for killing someone in US!
ReplyDeleteOh, goodie I really enjoyed his character and like Brolin's chemistry with Nathan Fillion.
ReplyDeleteI don't think he was posed as the good guy, he was put as Castle's dad, nothing more, nothing less. He don't have anything about him, so we can't say he's good... nor evil...
ReplyDeleteOK, YMMV, to me somebody who is killing an incapacitated, tortured man is hardly fall into the "good" box. Mind you: that case was a personal, the "greater good" or the "necessary evil" absolution, which is usually applied on NS cases doesn't fit here.
ReplyDeleteJust to be clear: I don't mind that SpyDad is a dark guy - saints don't go into black ops. What I do mind is that this aspect was utterly and completely dropped as soon as he met Castle. Marlowe didn't waste the precious time to show what Castle thinks about him - though I expect that this has "haunted" him since then. Just like Alexis was haunted by Paris, Beckett is haunted by the doubts about Rick's former marriages, they will be very much haunted by the 3XK - offscreen, without a single sign, until The Very Important Plot Episode comes.
The funny thing is that AM now eats his crow, because he never really counted on to bring back SpyDad in real and now not only he couldn't avoid it (it would have been pretty rude to hand down Brolin after they cheered how great it was to get him) but needed to adjust the story according to his demands.
I don't see any indication that they 'adjusted the story' in the least. The mystery about Castle's dad has been a recurring theme on the show for years. Likewise, the idea that Castle might have a hint of darkness in him, deep down, has cropped up several times before. For Target/Hunt, they partially solved one mystery, giving us a (false) name and a face for Castle's dad, but leaving wide open the question of who he really /is/. At the same time they showed us Hunt would do some pretty unspeakable things to save his granddaughter, but also showed us that even Castle, the gentle, puppy-dog man-child, would torture a wounded man to save Alexis. Of COURSE they were going to revisit this! All they really did was deepen the mystery a bit, and open the door for some pretty interesting character study: what kind of man is Castle's father, /really/, and deep down, how much of that is in Castle?
ReplyDelete1) AM himself told after Hunt, that we probably won't see SpyDad again as Brolin isn't the guy who they can afford as a recurring character.
ReplyDelete2) Brolin told in the original interview two weeks ago, that he was willing to come back, but he didn't want to play the same characrter twice, he asked SpyDad to be a darker figure than he was originally.
Castle's "deep down darkness" wasn't dealt and IMHO won't be dealt anytime. At least not on the level what good characterization means to me. Sorry, but the "of course they will revisit" doesn't work for me, because that means the characters act as if they know they are in a tv show and they will have a certain episode to discuss something. Beckett is a detective and the lover of Castle. If she sees her man to torture another one and get to know that his father committed an exceptionally gruesome murder, it's not something what they "revisit" half a year later. It goes against both of her personal and professional ethics, it should have been a nagging problem instantly. That's bad storytelling, but I know the fans of the show don't care about that, so it doesn't matter.
I think any loving father would do whatever to get his kidnapped kid back...
ReplyDeleteNo, Andrew Marlowe said that "if it was possible" they would make Hunt return...
ReplyDeleteWhat Maria said.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, they didn't have to bring Brolin back to revisit the topic of Castle's father. Sort of like how we have had multiple "3XK Episodes" that had no actual glimpse of 3XK. That said, I'm thrilled they /are/ bringing him back. Showing the darker side of his character should really enrich the story wonderfully, and there's no contradiction between that and what we've already seen. No one is "eating crow." (Saying you probably can't afford someone is VERY different from saying you don't want them back!)
Re: "Of course they will revisit," perhaps I should have been clearer that I was talking about the writers! Of course the characters don't think of it that way. From the characters' point of view, what happened was both traumatic and 'classified,' and it's not something they'd be talking about on a regular basis. But when something happens to bring Castle's father right back into their lives and their cases, they'll have no choice but to "revisit" what happened.
Re: ethics, when Beckett knew Castle had tortured that man for information about Alexis, she gave him a free pass for the same reason we did: his daughter's life was on the line. Beckett doesn't know about Hunt killing a man, and we have no indication that Castle told her, (not that she could do anything about it if he did). That isn't bad storytelling at all; just realistic.
Beckett was told by Gates to bring his little girl back using any means possible...I think she said something like "whatever it takes"...so the "whatever it takes" was allowing Castle to go to his dark side. But it was also not pursuing the the person who killed and tortured the henchmen. I think that AWM wanted to redirect our focus and see Hunt as the good guy to only remind us later that the end justifies the means for spy operatives. And for lifetime spies, there have been lots of ends justifying lots of means...
ReplyDeleteMaria: Until somebody isn't definitely (on-screen) dead, it is possible to come back. "It is possible" is AM's standard answer, he told it about everybody from the British cop to Agent Shaw or Maddie. It doesn't mean he seriously plans to bring back any of them.
ReplyDeleteThey didn't have to bring him back and that's the point: that he didn't planned to make an episode which is built around SpyDad in presence. if Brolin is there the episode needs to use him, probably specifically build around him, not just anvil the topic in a COTW - it's a completely different story.
I always talk about the writers: Kate Beckett can't overrule Stana Katic's voice to say something different than it is in the script.
"it's not something they'd be talking about on a regular basis": it hasn't even touched since then, as if it had never happened. And no, if they want at least pretend realism, big problems between two people are problems instantly, not a year after in a "Oh yes, it was such a traumatic thing, how could I forget to talk about it" way.
Beckett doesn't know: why? Castle came home and the last thing we saw he start telling their escapade. To his mother, who by the way was the lover of his never since seen father and to his lover, who he wants to live with. To my standard if he decided to lie them and don't mention SpyDad's role in the whole plot it was something what we should have been told right then, because it IS something really important about his character - not a year later, as an excuse to shoehorn another hackney plot. And if he told them everything than it's bad writing because there were no reaction to those informations. Telling something like this isn't important because what the other one can or can't do about it - it is important because between two people it is, no matter whether it could be used in a plot a year later.
I disagree that just because we, the audience agree with something, a well written character should do the same. I disliked her giving the free pass right then. Partly because she is a cop, The Shining Lady of Justice (at least when it is convenient to the plot), but more because she loved him. She should have tried to stop him doing that, because what a deed like this could do with somebody who isn't careless about it. If they wanted to show that Castle is able to do this (because of his darker side), it should have been written in a different way. In case of really well written characters when they are in a situation when their inner compasses point two different directions, it's conflicting and we see these conflicts.
In Castle the characters are always act by only one of their side, without the effect of the other. Castle is a wimp when the writers want to make him a clown, without the hint of inner strenght, then he is a toughend father without any later remorse. Beckett is by the book when it serves well then "I'm not a cop now" and it doesn't even bother her that she defines herself first and foremost as a cop. One by one each scene can be effective - alltogether, without seeing the impact on the characters is bad writing to me. Of course YMMV, but this is my POV.
Laszlo, The fact is, they asked Brolin back. If they had not asked him, he would not be returning. If they hadn't liked his suggestion of showing
ReplyDeleteHunt's darker side, (which is a fantastic suggestion), they wouldn't be
using it. They left a window open to do just that, and like many other
fans, I am thrilled that they now are.
But it's plain we will not agree on this, and that's ok. From your comments, I gather you want all conversations to happen on screen, which is not possible. You want every character to behave the same way in every circumstance, which is not realistic; or, you would have them stop and discuss any time a situation brings a different facet of their personality to the fore, which is neither realistic nor practical. You seem to want all narrative themes and inner conflicts spelled out for you as they happen, removing all subtlety and room for the viewer to read between the lines. Since I disagree emphatically with all of that, I'll stick to Marlowe's version.
SpyDad had already tortured and killed an unarmed man at his last appearance. It's bad writing that he was posed as a "good guy" after it, and that point was never mentioned again. If it will be a surprise to any of them only now (mainly to Beckett - will this be another topic which they conveniently haven't talk aboutsince then?), then it will be... well, business as usual from Marlowe.
ReplyDelete