“Which one is it, kiddo?” -Martha
Yes, finally. Fi. Na. Lly. In my opinion, Castle’s eighth season’s fall finale definitely deserves a “Cheers!” as “Mr. and Mrs. Castle” puts an end to the storyline the viewers simply couldn’t get behind. Going into this week’s episode, I had my expectations considerably low, given the promo which, in the end, did nothing to give the episode justice. The network, or the powers behind that promo, completely screwed up the opportunity to reel viewers in, with an episode that only seemed overly comedic. It’s a good thing they gave out the advanced previews to get the fans (or people who stuck around) excited about “Mr. and Mrs. Castle,” because it was a pretty solid episode, the best of the season in my opinion.
For the first time during the 8th season, they managed to balance out everything that makes “Castle” great. “Mr. and Mrs. Castle” had the comedy, it had the drama, it had the mystery and finally, and more importantly, it had Castle and Beckett talking with each other.
This episode was varisity Castle, finally.
The episode takes place very shortly after Castle and Beckett’s wedding anniversary, and Castle’s two favorite red-heads come prepared to deal with however their evening went. Family was an important part of Castle’s life in the earlier seasons, and we’ve gotten to see less and less of these crucial moments between them as Beckett took more place in Castle’s life, and Alexis grew up. It was nice seeing the three of them interacting together, in what I could only describe as a lovely scene. The scene brought a smile to my lips, as it demonstrated how Castle has the greatest family support system ever.
When asked, Castle qualifies their night as great, states that they’re making progress and I had to roll my eyes at Castle playing ostrich, again. You’re better than that, Rick. It was unimaginable, for me, that he would simply throw the text message he saw on his wife’s phone under the rug. It made simply no sense, especially for him.
Thankfully, I didn’t have to roll with this assumption for long, and was immediately proven wrong when Haley appeared at Castle’s PI Office, to Martha’s great pleasure. You shouldn’t be that good of a liar, Rick. Castle enrolled Hayley’s help to discover what Beckett is up to and by hacking Beckett’s phone, Hayley discovers the secret messaging program between Kate and the ex-AG tech, the first domino to fall in Castle’s quest for answers.
“I never liked that guy.” –Castle
Vikram, you sneaky son of a B*. He’s so intent on protecting Castle, on keeping him away from the case, more so than Kate, it seems, but his mysterious late-night text message was ultimately Castle’s gateway into their case. Mission failed, dude. The tech had had the idea to send Kate the text, during their anniversary dinner/ booty call, in order to get her out of there, therefore, protecting Castle.
I understand what they’re trying to do with the character, but he just comes off as annoying, as yet another thing that doesn’t work for me in the storyline that was shoved down our throats. Vikram doesn’t have enough of a connection with them to personally be invested in Castle’s well-being. I’m not sure I’m coming across right, but he just met Beckett and Castle, he’s not their friend, so it’s none of his business how Kate chooses or not to include Castle. I don’t like how Beckett’s going back and forth on her commitment to keeping her husband away, but it’s her call, even when it doesn’t make sense, it’s not Vikram’s place to say anything. Anyone following me?
“Good thing Castle’s nowhere near this one.” -Vikram
Permutter, gone full hipster and who’s rocking the facial hair, found, in the victim of the week, one baggy, filled with uncut heroine, tied, with dental floss, to one of her teeth. Can I just point out that every time they bring Perlmutter out of the shadows, the episode is great? He’s sarcastic and grumpy, and simply fantastic.
At the mention of heroine, the link between the murder they had caught and Kate’s misplaced obsession became evident, so it was unsurprisingly, that Vikram confirmed that the heroine found on the victim matched the brand they have been looking for. Solving this murder, will thus get Kate and Vikram closer to their intended target, the person who took over Bracken’s drug pipeline.
Castle’s strategy still consists of wiggling his way in his wife’s homicide cases, and sure enough, being kicked out of the office by Hayley, who took over, he finds himself on the cruise ship, with Beckett. This episode has leads are back to investigating the case together, while Ryan and Esposito take the backseat to the case, and in the episode in general. They’ve always been better as a team. Castle and Beckett have one hour until their crime scene, the cruise ship, gets to international waters and they lose their jurisdiction over it. Dividing and conquering, Castle finds himself in the middle of dance rehearsal and Beckett playing shuffleboard in order to uncover the last whereabouts of their victim. A good chase scene through the ship’s deck later, Kate had caught herself a suspect.
One thing that’s I can’t get my head around is Kate doing the exact same job as when she was a detective. It doesn’t seem to make much sense to have given her a promotion if she’s just doing the same thing as she did when she was detective; it seems weird plot-wise. Whatever, it was still great to see them working together.
“She may just get herself killed. She’s left me no other choice.” -Castle
Once Hayley confirms who Kate is working with, it doesn’t take long for Castle to figure out what she was working on, and spying on his wife is a line Castle doesn’t mind crossing. He needs to know, no matter the consequences, and that’s a lot more in character than most of things that happened this season. Through Beckett’s cellphone, Haley infiltrates the first line of defence of Vikram’s servers, as Castle has Beckett talking about their naked time together. If you missed it, go back and check out Hayley face during the phone conversation; it’s priceless.
When Vikram realises someone is trying to crack his firewall, it launches a hilariously cheezy hacker battle between Haley and Vikram. With my non-existent knowledge in hacking, I have no idea if the scene was realistic or not. The only thing I know is the music was darn hilarious. What movie was that from? Because I definitely recognised it, but couldn’t quite place it. I also absolutely loved the back and forth between Castle ans Beckett, that amidst the tension was funny and light. Trying to stop Vikram from locating them, Hayley sends a counterstrike cat video virus, that barely slows the tech down. He pinpoints the IP address, and physical address, of the people hacking them, and identifies Castle and Hayley as the culprits. The writer and the security specialist getting dangerously close to having access to their research, Vikram launches a virtual nuke, destroying Castle’s servers. With that, Castle knows that Beckett knows that he knows, which means there was no around it, they were going to have to talk about it, finally.
“You want to know what hurts the most? You could have come to me with everything, broken us up just like you did only it would have been a cover and together, in secret we could have taken this guy down. Only that thought never even occurred to you, because deep down inside, you like being broken and you need this obsession and no matter what I do, I can’t change that. Only you can, Kate.” -Castle
It was either break-up or make-up. They simply couldn’t continue on like this. Castle confronts Beckett, and it was more than time to see another side of loyal puppy dog Castle. Their exchange was poignant and heartfelt, as Castle told Kate what we’ve been wanting to tell her for a while. When he initiates the conversation, Kate starts off on her high horse, and I thought she couldn’t be more unlikeable than at that moment when she directed the blame on Castle, and his lack of trust in her. When he doesn’t back down, she changes her approach, to a more likeable Beckett, one that takes part of the blame, but she still doesn’t fully acknowledge it.
Castle was cold and direct without being too brutal. He makes her understand he’s hurt and angry, without having to be mean or over the top. Everything in this exchange was balanced and in subtlety, which was what I was reproaching Ryan and Esposito’s fighting to lack in last week’s episode.
The words that resonated the most, in my opinion, were “Deep down, you like being broken,” because it really is Beckett’s biggest flaw. She’s been molded by her mother’s murder and she’s defined herself by it so much, that she doesn’t know how to simply be happy. She’s thinking she’s doing it for the right reasons, she really is, but I’m thinking her woes are far below the surface. Castle’s right, there is nothing he can, do. It has to be her, it has to come from her. Admittance is the first step to recovery, right?
“It’s all coming crashing down between my ears and I’ve got no one to blame but myself.” –Beckett
Everything is crumbling around her. Her marriage, her case. Friendly Island Sanitation was a dead end and when Acosta’s partner pulled a gun on them, Ryan and Esposito had no other choice than to gun him down. She is most definitely not okay, and having a justifiable pity party in her office, until Vikram comes bearing good news. The shell corp. which owns the warehouse where the heroin was dropped off is linked to their murderer’s public defender, Caleb Brown. I loved that it’s not when things were going really badly that Kate decided to go back to Castle, but when there was hope that they were going to get to the bottom of it, that Caleb was going to lead them straight to LocSat, if they did it right, that she went to him.
The choice she made at the end of XX was hard to understand. When she had to choose between LocSat and her marriage, she chose LocSat, but why not both? It’s the choice she comes back on when she waltzed back into the loft, thinking he was just going to take her back, despite what she put him through, much like in “Always,” only received a little more coldly by Castle, a little. I know people will probably complain (don’t they always?) that Castle should have been madder at Beckett. I’m inclined to agree, and it was what I initially wished for, for Beckett to have to win Castle back, but I found it worked, how they had everything fell in place. I also have a theory on why things got resolved so quickly.
Castle is bouncing his feelings off an emotionally detached April… I mean, Lucy, explaining how even though he thinks lying is wrong, it’s not something that can’t be forgiven. How could I only now realise Castle’s new robotic friend is voiced by Aubrey Plaza? I feel so cheated. He understands why she lied, and while I don’t think she deserves so much understanding from him, he loves her, so he does forgive, even if it doesn’t make any sense, and he knows it. The fact that he acknowledges how little sense it theoretically makes for him to be so forgiving makes it bearable, for me.
Castle doesn’t take her back on the spot, but he doesn’t take that much convincing either. It was a fair trial, and it ultimately put an end to the break up storyline so I won’t complain too much. She walks in and they stand far apart, symbolic of their relationship at that moment, and when she apologised she takes a step towards him. I found that to be a powerful set up. Kate asks him to not have her go through it alone, and Castle simply says okay, just like that. And all is good.
It was a incredibly fast-forwarded resolution, but here’s my theory. Before the episode mumbo jumbo, Castle didn’t forgive her at the end of this episode, and Slaughter’s “She shouldn’t be going through this alone” was a response to Kate’s plea to “not having her go through it without him.” It would have been a heartbreaking way to finish the episode, but it would have made for a much more satisfactory and less rushed conclusion to the saga.
“Look Castle, I’m sorry. I hate that I hurt you. That was never what I wanted.” -Beckett
