TV ramble: Castle

[aragarna]

So yesterday, Castle returned...


It all started great, with great "presumed dead" tropes. Castle's car is burning, they all assumed he was in it.... And my fanfic writer's mind already trying to work that in White Collar (would it be best if Peter thought Neal was in the car or if Neal thought Peter was in the car?).
Of course, Castle was not in the car. D'oh, the show's still named Castle.
Next, as they follow leads, the investigation takes them to a car pound, where a guy is busy crashing the car Castle is supposed to be in. Oh the irony, oh the roller-coaster for Beckett... Again false alarm...

But then.... Then Castle appears on tape, mking it looks like he's the one who orchestrated his own disappearance.
No one is assuming he might have been threatened and forced to go to that drop point.
Worst of all, Beckett jumps to conclusions - very stupid conclusions, and suddenly doubts Castle's intentions to marry her. Seriously Kate?! Haven't you spent 6 seasons by his side, don't you know the guy a little? He's the one who opened up first, remember? He's the one who made all those hurt puppy face for all season 4 because you didn't want to commit. And you've spent an ENTIRE season prepping that damn wedding! It took less time for George Clooney to settle down.

And for Chirst's sake, even Peter has more faith in Neal than you seem to have in Castle!

So, yeah, I'm a little pissed at Beckett. And that's not the first time.
None of this really made sense to me. Seriously? How can they really think Castle would do something like that? Even better, why in the world would Richard Castle, billionnaire with expensive tastes, camp in the woods for 2 months. If Castle wanted to disappear, he would *not* hide in such a lame place. He would go to some excentrique island, living the life. Also, he would *never* do such a thing to his mother and daughter. And don't tell me, like that FBI agent, that it could have been like a nervous breakdown or something. First, it's way too elaborated to be a sudden breakdown. Second, well, why would he freak out? He wanted that wedding more than Beckett.

He's disappeared for 2 months and she doesn't even kiss him when he wakes up...
And after everything, once finally it's admitted he was framed, he's the one telling Beckett he's sorry? And she doesn't apologize for doubting him?

Meh. I want my cute Caskett from season 5 back.


I don't know... It's not that I don't like the idea, I just thought it was very awkwardly executed. Too many things not holding up. And I fear that's now going to be the season's arc story. Most of all, I can't believe that after all those wedding talks, we're never gonna have that wedding. /o\

Comments

[pooh-collector.livejournal.com]

I'm totally with you. I love the mystery that they have now set up. Where was he? What was going on? How was he shot? Dengue Fever???? I'm really intrigued by all of this.

But how they got there in this ep was totally whacked out. Kate is always the skeptic, always the one who is last to believe. This has been part of their dynamic since day one, but they took it too far in this ep, after all that they've been through to get to their wedding day, for all of the reasons you aptly point out.

I was definitely disappointed in how this ep was written. Fingers crossed that the show gets back on track next week.

[aragarna.livejournal.com]

Exactly, their reactions just didn't make sense. He's been missing for 2 months, so I don't see why a tropical fever nor a healing gunshot wound should make them doubt he was kidnapped. Logical reaction would have been to mother hen him instead! It was just not convincing enough to believe they would suddenly all doubt Castle's attentions.

fingers tightly crossed!

[scarym1.livejournal.com]

I was also pissed that instead of believing him, there was doubt. I know there was "evidence" but that shouldn't have wiped away all the trust they had built up with Castle over the past few years. No one seemed willing to give Castle the benefit of the doubt. It was so frustrating I almost yelled at the TV for them to smarten up. ; )

I can see the mystery of what happened to Castle as lasting all season.

As for White Collar I think it would make a great fic if Peter thought Neal was in the car. : )

[aragarna.livejournal.com]

At least I'm glad to see I'm not alone thinking it was totally off. Because I usually like this show, and until now I thought they'd handled the Castle/Beckett relationship pretty well. There's only one other instance I can think of when I was really rolling my eyes (when Castle went all childish and selfish about Kate moving to DC).

[sheenianni.livejournal.com]

Honestly, I didn't quite see it that way. I was more upset with Esposito than with Kate, because he was less emotionally invested and yet despite knowing Castle, he was ready to denounce him after the first flimsy piece of evidence. As for Kate, I wish she had had a bit more faith in Castle, but she has been through hell over the past two months.

Sure, at first moment, Kate is thrown aback by disovering that Castle made the drop, but five minutes later, she's already defending Castle to the FBI agent and insisting that Castle was kidnapped. When she asked Martha and Alexis those questions, I don't really think she was doubting Castle as much as the relatonship itself - it was part habit, part her dibelief that the wedding was happening (or not happening) - just a few years back, she wouldn't let anyone close like that, and suddenly there is Castle and it's surprisingly working out, and a part of her is really excited but the other part is waiting for the other shoe to drop - like, can this really work out?

Then when they found Castle, Kate was so relieved and overjoyed to see him - and she was going to find out who the hell had hurt her beloved. And then she finds the witness, the tent with Castle's stuff, gets all the weird info from Lanie... she had been worried sick for two extremely traumatic months, and now suddenly all the evidence suggests that Castle had gone missing on his own. Kate's a cop, she believes in evidence, but she's too emotionally compromised to think clearly - she falls back into all those habits that she developed after her mother's murder. Yet despite all those "facts", she goes with Castle to the campsite, goes to visit the what's-his-name fake witness, and you can feel how much she wants Castle to give her a reasonable explanation - or an apology - anything that would make sense or could help them heal.

In short, I won't say I'm exactly happy with her reaction, but I find it understandable and not really out of character. As for not apologising to Castle - maybe she doesn't do it in words, but it's in the way she hugs him, how she cries at his shoulder, how she looks at him. Maybe one day, she'll say those words, but right now, the two of them need answers and some sense of normalcy more than anything else.

So, I'm not as much disappointed in Kate as dismayed by the rest of the precinct - why is nobody else asking all the logical questions that you pointed out above? That I think is more of a bad writing than anything Kate does during the whole episode.

Anyway, I'm really looking forward to them finding their footing again and rebuilding what was broken.

[aragarna.livejournal.com]

You're right, but I still think she should have shown a little more faith in Castle, or at least, doubt the evidence, because it doesn't fit Castle at all. If it was a normal investigation, where they don't know the victims or suspects, fine. But she should have known that Castle wouldn't do any of those things.

But I do think this was mainly bad writing.
I did like the end scene, but I was too pissed by then, to appreciate it.

[sheenianni.livejournal.com]

You're right, it should have been handled better.

I wish there had been more Martha and Alexis - I know things happened kind of fast in the episode, but Martha lost her son and Alexis her father and they barely got a short appearance. But that goes back to the bad writing - although Kate might have believed that Castle would do this to her (though no way in hell, not after her mother's murder), even in her disraught state, she (and the audience, and guys at the precinct) should see that he would NEVER do that to Martha and especially not to Alexis.

But I am curious about the questions they've introduced, and maybe the following episodes will revisit these issues and give us a more satisfying closure (one can ever hope).