Thanks for nothing, CASTLE

obvious spoilers for CASTLE ahead... not as obvious spoilers of the series finale


Ok, maybe I'm being a little harsh... but after last night, I certainly was in no mood to hold back my embattled feelings.

I don't know why, but for whatever reason, I started thinking about "A Bug's Life" and how some of its dialogue fit my feelings perfectly.

But first a little background:
Castle has been around so long that I almost can't imagine my life without it. Monday nights at 10pm are going to be very empty now. Especially with the news "Blindspot" is moving to Wednesday night at 8pm... yes, NOW it moves to another night when there's no more competition.
Maybe I should rephrase and say I can't remember Monday nights in the spring and fall without this show. Conceptually, it was brilliant. A mystery writer finds a new muse in an up and coming NYPD homicide detective and "thanks to his friendship with the mayor" he is allowed to come with the NYPD on cases so he can do research for his new Nikki Heat book series.

Wow, thinking back on that, I really miss those days... when it was just muse/kick-ass detective and writer... it was Castle and Beckett before Caskett.
I don't know when I had this thought- if it was in season 1 or 2, but I was thinking how I REALLY hope these two don't become a couple. Mainly because it's so predictable- all the shows and movies freaking do it.

Here's the crazy thing: with time, I warmed up to the idea so much that I couldn't have the show without Caskett... I mean, I was dying for them to declare their feelings for each other and begging for weeks that they get married after that horrendous cliff-hanger finale a couple years ago.
It was a triple-whammy: Grimm, Castle and Sleepy Hollow all had cliff-hanger endings that year and they involved someone being stuffed in a coffin or being presumed dead.
"Sleepy Hollow" hurt me so bad that I go the cliff-notes version of how Ichabod Crane and his "left-tieunt" escaped their coffin and purgatory and never watched the show again. And getting the buzz about how it got cancelled, I'm happy I did because that heartache, I couldn't bear.

"Once Upon a Time" hit me hard Sunday night- now this... so I hope "Agents of SHIELD" doesn't make it another triple whammy. All are ABC shows, so obviously I am going to be super pissed with the network for allowing all these shenanigans to pass.

Anyway, back to Castle... the writing and the characters are so good and memorable and they stay with you... seriously, this is a great show that I will remember forever.
Not only did it deserve better, but us fans deserved better than the raw deal we got out of it.

When we enter into a show or book series or movie or anything- there's always an unspoken contract of trust. We have the reassurance our heroes will ultimately triumph, the villains lose and at least the protagonist has a happy ending of some kind.
"Allegient" was the last time this contract was broken- and I am still not over it [and the movie is a year away].
This betrayal seems 10x worse.

Granted, it was going downhill for a little while. Oddly enough, Caskett had been married for only a few weeks, but the show had become like an old married couple that was trying to reinvigorate their love life... and Season 8 was a colossal failure in the Caskett department.

I guess you could say that maybe the show was doomed from the start. We knew Caskett was getting together. We knew that Beckett was obsessed with finding her mom's killer and she was never going to stop. This show loves its conspiracies, so obviously once we found out who killed Beckett's mom, that couldn't be the end of that story arc.

Although if I'd written the show, it would have ended a lot sooner- before the whole LockSat thing. Caskett would have gotten married when they were meant originally and that'd be it.

Season 8 suffered because of all the time Castle and Beckett spent apart- Beckett being a complete cliché of herself- not letting the case of her mom's murder go and "shutting Castle out to protect him"... so she pretended that she needed a break from their marriage and put distance between them. And of course Castle being like the loyal puppy he is trying to win her back.
I was so pissed when she walked away that I screamed at her- I burned with rage towards her for nearly a month because of this.
Another quote from "A Bug's Life" fits this situation perfectly- specifically on how the writers let this happen.

But as for the finale itself, here are my issues:
1) it was too dramatic


This show has its share of comedy and drama- but when the drama outweighs the comedy, I can't stand it. it freaking kills me. Pretty much anything having to do with Beckett's character arc- I hated- because the show moved away from what I liked about it.
Last night- from start to finish, it was non-stop drama. And the last two minutes destroyed me because I was ready to calm down and relax, but there was one final twist

2) it was too unbelievable

I know this is fiction, but you still have to have a believability.
Truth serum in the Harry Potter world- I can understand that. This does not exist in real life. And if it didn't, it isn't THIS potent.
At least make it look like you're struggling with it- don't just spill all the secrets... at least when Barty Crouch Jr. [see "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire"] was spilling secrets, he made it seem like it was a difficult thing to resist.
And a ceiling so magnetic that it disarms you of your firearms... ridiculous!

Also, I thought for LockSat would be Vicrom or some other character we knew for longer than 10 minutes... that was disappointing

3) it was MESSY- literally and figuratively

I know they only had a week to hash at this finale, but c'mon!! they could have done this so much cleaner. And I'm not talking about all the blood or potential casualties involved.

It was like what happened in Bambi- we get traumatized by whatever shots were fired and so on...
then the next scene immediately after it's all sunny and happy and cheerful- as if it's supposed to take our mind off what JUST happened.


Now for "A Bug's Life" to do its thing...




Seriously- I want to ask the writers this question... they want me to believe that everything's magically okay... or was the final scene a hallucination of the dream scenario that'll never come to pass?
The least they could have done is make it more cut and dry. Like someone calling for an ambulance or something...


the suspension of belief was WEAK- not just the final couple minutes but the whole show. No villain is THIS invincible or intelligent that they're always 10 steps ahead of the good guys.

So how the series (season 8) and beyond ended:







Andrew R. Marlowe started the series and ran it for several years. After he left, the show just plummeted into depths of mediocrity it could not dig itself out of.
Whether or not they were also the ones behind firing Stana Katic and Tamela Jones... I don't care... I'm going to blame them anyway.
Gotta blame someone, might as well be them.

I mean, this isn't as bad as "Gilligan's Island" (where they never get off the island) or "Lost" (they were dead the entire time!... and I actually laughed at that cuz that should've gone off the air ages ago).
But for me- maybe the worst finale I'd gone through since "Merlin"... I'm still not over that, by the way.


[Side-note: I've read two Richard Castle books- I think the first Nikki Heat book and one other- both were great reads. I hope I get to check out more]