Castle - A Deadly Game, S02E24 - Season Finale

Although this season did not end with an episode related to the murder of Kate Beckett (Stana Katic)'s mother, I was still quite satisfied with where it went and what happened. Well, satisfied from an artistic perspective. As an emotional creature who wants Beckett to hook up with Richard Castle (Nathan Fillion), I was beside myself with laments.

There are always a lot of comparisons to Moonlighting whenever a will they/won't they tension is introduced between two characters working together to solve crimes. While the viewers want the couple to hook up, producers seem afraid to allow that to actually happen, certain it will result in rating crashes and show cancellation. The problem with this is that they assume that what makes the show is that dynamic. And that is not right.

Read Heat Wave if you don't believe me. Good writing and good acting (something which was missing from Moonlighting as the leads apparently hated each other and could not maintain a fake attraction to each other once it was out in the open), these two things are what's necessary for any series to continue and to be and remain good. Castle obviously has these two things - Stana Katic and Nathan Fillion can take any script given to them, with any result, and make it work, and the scripts that they are given are already primed for that.

But, we still don't want to throw that tension away quite yet, so we get this year's season finale. I think it sets the show up perfectly for a hook up next season, and as long as they don't hook up in a finale, without guaranteeing to us that the hook up can work for at least an episode or two, Castle is likely to be on the air a long time.

If you watched the episode, you know that Beckett ended things with Demming (Michael Trucco) not because anything was wrong in their relationship, but because being with him made her realize that she would not also be able to be with Castle, and the latter desire won out. Unfortunately, it did so too late. Castle, still trying to finish his second Nikki Heat novel, Naked Heat, ended up getting back together with his second wife. I doubt that reunion will last the summer, but it may allow Castle to get over Kate just enough that she's the one pining next season. We'll have to see.

And while this, of course, was the key focus for long time viewers (all 2 seasons) of Castle, don't think that the case was less interesting. It started out with all the appearances of spies and international assassinations, which turned out to be the most elaborate spy LARP ever! Between the game, the illegal practices of one of the staff, and the personal life of the victim, Castle and Beckett had one heck of a time deciphering who the killer was and why.

Frankly, this show is so good, it makes up for Firefly getting cancelled (almost).