It’s been a week since “Watershed,” the finale of the fifth season of Castle, and to be quite honest with you, I still haven’t figured out how I feel about it. Part of the issue is that there seem to be two main ways of interpreting Castle’s actions. The first is that Martha was correct that he had been hesitating to commit, that the proposal was impulsive, a desperate grand gesture to try to keep Beckett from leaving, just because he got scared. If that’s how the writers intended us to see this development, then I’m a bit disappointed. Especially after all the build-up, I want to see Castle and Beckett have a real relationship and work things out like adults.
The other popular interpretation that I’ve seen, and the one that I personally like better, is that Castle has been mentally committed to Beckett for quite some time now, and was holding back because of her skittishness. This would still make the proposal somewhat impulsive, but less ill-considered. If Castle already saw himself as committed, he could have worried about pushing Beckett too quickly, and then changed his mind and proposed once it became clear that she was worried about his level of commitment.
Regardless, I’m concerned about where the show can possibly go from here. I don’t feel any need for Castle and Beckett to get married right away, but I don’t necessarily object. I do object, however, if a marriage is used as a device to get her out of the new job. If these were real people, they could obviously stay together (married or not) and Beckett could take the job. Castle has plenty of money and can work from anywhere, so they could maintain households in both cities, travel back and forth, etc. But that would upend the entire premise of the show, so I’m assuming that something has to happen that will make her change her mind about the new job. My fingers are crossed that whatever causes that flip will be entirely unrelated to whether or not she accepts Castle’s proposal.
How about you all? Did you like the proposal? Too soon? Just the wrong circumstance? And how do you think they’ll get out of this new job situation?
(Image courtesy of ABC.)
I feel like the Castle team may have written themselves into a corner here. Castle has no need to stay in NY, so are they really going to have Beckett turn down her dream job because her boyfriend doesn’t feel like living in DC? I hope not. They’ll need a compelling reason for Beckett to walk away from this job that has nothing to do with Castle, or they aren’t staying true to the way they’ve written her character.
Yes, (other) Kate, I 100% agree! I hope they have some awesome solution in mind.
It totally bugged me that they ignored how Castle is really rich. I know he was supposed to be upset that she hid the interview from him, but seriously? Wouldn’t he just be like, “that really hurt…anyway I’ll just be online looking for real estate in DC if you need me.”