Castle Season 5 Finale Time!

Ok so it's that time of the year again. The time most of the tv shows that we have been watching since around September last year have their season finals. This week was the final of Castle. A friend requested that I write a post about the finale. I agreed, but it's going to be a bit more of a season retrospective I think.

---- WARNING: SPOILERS BELOW ---- 

Now, if there is one thing I can say about the season finals for Castle, it's that they are good ones. In particular the final for season three- in which Kate got shot and the final for season four which I wrote about here, where Castle and Kate finally admitted they liked each other and got together.

The past season has been a pretty great one for the show and the characters. Whilst we didn't have any of the tension of the previous season where Kate was hiding her knowledge of Castle's feelings, there was a different kind of tension. Their secret relationship added some great moments to the season.

One of my early favourite episodes ended up being Murder He Wrote (5x03) in which Castle and Beckett went away for the weekend to his house in the Hamptons and ended up having a murder disrupt their weekend. This episode did many fans a great service when the characters gave themselves the shipper name "Caskett", by which they have been known on fan sites since very early on.

Following hot on the heels of that episode a few weeks later we got The Final Frontier(5x05) in which a fan is murdered at a big fan convention. We find out a bit more about Beckett who was apparently a huge fan of a particular sci-fi show as a College student, even going so far as to cosplay one of the characters. As an attendee of conventions and a rather big geek myself I have to say that this was an extremely fun episode.

We also got a little bit more in the case of Beckett's mother's murder. In the first episode of the season Beckett was able to find out who was in charge. It turned out to be a senator. She confronted the senator and threatened that if anything should happen to her then the details of what happened to her mother would be released to the press. Later in the season he became the target of an assassination attempt and she ended up having to protect him which was also an interesting turn of events.

By far the most tense episodes were those of the two parter. In the first half- Target(5x15) we find out that Alexis has been kidnapped, along with another girl they manage to escape briefly and contact Beckett and Castle. They soon find out however that they are no longer in New York, instead they have been taken to Paris.

In the second half- Hunt(5x16), Castle has decided to take matters into his own hands where he makes contact and teams up with a character by the name of Jacques Henri(Christopher Heyerdahl). As a fan of Heyerdahl from previous shows he has starred in I just about hyperventilated when I heard his voice. All I can say is that his voice is just one of the many things I love about his acting. It has the ability to change his character from one incredibly nice one, to one incredibly evil. Heyerdahl aside, this episode introduced the fans as well as Castle himself to his father. It was a great moment and ultimately the two of them managed to rescue Alexis.

Now the creators of the show promised that the relationship between Castle and Beckett wouldn't be all smelling of roses and that they would have their troubles. That finally started to show in some of the final episodes. In one episode, Beckett feels ignored, then because of the case Castle feels threatened by another man (Ioan Gruffudd).

In the following episode she almost dies when she steps on a pressure sensitive bomb linked to a timer and Castle stays to keep her company. The end of that episode was particularly good and something I did not see coming. Captain 'Iron' Gates revealed that she's known all about their relationship but wanted to leave herself with plausible deniability when she tells them to just kiss already.

This all leading into the finale left me curious as to what was going to happen. We had a bit of a break last week with the relationship stuff with a case that had the team being stonewalled by the Attorney General's office. The big moment of the episode I guess, came at the end. Beckett was pulled aside by the man who had been stonewalling them and offered an interview for a position in DC.

So that brings us to the final. At the start of the final, Kate was standing in front of a window looking out over DC. She'd decided to go for the interview. Later on she is running late to the crime scene we find out she hadn't told Castle about the interview or going to DC. Gates has given her a glowing recommendation and a heart to heart with Lanie leaves her thinking hard....

...Then Castle finds her boarding pass stub for the plane after it falls out of her jacket pocket. Cue the discussion/argument over trusting each other and not telling each other things. Beckett says it's just an interview and it doesn't mean anything.

The next day Castle has a heart to heart with his mother which makes him think hard about his relationship and where it is going.

Kate gets a phone call. She got the job in DC. She decides that she is moving up to bigger and better opportunities and that it will be the last case for her. She solves the case with the boys and then tells them there is something she needs to tell them, but that she has to speak to someone else first.

And the final scene. It all comes back to the swings where they had the fateful discussion about brick walls in season four, and where she sat in the rain in the final of season four.

But what happened you ask?

Well I will leave you with this reaction I posted to Facebook last night:

THEY DID NOT JUST END THAT SEASON OF CASTLE LIKE THAT! OMG! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

 

Okay.... so maybe I won't leave you like that really... but if you want to know what happens, you either have to wait a bit longer or watch it yourself. 

Whatever your choice, it won't change the fact that season 6 is going to be VERY interesting. I can't wait to see how it starts and I really don't want to have to wait until September... but if I have to wait, then at least I will have some Rizzoli & Isles to watch when it starts at the end of June!