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That's what I don' t get about all this, I would have thought the risk to them now she's moved back into the house and they've given up any pretence they were split up would have increased the risk levels accordingly and they would be more on guard but nothing has changed. They're still as stupidly cavalier and uncaring about the situation, whilst Locksat remain looking as toothless and dumb as ever and worse it's not just about them but friends and family who could also suffer in the fallout (that's never been talked about of course as usual guess it happened off screen like everything else important). Every step along the way of this story there should have been repercussions and behavioural changes not only for Castle and Beckett but the people around them for each choice taken by but there's been nothing at all. Horrible writing for this all season and I can see the closure of this story being equally horrid.

That was another thing that got with the insane shoot out. What rescue team goes in firing wildly when they presumably have no idea the exact location of the hostage and could be killing him in the ensuing mayhem? The just seemed to be firing all over the place and if I'd been Castle I'd have flattened myself to the floor like a shot and prayed not stood there like a wet lettuce making myself a possible target for a stray bullet or confused gunman but of course Castle has to end up bumping his head on some pillar or something instead. When Caskett's off screen antics sound way more interesting than their on screen ones - you've got a problem. It's been consistently like that for a good few years now. That's the other thing that annoyed me when they had Ryan mention about whatever it was and Caskett were talking at the start I hate it when writers (and Castle ones are the worst for this) use such a cheap, lazy storytelling trick to try and flesh out the characters lives by creating this whole world for them offscreen that you never see and then boring the pants off me with their antics on it. My immediate first thought was why don't I get to SEE any of this stuff or at least the aftermath of it? It reminds me of the episode when they talked about walking along the beach at the Hamptons where they got the shells for that horrible picture and the karaoke in the bar up there and many fans went nuts over those reveals but they did nothing for me at all. I argued (as did others) we should have seen these things and some responded you can't show these things all the time stop moaning you don't get to see everything they do outside of work. My counter argument was I have every right to complain because they've shown so precious little of their lives away from the precinct since they got together and that talking about all the amazing things they get up to off screen simply highlights the yawning chasm there exists in terms of developing the Caskett relationship on screen for fans to actually enjoy v their off screen exciting, passion fuelled shenanigans. It would be different if fanns had seen lots of different aspects of their lives on a regular basis but they don't so if the writers can't be arsed to write such scenes then stop reminding me about all the wonderful moments I've missed out on. Sigh

CASTLE: MUCH ADO ABOUT MURDER – A SAD COP/BAD COP REVIEW I enjoyed the boys too. Hooray yes thank God none of the Gruesome Twosome. As for the latter well why not they should have been fleshing out all these characters lives years ago. I know WTF? I don't get it. It's as if they've positioned a gigantic spotlight on their writing ineptitude. Why on earth would you highlight the stupidity of the entire premise not just once but constantly.

Castle Recap: Ay, There's the Rub — Episodes Like This, We'll Miss at TV Line First quote that hit me in the comments section and made me laugh. I'm with you all the way Brad heh. Glad others have noticed Beckett's freakish lack of concern over her husband's kidnapping.

That kid playing Sarah Grace was cute and natural but I'd still rather have a dog. Given her rate of growth I expect her to be teaming up with Alexis on stake outs in S9. I wish Castle was as excited about his wife in the morning as he was over his YOLO card. Jewel's acting was awful, yeah I know I've said that already but it bears repeating. Why did she even want the part if she couldn't be bothered to give a fuck? It would hardly get me on to booking her for parts based on this performance. I found all the guest stars aside from the mob boss and the little girl were below par. Why are the boys treating Castle like the lead investigating officer in charge? This bugs me so very much. I'm with Espo "we are so not doing this" I'm admitting a truly heinous thing, Shakespeare has never done a thing for me. Bores me to tears, can't get into it at all. I'm with KaveDweller, Zane is a movie megastar with a colourful private life but he gets followed by one pap? WTF. How unprofessional was Ryan doing acts from your kids school play in the middle of the street, once again I shared Espo's exasperation. However, saying that I really enjoyed Espo and Ryan, they have way more chemistry than Caskett and I'm liking Espo again - which is really frustrating given they're about to implode the show in a few weeks. Typical of my luck. Yes! It's sad that they can handle Ryan and Jenny and their issues so much better than the Caskett relationship, I may not see them much but their marriage has substance and that comes through on the screen and when the kids came in with Jenny I actually felt my first real pang of regret that fans will never get to see this sort of scene play out with Castle and Beckett - it's crashed and burned - there is no salvation. Alexis is the one who puts new tracking software on an NYPD captain's laptop, oh for Christ's sake please stop with this crap, why can't Ryan he used to be the tech guy. You know someone who WORKS for the NYPD. But no we get Supergirl doing it instead, is she still in college or has she dropped out? I don't give a crap but I do know I'm fed up with Alexis even when I don't see her lol. The rescue of Castle felt terribly out of place in a show that spends 99.9% of the time trying to make a joke out of everything and especially given the build up, I don't watch Castle for those kind of violent scenes it went on too long. Watching the whole episode this afternoon rather than just a series of clips improved things. I realise the clock is ticking on my time too as a fan of this particular version of Castle so I had better make one final effort and get watching. It was okay, even funny/sweet in places (nothing to do with Caskett) despite my griping. I didn't realise how the non mention of Locksat improved things so drastically but then again my benchmark for quality Castle programming has gone subterranean so it doesn't take much.

When you can obviously see the strings that's the time for things to end but even if she has been marginalized and is unhappy which I can understand I don't think this is a good enough reason to start phoning it in and not giving 100%, not when you're paid the amount these actors are paid. It's hardly as if she's overworked these days but like I said before if you're not happy and can't be bothered then leave find something that does light your fire.

The Caskett scenes don't do anything for me any more, they feel forced and I'm over them and it's made only worse by what I know is to come. This season they only serve to remind me the clock is running and we'll be getting an interruption very shortly because they've had their requisite amount of agreed screen time this week. Sure enough there's a knock on the door of the most unsafe building in New York and Castle would rather spend time looking through script notes than continuing date night - seriously the only way this woman will ever get regularly laid is if she has an affair because Castle sure as hell isn't remotely interested in her, he gets his kicks more from a fancy new credit card and take out food these days. Sigh She was so disconnected from what was going on it was so distracting! Like you I'm perplexed the directors don't step in and say something unless they're so rushed they can't or they figure at this point fans will lap up anything Castle related good or bad so who gives a shit? Either way it's frustrating and makes me even more relieved that Katic is leaving TBH because if she was going to carry on like this it's not going to make enjoyable viewing for me and it can only get worse. If the actors look obviously bored regularly on screen and no one seems to care then I'd rather they moved on elsewhere and find someone who is invested to replace them or end it. I'd say that about any job.

So Ryan threatens a pre school teacher with looking into her unpaid parking tickets if she doesn't agree to his ideas for the school play? Guess I shouldn't be surprised as this season they've had him accepting bribes, failing police exams and forgetting all the good characterisation they'd built up in prior seasons. Sigh What little I saw of Jewel did not impress, she was flat and emotionless, she might as well have been reading most of her lines off a script. Castle gets kidnapped again, really? This is getting ridiculous. And did anyone find it weird how relatively unemotional Beckett was when she was watching the video with Martha of him being drugged and taken away especially given the Locksat situation bubbling away in the background (cough). I thought Stana was phoning that in again, I know Martha was there so you could argue she wanted to stay calm for her but I thought her reaction was way too underplayed given the circumstances but then I've thought Stana has been phoning it in quite a lot this season - they both have. That scene might have worked in the earlier days when she wasn't as invested so Martha is obviously the more worried out the two but now it came over as she was just a work colleague of Castle's comforting his mother not his beloved wife!

Castle 8x21 Promo "Hell to Pay" (HD)

If that was true I'm with Bellylaughter it would have been all over twitter and tumblr and whilst my trawling of Castle for news has waned considerably I haven't seen that talked about at all so makes me wonder as to it's validity. All I know is that many are treating as fact that she must die but they don't know how and are busy speculating and given these writers have limited imagination based on what I've seen this season I wouldn't be shocked if it happened like that. I agree as long as fans are watching it doesn't matter to them but if I was a showrunner and I had a choice between producing something that most people liked and had positive vibes about or churning out a story that had fans pissed off and furious most of the time I know which way I'd be going because in the end you run the risk that the dissatisfied fans will eventually quit watching. Why try and actively encourage that scenario? Seems very short sighted to me and reeks of arrogance and an inflated sense of ego. But many showrunners think they can pull the strings constantly manipulating fans emotions like puppets for shits and giggles and they'll always keep coming back for more suckers! I love it when that attitude comes back to bite them in the arse, serves them bloody well right.

If they want to keep a lid on things they can (and do) but equally I believe they will deliberately let fans hang around a bit too close and take photos and gossip when they want things to come out to increase the buzz even if they pretend they don't want them there and say "don't take photos". This time given what's to come I can understand why they may want to keep a firm lid on things. I remember during filming of 6.01 they allowed fans to hang about but they never made much effort to shoe them away by all accounts and of course someone captured the moment she accepted his proposal, fans on social media went into meltdown after endless speculation for months as to whether she would accept or reject him but no one ever got a sniff of the moment they enacted out the most miserable proposal in TV history and that was in the same park.

Then may be they need to get another job if they can't figure out how to write for a happily married couple and keep it interesting, I acknowledge it may be somewhat harder but it doesn't say much for their creative abilities (or private lives for that matter, don't they know any?).

And that is the fundamental problem right there - they can't let them be happy and live relatively normal lives - instead constantly hitting them with angst, murder and mayhem because they believe it's boring if they don't but their alternative turned out to be Locksat and the a mind numbingly stupid separation that dragged on until Christmas. That's why I reiterate irrespective of the timings of interviews that they don't care about the fans and enjoying jerking them around whenever they can and I expect them to do the same in the finale too, if they don't and give us a decent ending Hawley especially will probably be grinding his teeth in frustration at being forced into it. Ooh yes it is, gorgeous! At least she'll die well dressed thank God, hair looks good too. I hope the bullets miss the material and she doesn't get any blood on it. May be they can auction it off at the end for the Stanatics to bid for it, raise some money for charity they could make a fortune. When a show ends they frequently sell quite a few things off, although Luke did say they keep most of the clothing unfortunately.

Castle: Will Stana Katic's Beckett die in the finale? Protect the fans...yeah right pull the other one, they couldn't give a crap about the fans and really the show always goes off the rails when they start inserting overblown drama into everything but alas Hawley seems determined to go down that road. Funny huh? That's going to be interesting to pull off if Beckett cops it.

That ugly overly long boxy green jacket on Castle in one shot suggests otherwise - it's Luke given the date of that article. Sigh But thanks for the link.

Marlowe said that same thing as Hart I'm sure at one point with that "fans think they know what they want but don't really" comment. Whilst I get where these showrunners are coming from in part on the other hand they can take things too far with this attitude, deliberately appearing to ensure fans never get a decent pay off until it's too late and fans like me drift away or the delay is resolved but in a horrible way (I'm looking at you HH and the Bones eventual coupling). I know what I want and I don't like being told "oh you don't really we know better", it feels as condescending as hell, I get the need to take fans on an emotional journey but at the end you need to make it feel earned by the characters and obviously it has to satisfying. Don't push your luck. With Castle I don't feel anything this season the characters have been through has been remotely earned and I doubt very much I'm going to find anything satisfying in the chosen resolution to their story. The showrunners have failed miserably and I haven't watched half the season and I have no intention of going back revisiting it. I agree that most shows seem to have an expiration date of about 5 years before they go off the boil, in the vast majority of cases that's happened to every show I've got invested in, by about S4 you can see the cracks showing, by S5 it's obvious and by S6 I'm willing the show to end and be put out of its misery. I got out of Bones S5 when Brennan rejected Booth in what should have been a great milestone moment which left me feeling as if I'd just been kicked in the teeth and I remember it for all the wrong reasons. Then in S6 Hannah turned up and it was crystal clear HH was intent on dragging things out until the next ice age if he had his way - thank God Emily got pregnant lol!

Before all this happened I really wanted Castle and Beckett to sign off final episode with a baby as I felt that was a fitting end to their happily ever after story. But now I can't think of anything more depressing than Rick either dreaming about what could have been or seeing an actual child being left motherless for him to bring up alone. It's like they'd be throwing a bone to the fans after this fiasco and irritates me more than anything else. Oh well Kate's dead but look here's a cute brown haired kid for mourning fans to make photo manips out of with Stana as "mom".

There are times when Molly has got on my nerves a bit with some of the things she's said. although I used to give her a free pass due to her age but not so much now. Most sensible fans don't treat her badly but sometimes she puts her foot in her mouth and reaps the whirlwind like many actors do on social media with the more hysterical/crazy/nasty elements of the fanbase. Also, some fans appear to confuse their dislike of the character with the actor which is unfortunate but it can happen quite a lot. As for that ABC tweet, it was so dumb although in hindsight I guess they were getting their marketing S9 prep in early lol. It was like waving a giant red flag at an already angry bull, I was not surprised at the tone of the responses, it wouldn't have made any difference if it had been father and son fighting crime. That's not what fans signed up for and were used to watching. Alexis was a secondary character who added substance to Castle through his family life but she was never front and centre. S8 changed her role and so Molly copped some extra flak in places no shock there. Her recent cheer leading of a Stanaless Castle again isn't going to win her any popularity awards or earn her many additional supporters but she obviously wants to stay in a job. Emotions are pretty frayed at the minute amongst many fans so increased discourtesy with people lashing out at each other and also cast and crew is an unfortunate side effect of that.

Castle 8x20 Sneak Peek #2 "Much Ado About Murder" (HD) This is ridiculous, how can a mystery writer be leading the investigation into a murder with an assist from the NYPD. Shouldn't it be the other way around? I'm sorry but I can's suspend disbelief to that extent. S8 is making Beckett look like an idiot. Sigh

Spoiler Room: Scoop on Grey's Anatomy, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Blindspot and more at EW Heh.

Couldn't agree with you more about how painfully clumsy and awkward it got towards the end, Fillion with the dreaded and bizarre "hover thumb" he would employ when touching her at times made me wince, it was like he was handling a dodgy explosive device not the woman he had lusted after for so long lol. Those moments are prime examples of why their so called "romantic" moments did less and less for me to the point where I no longer cared to see them they were so weird. As for Fillion playing those kind of scenes more for laughs than anything I agree that's what he almost always seemed to be going for whilst Stana was trying her best to go for genuine romance which made it even more jarring...pity they weren't even funny so epic fail there. Sigh

Tamala going was a no brainer really, her character contributed very little to the show, I'm sure any upset at her departure will soon be quickly forgotten. Seamus and Jon would both willingly renegotiate terms I'm sure and I can see the boys staying, you can't chuck the baby out with the bathwater and get rid of too many of the established cast and Fillion needs someone to bounce off. Also, didn't Seamus say a while ago he would be with the show "until the wheels fell off", well...they're wobbling! I'm surprised Susan has survived the cull as when she was hired she would have been expensive but I'm sure Fillion will go to bat for both Susan and Molly, he'll want to keep the Castle family on the show and even develop their roles now Katic is out of the equation and screentime needs to be filled. Pity about Alexis, if they got rid of her they might win themselves some fans like me who have grown increasingly disenchanted and wish she'd get a life (one that I don't have to see). They've done almost all the trimming they can in my estimation, they've hired foreign directors, a load of new writers who would be keen but cheap and Hanning leaving will help a little as he must have been paid more as an established writer than the rest. They could do with getting rid of Bowman he must cost a bit given his rep and it would be another positive improvement being able to clearly see things. Fans don't miss directors when they leave so it's another easy saving to make I don't know why they haven't got rid of him last season unless he's got some hold over the network or they want to keep him sweet.

Thanks Wendy. Great to have the site back up and running again. Holy Spandex or should I say Wonder Man, I cannot unsee that! But I find the long hair rather suits him though... What the Loss of One of TV’s Most Powerful Female Characters Means For CASTLE and For ABC at Screen Spy Sorry to burst this writer's bubble but Beckett doesn't serve as a role model for me but then I've long got past the stage of hyperventilating young fan girl (if I ever was one). Unfortunately Kate Beckett has grown increasingly unrelatable as the writing has got gradually mired in big bad conspiracies, emotional angst and they went down the predictable route of over emphasizing her brilliance, hotness and badassary at every turn which jarred with the original much more down to earth and vulnerable, adorably dorkish persona I enjoyed so much. Her promotion to Captain has also been a total bust. It's been a lousy season for Kate Beckett. And depending upon what happens in the finale, Beckett may be sending a whole different message to her fans - don't get too attached to your TV characters girls and boys!

CASTLE: DEAD AGAIN – A SAD COP/BAD COP REVIEW Melanie is heartbroken and can't even bring herself to watch after news broke of Katic and Tamala's departure so it's left to the bad cop to hold the fort.

Ask Matt: Flashback Fatigue, Blacklistand Castle Fallout, RuPaul's Drag Raceand More Matt answers a number of questions about Castle this week from the fans, I note even he's stepping into the quicksand gossip wise. He goes on to say this and I quite agree with him in terms of Castle reaching its sell by date (at least in it's current premise) some time ago: