S08.E15: Fidelis Ad Mortem

[TWP]

What also irks me about that scene was that as the daughter of an alcoholic whose life was severely affected by her father's drinking she should be highly sensitised to the fact that reaching so casually for the bottle as a way to wash away your initial frustration, pain and problems is a no go.   Watching her keep feeding her husband's glass with yet more booze I found off putting given the circumstances. 

 

The writers needs to stop trying to make Castle more serious - it never comes off that well. Hawley probably thought this scene was dark and edgy but it rang all sorts of wrong bells with me and felt jarring for various reasons, the casual use of booze, the lack of honest to God communication between them being sorely highlighted (again) how extremely unhealthy their relationship has become, then we get the cold stark morning after scene.

 

Also, why couldn't they show Castle (or Beckett I'm all for equal opportunity) with what looks like their clothes off more often after doing the deed? Even a bare naked arm or shoulder sticking out from under the covers whilst sleeping would do, it's not that I'm obsessed with wanting to see naked flesh or anything but it would make these kind of scenes seem a bit more realistic and not so obviously staged. 

 

As the product of a long line of alcoholics and not being one myself, I can tell you if you don't have the addiction, you don't have the addiction....although, Beckett has been written as an addicted personality for years (to "justice" at all costs including her relationships), so she definitely could develop a drinking addiction too. Castle doesn't seem to have addictive tendencies though. I haven't read many of the Castle books, but wonder if the drinking scene was based on something from one of the books. It reminded me of a scene I remember involving margaritas, although that scene was more sexually provocative and less escapist.

 

Beckett turned to booze, too,  in that PTSD episode a number of years ago. So yep, she could be a budding alcoholic

 

What really separates Castle for me is the humor. Without that, it has nothing over any number of annoying police dramas. Last week's Castle could easily come off my DVR. And I wouldn't even feel sad.

[oberon55]

I feel like it's been the attitude in the writers' room for a long time. The "season of secrets" anyone? IMO it was set up to be equally "damaging yet understandable" for both characters, for no reason than to create an artificial drama. I know that most people, at least here, seemed to empathize with Castle's "secret" more, but from the treatment it got from Beckett I think writers saw it from the start as an equal opportunity "stupid mistake", first exploding right into Beckett's face, then Castle's. This keeping score in the things that need no score, just an adult conversation, "taking down a peg" and multiple removals of moral high grounds, is what's been passing for character development slash couple therapy for a long time now.

You hit the nail on the head. Not only do the writers have them doing the same thing (lies & secrets) but they also have them swearing that they have learned their lesson & that this is the last time. Just out of curiosity how many meaningless times have they promised each other to stop? I can think of at least 3 times since they have been together & I suspect there are others that I don't remember.

 

1) After Paris.

2) After getting his PI license.

3) Right before the LokSat fiasco.

 

For me one more promise now is just noise that doesn't really mean any more than the others did.

[S55]

Considering how often Castle and Beckett enjoy wine or other drinks (either solo or together), if we are to believe Beckett has an alcohol issue, the show sure doesn't acknowledge it. lol 

[westwingfan]

Considering how often Castle and Beckett enjoy wine or other drinks (either solo or together), if we are to believe Beckett has an alcohol issue, the show sure doesn't acknowledge it. lol 

But how many times do they actually drink that much. At the end of TLOO they leave full glasses behind as he carts her off to the bedroom on his wheelchair. They seem very wasteful most of the time.

[S55]

But how many times do they actually drink that much. At the end of TLOO they leave full glasses behind as he carts her off to the bedroom on his wheelchair. They seem very wasteful most of the time.

 

Regardless of how much the audience actually sees them drink, I think it's implied that they enjoy drinking what I would consider a normal frequency. 

 

Personally, I've never thought about if she's an alcoholic like her father. 

[oberon55]

Regardless of how much the audience actually sees them drink, I think it's implied that they enjoy drinking what I would consider a normal frequency. 

 

Personally, I've never thought about if she's an alcoholic like her father. 

Hell I doubt the writers even remember she has a father much less if he is an alcoholic or not.

[KaveDweller]

Also, why couldn't they show Castle (or Beckett I'm all for equal opportunity) with what looks like their clothes off more often after doing the deed? Even a bare naked arm or shoulder sticking out from under the covers whilst sleeping would do, it's not that I'm obsessed with wanting to see naked flesh or anything but it would make these kind of scenes seem a bit more realistic and not so obviously staged.

Were we supposed to think they got drunk and had sex? I thought they just got drunk until they passed out or something. They've been showing them clearly naked after sex every other time we've seen them this season.

I think it's kind of a reach to say either of them are alcoholics because we saw them drinking after a really bad day.

You hit the nail on the head. Not only do the writers have them doing the same thing (lies & secrets) but they also have them swearing that they have learned their lesson & that this is the last time. Just out of curiosity how many meaningless times have they promised each other to stop? I can think of at least 3 times since they have been together & I suspect there are others that I don't remember.

1) After Paris.

2) After getting his PI license.

3) Right before the LokSat fiasco.

E

For me one more promise now is just noise that doesn't really mean any more than the others did.

The only other time was when Castle proposed. But I'm not even sure they made any promises after the PI thing, Beckett just said she was annoyed. Everyone says that they've made these promises all the time, so it sounds like it should be more, but that's really an exaggeration. The circumstances of the secrets are also really different, if they actually had them talk in this weeks episode, they could have rationalized it that they broke the promise because they thought the other's life was more important, but now they realize that's not reason enough. It would have worked because that's not them making the same basic mistake is in the past. But that was probably too daunting for the writers. Edited March 24, 2016 by KaveDweller

[verdana]

I wasn't suggesting that Kate (or Castle for that matter) are alcoholics but I found it distasteful given her family background that Beckett's first thought is to get drunk rather then talk things through. 
 
Has Beckett even mentioned her father this season? Does he even realise they're separated? I don't know what the actor is up to at the moment but if they can find time for a Hayley centric episode I wish they could give fans a brief moment between Kate and Jim to remind everyone she does have family outside the Castle clan.

 

I'm with oberon at this stage any promises made or understandings reached between them are rendered meaningless. No matter what the circumstances the results are always exactly the same and given his marital track record you would think Castle would be better at this by now but instead the writers make him look as clueless as she is. 

 

What S8 has shown is that the current writers are incapable or unwilling to let this couple remain happily married fighting crime together, fans hoping for Caskett togetherness and babies in S9 can forget it. She'll probably miscarry and not tell Castle for some dumbass reason as Hawley decides to push the boat out and make Castle more serious whilst simultaneously turning up the dial on the slapstick comedy to really set my teeth on edge. 

Edited March 24, 2016 by verdana

[shapeshifter]

Watching that scene where Castle walks into her office and confesses I winced at the clunky dialogue "I uncovered the real reason why I had my memories erased and its bad" oh yeah it's bad alright, really bad dialogue. I felt sorry for Fillion there, to make it sound like he's having a serious grown up conversation with the wife about his selective amnesia and missing time in this way takes me out of the scene completely. These days the actors have to sell this kind of pap regularly as something I have to take seriously!...

I thought: Oh. This show has gone scifi.

And then I thought Fillion must be pretending he's reading a Firefly script.

[Annec]

I don't have too much to comment on that hasn't already been addressed, except I actually laughed out loud when the victim's ghost appeared on-screen. Really? Thought I was watching Cold Case for a second there. It's like Bowman was experimenting or something, but it seemed out of place and weird to me.

When Decker was walking to talk to her "father" and the kept cutting to the boyfriend's ghost I laughed out loud. Clearly this was supposed to be a dramatic episode but so much of it seemed rushed and forced. Add to that Bowman's "lights out" style (honestly, during the shoot out it was almost impossible to see anything) and this episode was the best this season but still doesn't compare to previous seasons.

As someone said above, the guest characters were blah, no impact at all. Absolutely no humor, and the "Badass Beckett" was a bit overplayed.

It just makes me so sad to see what they've done to the show I love. I'll keep recording and will watch an episode if it gets positive reviews (more Caskett and minimal Hayley and Alexis) but Castle is no longer appointment tv for me.

[KaveDweller]

I have to ask because this popped into my head when I couldn't sleep last night, and now it is bothering me. I have no idea why I started thinking about it.  I think I asked this when the episode aired and it got lost in the pile of other comments.

What did I miss that had everyone think they had sex during the scene we saw them drinking? Am I just a total prude for not assuming there was sex involved because we saw a bed? Beckett said she didn't want to talk so I assumed they just drank until the passed out or something so they could avoid it, which is what Castle said to Hayley the next day. I figured we saw them in the morning to show that they didn't talk at all between when we last saw them and the end of the episode, not to show they'd been having sex. I mean, Castle was fully dressed. But then every article I read talked about them having sex, which I didn't get at all.

It's not really healthy either way so it doesn't matter, I'm just dying to know what I missed. And just for the record, I usually have much more interesting/important things running through my head when I can't sleep. Really.

[McManda]

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What did I miss that had everyone think they had sex during the scene we saw them drinking?

I think the implication is that they got drunk and slept together mostly because:

1 - Beckett is presumably not living full time at the loft at this point; they're back together but separate in public and to keep that up she's staying ... elsewhere. The fact that she stayed the night points to her staying for something.

2 - "if we're not talking, what are we doing?" ... if she wanted to get drunk to forget what he told her, or not talk about what he told her, she could have done that alone. It just seems kinda awkward to head to your home, where you're currently not living, to sit in silence and brood over something that one didn't want to admit to and the other didn't want to hear.

Beckett is, in general, very good at avoiding. Seems to me like she was torn between the cop and partner wanting to keep Castle safe from her drama (which was the whole theme of the season) and the wife that knows that Castle loves her unconditionally, to the point where he'll literally do anything for her. Plus, it's kind of hard to be mad at the guy when he's trying to piece together the recollection of what he did or why he did it. Yeah, she's furious. But she's also in love and vaguely rational about his confession of what he learned about his missing time in terms of not really blaming him for something he didn't remember.

So she comes to the loft, avoids confronting him and the issue it by handing him a drink ... and then another ... and that frustration has to go somewhere. I think it's both oddly productive - it proves that she's still there, that she still cares for him, that they're still together - and only makes things worse - because they don't talk about it, they both end up with no resolution.

At least, that's kind of my take on things. It mostly stems from the idea that I don't see Beckett coming just for a drink, to get drunk, sit in silence, and then head to bed. She wanted something, and as established they didn't touch on the issue at hand at all. I just think drunk, vaguely angry sex makes the most sense.

And as for Castle telling Hayley they got drunk and didn't talk ... he's not really one to kiss and tell (unless it's a humble brag, but there's not really anything humble braggy about a desperate drunk sex with your presumably estranged wife). He doesn't say they just drank until they passed out, either.

Edited July 19, 2016 by McManda
added quote

[chraume]

15 minutes ago, McManda said:

So she comes to the loft, avoids confronting him and the issue it by handing him a drink ... and then another ... and that frustration has to go somewhere. I think it's both oddly productive - it proves that she's still there, that she still cares for him, that they're still together - and only makes things worse - because they don't talk about it, they both end up with no resolution.

At least, that's kind of my take on things. It mostly stems from the idea that I don't see Beckett coming just for a drink, to get drunk, sit in silence, and then head to bed. She wanted something, and as established they didn't touch on the issue at hand at all. I just think drunk, vaguely angry sex makes the most sense.

Oh, that's interesting. I actually interpreted the opposite -- Beckett coming over just to stew with him in silence, and not sleep with him, would make it more meaningful, to me. Like, they're fake separated, and it's been very emphasized that their relationship has been very physical, so the fact that she's not running away from him but coming home just so they can sit together, even if it's not yet time to work things out, and drink in silence seems dysfunctional but also a step up from her coming over just for angry sex.

I'm with you, @KaveDweller. Castle, the oversharer of S8, would have at the very least made an innuendo under his breath when talking to Hayley imo. I've always interpreted it as them in a fight but still being in the same space together, which is a very married couple thing to do. But I think angry sex is an equally valid interpretation -- my guess is that it was left reasonably open-ended so everyone could make their own conclusions. 

Edited July 19, 2016 by chraume

[KaveDweller]

3 minutes ago, McManda said:

I think the implication is that they got drunk and slept together mostly because:

1 - Beckett is presumably not living full time at the loft at this point; they're back together but separate in public and to keep that up she's staying ... elsewhere. The fact that she stayed the night points to her staying for something.

Except that earlier that episode they showed that Beckett had stayed there when Castle was in LA. Which I thought was super weird at the time. But she came out of the bedroom in the morning all, "You got in so late from LA last night." But her whole living situation was weird in S8, they never explained where she was staying.

Beckett is, in general, very good at avoiding. Seems to me like she was torn between the cop and partner wanting to keep Castle safe from her drama (which was the whole theme of the season) and the wife that knows that Castle loves her unconditionally, to the point where he'll literally do anything for her. Plus, it's kind of hard to be mad at the guy when he's trying to piece together the recollection of what he did or why he did it. Yeah, she's furious. But she's also in love and vaguely rational about his confession of what he learned about his missing time in terms of not really blaming him for something he didn't remember.

So she comes to the loft, avoids confronting him and the issue it by handing him a drink ... and then another ... and that frustration has to go somewhere. I think it's both oddly productive - it proves that she's still there, that she still cares for him, that they're still together - and only makes things worse - because they don't talk about it, they both end up with no resolution.

Oh, yeah, I agree with all that about Beckett.  That was why I assumed she went back to the loft despite not being ready to talk to him and still being upset, she was making a point about her commitment to him.

Just to note, I wasn't  arguing the idea of them having sex, or anything.  I just felt like I was missing something. I guess I am just more of a prude than I thought that my assumption didn't go there. But then I totally don't get the fully clothed Castle in the morning. They had been doing really well for most of season 8, showing them naked in their post-sex scenes.

[chraume]

1 minute ago, KaveDweller said:

Except that earlier that episode they showed that Beckett had stayed there when Castle was in LA. Which I thought was super weird at the time. But she came out of the bedroom in the morning all, "You got in so late from LA last night." But her whole living situation was weird in S8, they never explained where she was staying.

Wow, I remember that scene well, but I honestly never contextualized it like that. Good catch. 

[KaveDweller]

5 minutes ago, chraume said:

I'm with you, @KaveDweller. Castle, the oversharer of S8, would have at the very least made an innuendo under his breath when talking to Hayley imo. I've always interpreted it as them in a fight but still being in the same space together, which is a very married couple thing to do. But I think angry sex is an equally valid interpretation -- my guess is that it was left reasonably open-ended so everyone could make their own conclusions. 

Okay, well then, I'm glad I'm not the only one. 

[McManda]

Quote

Except that earlier that episode they showed that Beckett had stayed there when Castle was in LA. Which I thought was super weird at the time. But she came out of the bedroom in the morning all, "You got in so late from LA last night." But her whole living situation was weird in S8, they never explained where she was staying.

Ah, I didn't see that as her staying at the loft while he was gone, just that she was waiting for him when he got in. I mean, I guess she could have stayed there while he was gone (and explained it to anyone that asked as "well, it's still my home, too, and Castle's not even there").. Was Martha moved out at this point? I don't remember really.

Quote

Oh, that's interesting. I actually interpreted the opposite -- Beckett coming over just to stew with him in silence, and not sleep with him, would make it more meaningful, to me. Like, they're fake separated, and it's been very emphasized that their relationship has been very physical, so the fact that she's not running away from him but coming home just so they can sit together, even if it's not yet time to work things out, and drink in silence seems dysfunctional but also a step up from her coming over just for angry sex.

This is true. I think the only reason I went for the opposite is because they're both fairly passionate people. I don't know that literally doing nothing is really either of their MOs.

Edited July 19, 2016 by McManda

[KaveDweller]

10 minutes ago, McManda said:

Ah, I didn't see that as her staying at the loft while he was gone, just that she was waiting for him when he got in. I mean, I guess she could have stayed there while he was gone (and explained it to anyone that asked as "well, it's still my home, too, and Castle's not even there").. Was Martha moved out at this point? I don't remember really.

This is true. I think the only reason I went for the opposite is because they're both fairly passionate people. I don't know that literally doing nothing is really either of their MOs.

They never said for sure, but I think Martha and Alexis both moved out between seasons 7 and 8. 

I actually think doing nothing is their MO. Just look at how long it took them to get together. That was because they kept doing nothing for four seasons. But their MOs also changed at the writers' whims, so.......

[McManda]

Quote

Just to note, I wasn't  arguing the idea of them having sex, or anything.  I just felt like I was missing something. I guess I am just more of a prude than I thought that my assumption didn't go there. But then I totally don't get the fully clothed Castle in the morning. They had been doing really well for most of season 8, showing them naked in their post-sex scenes.

I don't think that's prudishness. I think it's a valid question because either way wasn't made (excuse the entendre) explicit.

As for Castle fully clothed the morning after, I just took that to be a lack of closeness. There was probably no (post coital or not) cuddling, Beckett is dressed and ready to go (and whatever happened the night before doesn't sit well with her), and she doesn't wake him before she leaves, which Castle mentions as abnormal. (Side note: I forget the timeline ... Hayley must know they're together, yes? Otherwise why would Castle mention she didn't wake him before she left. That implies (1) she stayed the night, and (2) she stays the night frequently enough for them to have developed a routine about it.)

Quote

I actually think doing nothing is their MO. Just look at how long it took them to get together. That was because they kept doing nothing for four seasons. But their MOs also changed at the writers' whims, so.......

I think before they got together, yeah, inaction was what they did. But once that ice was broken it opened up a lot more opportunity. A lot of their inaction was of the "does s/he like me?" and when that question gets answered it opens the door that wasn't there previously. Aside from the couple of clearly just for a storyline mistakes I think their relationship once they got together was fairly mature and adult.

[KaveDweller]

52 minutes ago, McManda said:

I don't think that's prudishness. I think it's a valid question because either way wasn't made (excuse the entendre) explicit.

As for Castle fully clothed the morning after, I just took that to be a lack of closeness. There was probably no (post coital or not) cuddling, Beckett is dressed and ready to go (and whatever happened the night before doesn't sit well with her), and she doesn't wake him before she leaves, which Castle mentions as abnormal. (Side note: I forget the timeline ... Hayley must know they're together, yes? Otherwise why would Castle mention she didn't wake him before she left. That implies (1) she stayed the night, and (2) she stays the night frequently enough for them to have developed a routine about it.)

I think Hayley and Vikram both knew they were back together but pretending not to be the whole time. We never saw them learn this news, but they had conversations with Castle/Beckett where it seemed clear they must know. I will never understand why they were trustworthy enough to know the truth but Ryan, Espo, and even Martha and Alexis were not. It almost would have served them right if Hayley and Vikram were actually Loksat at the end. 

I think before they got together, yeah, inaction was what they did. But once that ice was broken it opened up a lot more opportunity. A lot of their inaction was of the "does s/he like me?" and when that question gets answered it opens the door that wasn't there previously. Aside from the couple of clearly just for a storyline mistakes I think their relationship once they got together was fairly mature and adult.

I agree, it's just that most of the storyline mistakes were the majority of season 8. I just try and ignore most of those details so it doesn't ruin the story up until then.

[oberon55]

59 minutes ago, KaveDweller said:

I will never understand why they were trustworthy enough to know the truth but Ryan, Espo, and even Martha and Alexis were not. It almost would have served them right if Hayley and Vikram were actually Loksat at the end. 

The funny thing is that after all of the breakup bullshit to protect him Castle looked LokSat (or his minion if you think the lawyer not GDS guy was LokSat) in the face and told him "I already work with the greatest detective in the world and I can not wait to get back home to her".