The successful crime series Castle ran from 2009 to 2016 – and shocked long-time viewers with one extremely ambiguous finale.
The latter was apparently the result of some spontaneous decisions by the series creators, which producer and screenwriter Alexi Hawley tried to explain after the fact.
Castle’s shocking finale still sparks debate among fans to this day
For eight seasons, fans were able to enjoy the charming exchange of blows between the cheeky writer Richard Castle (Nathan Fillion) and the sharp-tongued police officer Kate Beckett (Stana Katic), who solved criminal cases together in New York.
After Beckett and Castle finally found each other after a long back and forth, it looked like a happy ending in season 8. That’s what the viewers should get in the series finale. However, the path to get there was uncertain, as Alexi Hawley (creator of today’s Nathan Fillion series The Rookie) revealed in a conversation with Looper.
Castle was originally supposed to have a 9th season. This season would have been about – hold on –
Kate Beckett would have died in an attack in the Season 8 finale. So her partner Castle would have spent the fictional season 9 hunting down his wife’s murderer. A strangely dark twist for a crime comedy.
However, the Castle crew didn’t know until the end whether ABC would decide to continue their series. For this reason a Finale was shot that would do justice to both extremely opposite options – and ultimately no one really.
So in the last scenes of Castle you see how the two main characters Beckett and Castle are attacked by assassins in their own apartment and with their last strength, lying in their own blood, hold each other’s hand.
Shortly afterwards there is a cut and we see the duo – including the new addition to the family – radiant and healthy in the last shot. The finale could hardly have been more confusing.
To this day, fans, for example on Reddit, react with corresponding annoyance to the nerve-wracking emotional chaos that the final episode demands. This is what a fan said just nine months ago:
To be fair, it’s hard to find someone who doesn’t think the series finale is absolute garbage.
Another person criticizes a rehashed storyline:
The few positive aspects of Season 8 were primarily some of the case-of-the-week episodes, but anything to do with the revived saga surrounding the murder of Beckett’s mother and Locksat was just the worst.
The fan in question was not alone with his point of view, as the following comment clearly shows:
The only reason why I [Staffel 8] on DVD is that I had to complete the series but it is still wrapped in plastic never to be seen.
After eight years of excitement, many fans felt betrayed. Not just from the finale – season 8 itself wasn’t a masterpiece.
Massive upheavals behind the scenes were responsible
The uncertainty surrounding another season may have been the main reason why Castle received such a strange ending. However, other factors probably also played a role.
The original series creator Andrew Marlow left the series after season 6, which resulted in a tonal change. It was also announced that Beckett actress Stana Katic was fired – and would therefore no longer have been able to play her role in a possible 9th season anyway.
Many of these decisions were not explained to fans in detail and therefore remain open. For many viewers, it may be a relief in retrospect that the planned 9th season was never implemented and that after eight long seasons, Castle and Beckett were allowed to start a future together despite the strange ending.