Castle Season 8 Episode 22 Review: Crossfire
Christine Orlando
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I fell in love with Castle from the very first episode. I fell hard for the love story, (Just check out my 29 Most Memorable Caskett Moments slideshow at the end of this review!), but I also loved the concept.
A writer and his muse made murder mysteries fun again…and let’s face it, there isn’t always a lot of fun on TV, especially where crime shows are concerned.
Flip through the channels and it feels as though every crime procedural is trying to be darker and more disturbing than the last.
Castle may have had it’s occasionally darker episodes, but as a whole, it looked towards the light. It was as optimistic and fun as murder could be, and that’s why I enjoyed it. Add in the epic love story and I’ll be a diehard fan, always.
That’s why I found Castle Season 8 Episode 22 disappointing.
First, it was mired down in LokSat, or as Vikram described it in this Castle quote…
The Big Bad Wolf. The person behind Senator Bracken, Allison Hyde, the hit squads and every terrible thing that's happened to me and Beckett in the past nine months.
Vikram
LokSat has been the most convoluted mess of a storyline the series has ever seen. Even now that’s it’s been wrapped up, I’m still not sure I could adequately explain why LokSat existed or what it’s purpose was…other than to break up Castle and Beckett for half a season.
The fact that Mason Wood from the Greater Detective Society turned out to be LokSat simply had me shaking my head. I’m not even going to try and look for the logic in that; I’ll just enjoy that I got a few more scenes with Gerald McRaney.
The drama did gift us with some great performances, but the problem with this show has never been the acting. This cast consistently brings their A game.
Nathan Fillion tore my heart out as Castle had tears in his eyes as the CIA’s truth serum forced him to reveal that everyone he cared about knew about LokSat and therefore, was about to be killed.
But even given a do-over, Castle wouldn’t have missed a minute with his one true love…
Beckett makes me laugh. She challenges me. I became a better man.
Castle
As much as I loved that we got one more moment with badass Beckett as she took down Mason, why the heck did she kick his gun away and not pick it up?!? Is Mason the only bad guy in the building? Wouldn’t a workable weapon be a good thing to have handy?
For as much as I’d wished Vikram dead this season, I was actually thankful to him when he told Espo and Ryan about LokSat…
Beckett: You shouldn't have told them.
Esposito: Yeah, you should have.
Exactly. I know she wanted to protect them, but the boys are her team. If she was going to trust anyone, it should have been Esposito and Ryan. The fact they had to hear about LokSat from someone else, and it took all season to get them onboard was a letdown.
Thankfully, Esposito and Ryan were even more badass than Beckett.
I don't care if it's protected by the Hulk, we're going to tear this place apart.
Esposito
Not only did they have Beckett’s back but Ryan made one hell of a shot and prevented Castle from being killed. This show has always worked best when Castle, Beckett, Esposito and Ryan worked together as a team, and it’s a shame we didn’t get to see more of that in Castle Season 8.
My stomach had been in knots for the entire hour because I just didn’t trust the current writing team to give us a proper ending.
I’m still lost as to why or how Caleb Brown is alive, and why he’d break into the loft to kill them both when the entire world thought he was dead, and he could have taken off and started over elsewhere.
When Caleb shot Castle, I yelled at the screen. When he shot Beckett, I damn near turned it off. The fact that the writers had planned on this type of cliffhanger to lead us into a Beckettless season 9 made me ill… and incredibly thankful that ABC decided to cancel my favorite series.
Although I’m grateful to have the last 30 seconds of Castle and Beckett happily together seven years later with their three children, it felt like a tacked on piece of fluff to placate fans.
We deserved better. Maybe someday show creators Andrew Marlow and Terri Edda Miller can write fans a proper ending…or a continuation to the story, because Caskett is Always.
Thanks to everyone who endured this season with me and enjoyed the ones that came before. I’ve appreciated you reading my reviews and most especially your comments. I write about several other shows here at TV Fanatic, and I hope you’ll check out those reviews, too.
I’ll have a Castle Season 8 report card for next week and then a Castle series report card after that. I hope you’ll all be back to check it out.
And please come back later in the week to see what our last Castle round table team thought of this series finale.
As always, if you want to track down all the best episodes, you can watch Castle online here at TV Fanatic.
C. Orlando was a TV Fanatic Staff Writer. Follow her on Twitter.
