CASTLE Recap: 7×20 “Sleeper” ~or~ A Frayed Knot

I honestly have no idea how to approach this recap. I mean, at least I’m coming at this from an honest direction, right? Lemme start by not mincing words: I hated it. I’ve never been more disappointed in Castle – the Showrunner, the Writers, the Editors… The only people I can’t place blame upon are the actors and the people that make the sets and actors look great. Is that too harsh?

Here’s the deal: Don’t write a mystery story with threads that lead us to a really intriguing mythos, then just finish it like an English student eager to finish their unwanted homework.

The Hero gets snatched up on his wedding day, making it look like he DIED – leaving hints that he’s alive so his loved ones continue to look for him for two months. They find bread crumbs at first. A campsite with his belongings, a Safety Deposit Box in Montreal, a Tenuous reference to a childhood experience in Hollander Woods, and many overt camera zoom-ins on his huge watch (after they’ve mentioned it several times) that I’d hoped was a clue.

Those crumbs led to nothing. They were hand-waves. Dropped threads that equate to really sloppy writing. I’m sad if this is a “we wanted to get so-and-so back but couldn’t” situation, but the story was finished so poorly that I was hard-pressed to believe it was written by anyone who had watched the show.

I mean, Al Qaeda, really? He saved TENS OF THOUSANDS of people? He’s TOO FAMOUS for terrorists to kill? They kill reporters, writers, aid workers, etc, ON CAMERA all the time! Bad. Just bad.

I don’t want to go on and on about it, so I’ll end it here. If you want to hear more, we discussed the episode as well on my podcast, Storming the Castle. I try not to plug, but this is a special case. Venting is a good thing.

My parting words? The last few episodes better be effing good. Otherwise they wasted an opportunity to make this an arc to expand on Rick’s missing two-months. *grumble grumble*