Castle Finale: The Day After

My feelings about the Castle finale “Crossfire,” are mixed and scattered, but one thing I’m sure about – they did the right thing. They left the fandom with an HEA (happily ever after – for those of you that are acronymanally challenged) and less of a bitter taste in our mouths.

No matter what happened behind the scenes, the showrunners didn’t let it leak into our living rooms. Yes, we heard about it all – all the innuendo, the bloodbathery, the hurt and anger it caused – but it did NOT make it to our television screens.

Their Happily Ever After

I’ve lived through a lot of different fandoms, most of them without social media interaction, (Yes, there was life before #Twitter) and to see a groundswell movement appear to have an impact on a network show’s outcome – well, that was a new and different thing for me. I saw it on a slightly smaller scale during my love affair with Chuck. The fandom managed to get the show renewed when it was on the bubble several times, and it was satisfying to say the least – but it was nothing compared to this outpouring of sentiment.

Two of my early loves were Scarecrow & Mrs. King and Moonlighting. Both shows ended badly, one understandably so, and one contentiously.

S&MK starred Bruce Boxleitner and Kate Jackson in the titular characters. They too were partners at odds with each other that fell in love, and headed towards the aisle. Unfortunately, Ms. Jackson contracted cancer and while she has prospered since, she had to withdraw from the show, and it was left sans one of it’s leads. It didn’t work without her, and was quickly cancelled.

Moonlighting is infamous in it’s demise. (Check out the link if you’re interested in the nitty gritty) The main thrust of it’s downfall is that the Showrunners and Cast didn’t really see eye-to-eye, and with other problems, the show went down in flames behind the scenes – which left what we saw on our TVs a chaotic mess that soured most fans on the show. I haven’t seen an episode of the show in forever, and mostly because I only remember the bad parts. It was a great show though, and the reason I can’t watch it is because of what happened in real life. That’s not right.

Eight Years Ago…

We’re fans, that doesn’t make us 100% entitled to anything our storytellers give us. But The Powers That Be should keep in mind that ultimately, we are the ones invested in what they write/act out/produce, etc. We become fans because we like what they’ve created, but we have the right to stop watching/reading, etc. it when we don’t.

I’m overjoyed that whomever made the decision to go with the HEA made that fist and went with it, because now we have a show we can be proud of. Okay, it’s not perfect. Not by a longshot. And we know that there have been trials behind the scenes that are most likely cringe-worthy, and we may never see the whole story, but think about this…

Someday, you’ll be able to recommend Castle to a friend. You can say, “Hey, this was a really good show. It wasn’t perfect, but it was a pretty good love story.” Your friend doesn’t have to know all the nasty stuff that happened this month, they can just enjoy Castle for what it was. What it ended up being. A love story.

Kate and her Twins