ABC’s ‘Castle’ season 7 finale review: Castle battles his demons; Beckett gets an offer

Tonight, “Castle” aired a very different sort of finale in “Hollander’s Woods,” one that did its part to try and show you a variety of super-intense (but also surprising) events over the course of the hour. It brought us back to a time when Rick first figured out that he wanted to be a writer, after trying to investigate a shocking event that happened to him as a child that he was not entirely sure even happened.

This was definitely a scary episode, make no bones about it; it may just be the scariest one that we’ve seen in a long time granted that we had a serial killer in a crazy mask, one who got into Castle’s head and nearly even murdered him at his secret lair. Castle had no choice but to kill him, since otherwise, he would have met a terrible fate. At the end of the episode he accepted an award for his achievement, and he wondered if he would have been there if it wasn’t for what happened to him so many years ago.

The episode featured a tough decision for Beckett, as she was handed an offer to run for State Senate, where she could really change more lives and protect those who needed it. She is not entirely sure if she will take it, and we did not really get much of an answer at all.

In a way, “Hollander’s Woods” could have functioned as a series finale if need be, given that there was a decent amount of closure save for the Beckett situation, and Castle gave such a reflective, poignant speech at the end. While it did not necessarily deliver 100% of the time, this was a good fifty times better than last season’s finale with that out-of-nowhere twist, and it has us feeling grateful for the show and hopeful for the future. Grade: A-.

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