ABC’s ‘Castle’ season 5 finale review: Did Kate leave for DC, and did Rick [spoiler]?

With a title like “Watershed,” you had to hope that “Castle” was really going to pull something absolutely fantastic out of their bag. This means that some sort of big moment typically occurs, but in this case, will it?

We don’t want to really focus much on the case-of-the-week, mostly because that really does not matter much at the end of the day. Instead, we have to talk about the massive decision that one Kate Beckett had in front of her. If she said “yes” to getting a job opportunity in Washington, DC, this marks the career equivalent of Rocky winning a prize fight. This is something that her mother would have been proud of her for, but it’s also something that she was not necessarily willing to do.

The big bump in the road (or more of a massive bump the size of Mount Olympus) was Castle. He didn’t think that they would survive the change, mostly because he was terrified that she would not have the time, or want to give up the time. This was an emotional episode more than one about a case. There were no moments where the lives of our key characters were at risk, or where we thought that a new villain would resurfaced. The only villains were the ones that the characters had within themselves.

Really, it was Castle’s mother who changed things, telling him that while Beckett struggled to open up, he was facilitating the problem by not giving her an opportunity to feel safe with him. Meanwhile, her own spider web of issues was pointed out to her by her father, including how she failed to understand the basic rule that “secret secrets are no fun, secrets secrets hurt someone.”

So the two went back to the famous swings, and in a blink of an eye, Castle proposed! This was a fakeout to end all fakeouts, as the sad music and the “bad things are coming” faces suggested a breakup was near. It was not a romantic comedy sort of proposal, but one of the realest ones we can imagine. Sadly, we’re just going to have to wait until the fall for an answer.

What was your take on the finale, and are you ready for what season 6 will bring now? We do have some ideas about season 6, at least in terms of what one cast member wants to see, over at the link here.

Photo: ABC