Castle and Beckett live happily ever after. So the last 30 seconds of the Castle series finale showed. Despite a massive shootout in Castle’s kitchen, a time jump of seven years revealed the couple living in tranquility with their three children.
The time jump and the family revelation were part of the alternate ending given to the series that was canceled on Thursday. Castle completed its run after eight seasons and 173 episodes on ABC.
Find out how Castle and Beckett took down LokSat and kept their epic love story alive. Always.
Castle and Beckett Have Three Kids… As Predicted
Showrunners Alexi Hawley and Terence Paul Winter tacked on a special end scene to give Castle closure since ABC canceled the series last week. The scene took place seven years in the future and revealed Castle and Beckett still living in the loft, but with three children.
The amount of kids lines up with the time-traveler the couple met during season six who predicted Castle and Beckett would eventually get married (which they did), she would become a senator (almost happened) and would have three children.
LokSat Has a Hobby and it’s The Greatest Detective Society
Castle and Beckett could only outsmart LokSat for so long before they got too far caught up in his game. First, Castle was captured by his right hand man who strapped him to a board and injected him with truth serum. The medication caused him to spill why he fell in love with Beckett but the read interrogation came when the right hand man called in LokSat for the hard questions.
Castle waited until his old friend Mason Wood, the head of The Greatest Detective Society, walked in front of him. Wood had saved him and Beckett earlier in the day during a massive shootout, but this time he wasn’t so friendly. He demanded to know everyone who was aware of LokSat and Castle, filled with the truth serum, has no choice but to reveal the names of Hayley, Ryan and Esposito, his mother and his daughter, while tears streamed down his face.
Once Wood had the information he needed, he went to meet up with Beckett, who still believed he was one of the good guys. He picked her up and took her to the basement of the CIA black site where Castle was being held a few floors above. She almost got the dropped on him, but magnets in the ceiling pulled her gun away while Wood was able to hold onto his firearm made of plastic.
Beckett was dead where she stood until Castle came around the corner also pointing a gun that got snatched by the magnets. But when Wood turned around to look at Castle, it gave Beckett enough time to pulled a quick move on Wood and put him down.
Caleb Tries to Tie Up Loose Ends
At the beginning of the episode, Ryan and Esposito determined Caleb Brown had died when he was burned alive in the back of the car driven by LokSat’s right hand man. But in the closing moments of the episode, Castle had an a-ha moment when he turned on the stove burner and wondered why Mason who dispose of Caleb’s body in a burning car rather than the incinerated at the CIA black site. And that’s when Caleb stepped into the kitchen guns blazing, shooting Castle in the chest.
Beckett ran out off the bedroom with her gun drawn and put a couple bullets in Caleb, killing him. Before he went down, he also got a round off into Beckett’s belly. She was able to crawl over to Castle on the kitchen floor and clutched his hand.
Could that have been the final scene had the series continued into season nine? Castle survives his wounds but Beckett loses too much blood and dies?
And What About Everyone Else?
Detectives Ryan and Esposito quickly jumped to their captain’s defense when she read them into the LokSat investigation. (ABC)
After the shootout with LokSat’s firing squad, Castle went back to his P.I. office with Hayley and put his mother and daughter Alexis in the panic room. When he decided to go find Beckett at the precinct, Hayley offered to go with him for protection, but he demanded she stay behind and protect his family. They all reunited back at the precinct once Castle and Beckett had put down Wood.
Following the events at the CIA black site, Esposito and Ryan needed a drink, even at seven in the morning. They invited Vikram, who decided to stay with the NYPD, and Lanie, who came to make sure her best friend Beckett was still alive.
What Would Have Happened in Season 9?
How would Castle react if he lost Beckett? Fans may never know. (ABC)
Had a season nine come to pass, it would have been missing a major component of the story, namely Kate Beckett. Stana Katic and her co-star Tamala Jones, who played medical examiner Lanie Parish, were cut from the cast due to budgetary reasons. Everyone else had signed or were close to signing a contract extension when ABC canceled the show.
Hawley and Winter had plans for a ninth season and were setting up a season finale that would have left the possibility for the show to return but not in the “same form” as it had run for the past eight seasons, Hawley told TVLine. They also penned this note to the fans, creator Andrew Marlowe and the cast and crew (via TVInsider):
While we’re still trying to process all the emotions stirred up by recent events, the feeling that stands head and shoulders above all else, is gratitude.
Eight seasons. A hundred and seventy three episodes.
None of it would have been possible without you — our loyal and passionate fans. You are the reason this show survived and thrived. Without you carving out “Castle Mondays” every week, we would never have been able to make the show we love for as long as we did.
So thank you.
And thanks to Andrew Marlowe for creating such a delightful world, centered around a love story for the ages. It was an honor and privilege to shepherd the story of Castle and Beckett this season.
And finally, thank you to our cast and crew, who have been our family for these last eight years. Who elevated every script by investing the best of themselves into each episode. We will miss you profoundly.
Alexi and Terence