Since meeting Richard Castle (Nathan Fillion), Kate Beckett (Stana Katic) hasn’t been willing to acknowledge her feelings for him. She has dated other men, but she’s never been able to commit to any of them.
After getting shot and hearing Castle’s proclamation of love for her, she avoided dealing with it by pretending she never heard him. After another near death experience, Kate realized she loved and needed Castle too. Is Kate over her commitment issues or will she continue to struggle to let Castle in?
I took this important questions to the Clackers for their thoughts about Castle’s Kate Beckett.
Deb: I’d like to think Kate can finally let Castle in, but something tells me there’s still going to be a dance. I’d like to see the relationship grow slowly, and have their chemistry and banter transfer over to them getting to know each other as a couple. The cool thing about Beckett is that she can be chilly and warm at the same time, and if the writers play up this aspect of her personality, it will work on all fronts — romantic, comedic and professional. Bringing back some scenes with Kate, Martha and Alexis, like in the first season, would be nice to see as well.
Likely what we’ll see is the first little thing Castle does that could possibly be misconstrued as mistrust will cause a row manufactured to keep them from growing too close too fast. Kate will throw up the wall that has become so familiar to her, safe for her, and she’ll push Castle away. I hope that I’m wrong and my first paragraph sees fruition.
An: I think Kate is over her commitment issues, but she has a brand new ball of worms to contend with — quitting her job and finding her mother’s assassin.
This season, Castle demonstrated that he just wants Kate as a normal woman. While her cop nature first attracted him to her, this season, he increasingly asked her to put aside her objectivity to give his friends a pass (the mayor, his former muse, and his former playboy friend), to let him lead first in dangerous situations — although it’s her job to go first (i.e. the tiger episode), and then blatantly asking her to stand down on dangerous episodes (the CIA one and regarding the investigation). He might love her and he might’ve adjusted to working in a cop setting, but I don’t think he’s fully adjusted to putting chivalry aside and recognizing he’ll have to accept his girlfriend’s a cop who gets into dangerous situations (that are more intense than the teen punk or white collar criminal of the week).
Honestly, I suspect this season the difficulty will surround Kate’s vendetta and if Castle can handle it.
Deb: You could be right, An, but I wasn’t actually seeing them step this far away from the formula (as fun as it would be to explore). If they do, it will only be for an episode or two and then Kate will be reinstated on the force and they’ll be back to doing what they do, albeit with a likely secret relationship (or Castle couldn’t work with them anymore). I can definitely see the shift going from Kate’s hesitancy to commit to Castle’s ability to handle Kate, though.
An: Ooh. I couldn’t see how they’d maintain the relationship while keeping the business as usual focus; but, if they keep their relationship under wraps from everyone else, that leaves a whole new level of tension and secrecy for the next season.
After all, at this point, I don’t think I could stand watching Castle/Beckett find another girl/boy interest of the week.
Christina: I also agree with everyone that the source of tension between Beckett and Castle moving forward will be the hunt for her mother’s killer and the danger that puts her in, especially because this issue was not really resolved in the season finale. I think Castle is going to lose a lot of sleep over the whole thing. That being said, I really hope they stay together and figure out how to work through this issue — it may even be fun to see them go to couples therapy! (On a related note, I think it would be awesome if the show went down the road of her never really getting closure for her mother’s death and learning to live with that, but since this is a show with a fairly conventional structure I doubt that will be the case.)
We may also see her continue to have jealousy issues when women from his past turn up, as they are wont to do. That will probably be more lighthearted and easily resolved, though.
Carla: I never considered that Kate and Castle would keep their relationship secret. I hope that doesn’t happen. Esposito and Ryan would not be easily fooled. They know better than anyone that those two belong together. Besides, they could provide comic relief for the couple. I could see them all keeping it a secret from the Captain though.
I believe that Kate has given her entire self to Castle now. While Castle will worry for her, they will work together more closely since the secrets are gone. Just because they are together doesn’t mean that episodes need to focus on that. There was a period last season when they were sort of dating even though they thought of it as friendship. I hope Kate will be able to work cases with Castle and it will seem just like episodes of the past.
Will Kate continue to have a commitment issues? Or, has she given herself openly to Castle? What would you like to see when Castle returns in the fall?
Clacked by Carla Day 
on Jun 20, 2012 @ 17:38 EST5EDT
It will be interesting to see where the show goes from here. Every show that hangs on the “will they/won’t they” premise tends to loose steam once the deed is done. The dance, the chase are always fun to watch. Can the best romance on television beat the odds?
They lose steam because they’ve usually held the characters apart too long and created ridiculous reasons for doing so. They dilute whatever was good and interesting about the relationship – usually compromising the characters’ development arcs in the process. By the time the characters do get together there is very little left of what the audience was invested in, so viewers drift. Castle managed to get the characters together within the window of plausibility and have stayed pretty on track with character development, so the audience is still excited to see what comes next.
Personally i think they should keep the relationship a secret b/c it would add more life to how they deal with the personal and professional side of the relationship. Remember this is going to be new territory to explore for both of them and a lot of fun for us to watch. Lets face it by keeping everyone still guessing and (BTW – the precinct pool bet getting larger) will add a lot of material for future episodes of banter/comedy.