Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Locked thread
Kurieg
Jul 19, 2012

RIP Lutri: 5/19/20-4/2/20
:blizz::gamefreak:
Caleb was the defense attourney from earlier in the season who they spent two episodes establishing was a decent person who was nevertheless caught up in Loksat's schemes. He's the guy who gave them the cell phone so they could try tracking Loksat and was supposedly the guy they found in the trunk soon afterwards.

Him randomly showing up again for all of 5 seconds and suddenly being evil and in league with Loksat was dumb.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

To Vex a Stranger
Mar 15, 2004
Rawr!

Kurieg posted:

Caleb was the defense attourney from earlier in the season who they spent two episodes establishing was a decent person who was nevertheless caught up in Loksat's schemes. He's the guy who gave them the cell phone so they could try tracking Loksat and was supposedly the guy they found in the trunk soon afterwards.

Him randomly showing up again for all of 5 seconds and suddenly being evil and in league with Loksat was dumb.

I don't think he was "in league" with loksat, I think he WAS loksat, right? Isn't that what it turned out to be? And the old dude was just playing Loksat to keep Caleb from being over exposed?

Either way, convoluted and absurd.

EricFate
Aug 31, 2001

Crumpets. Glorious Crumpets.

To Vex a Stranger posted:

I don't think he was "in league" with loksat, I think he WAS loksat, right? Isn't that what it turned out to be? And the old dude was just playing Loksat to keep Caleb from being over exposed?

Either way, convoluted and absurd.

The fact that you don't know the answer to that is a testament to how badly written the story arc was.

karrethuun
Jun 6, 2011
How does a rogue CIA analyst have leverage over a US senator running for president? And run a secret CIA black site in manhattan? And why would he want some random public defender as part of his cabal?

Kurieg
Jul 19, 2012

RIP Lutri: 5/19/20-4/2/20
:blizz::gamefreak:
The fact that the CIA was apparently complicit in his crimes rather than him being disavowed and rogue makes everything he did so much stupider. If their security is so lax that anyone doing a government-google search on "Bracken" brings up his association with Loksat their response would be to burn and/or kill Loksat for being a liability and stupid enough to not have cut his ties with Bracken, not kill the US Attourney General and all of her employees.

To Vex a Stranger posted:

I don't think he was "in league" with loksat, I think he WAS loksat, right? Isn't that what it turned out to be? And the old dude was just playing Loksat to keep Caleb from being over exposed?

We don't know, that's the problem. The entirety of his dialog is "I told the old man you'd figure it out, but he wouldn't listen to me. But how can I enjoy my retirement with you and the missus looking for me?" Which gives me the impression that Mason was still pulling the strings, Caleb just gave them up so he could walk away scott free rather than risk Beckett exposing him anyway once Loksat was dead.

Hijinks Ensue
Jul 24, 2007
I think the main problems is the the show runners had a bulletin board with index cards like CASKETT BREAKUP and ESPOSITO ACTS LIKE A DICK and RANDOM CHARACTER IS EVIL and threw darts at it every so often.

Kuiperdolin
Sep 5, 2011

to ride eternal, shiny and chrome

THUNDERDOME LOSER 2022

Series should have ended when they hooked up.

drat those first few seasons really were good.

Blazing Ownager
Jun 2, 2007

by FactsAreUseless
What the flying gently caress was that?

Seriously, no, what was that?

Tried for the random shock ending.. followed by some random shock happy ending.. what the Christ? Did they decide to cancel the show and tacked a happy ending on? Is it a hallucination?

That was the most inept series of what the fucks I've seen in the last 3 minutes of anything.

ED: Hahahahaha. That was the series finale? I thought it was renewed without Beckett but that was how they ended it? Going for a lovely cliff hangar followed by the dumbest tacked on ending in the universe? Oh wow. The whole episode was terrible but that last three minutes was such bullshit they should have just cut out the gunshot entirely.

No final send-off moments for any of the characters at all. Just an abrupt "Bullshit twist.. BULLSHIT TWIST!"

Holy Goddamn, bless you whoever put this show out of it's mercy. I couldn't stand it's suffering.

quote:

Until last week, all signs pointed to the long-running ABC drama being renewed for a ninth season. However, on Thursday night, the network suddenly gave it the ax. So that turned Monday’s episode into a series finale, which meant the producers had to scramble to send off the show with a proper ending, especially considering it’s a show with a fiercely loyal, vocal fan base — particularly regarding the show’s main couple, detectives Castle (Nathan Fillion) and Beckett (Stana Katic).

Hahaha oh that's so loving lovely. I feel so bad for the cast. "Hey everyone, yeah, you're fired. By the way you have three days to shoot and edit your new ending for the whole series. Good luck!"

They end up with like 7 kids in a farmhouse I guess? What the Christ. This is kind of amazing in it's poo poo.

Blazing Ownager fucked around with this message at 07:49 on May 20, 2016

SHVPS4DETH
Mar 19, 2009

seen so much i'm going blind
and i'm brain-dead virtually





Ramrod XTreme
My favorite part was Catle not only knowing how to do an IV, but then aggressively squeezing the truth serum bag to intimidate the guy. Legit fell out of my chair.

Combat Pretzel
Jun 23, 2004

No, seriously... what kurds?!
I suppose I didn't miss anything skipping this season.

The drama behind the scene is hilarious, tho. Never heard about it until now. Fillion being made out as an rear end in a top hat bully by one party, Katic being made out as a prima donna that didn't get Fillion to dance to her tune by the other.

Combat Pretzel fucked around with this message at 12:48 on May 20, 2016

Blazing Ownager
Jun 2, 2007

by FactsAreUseless
I just realized that the NYPD guys were left in a shootout with CIA people who had more guns & ammo and never resolved.

Combat Pretzel posted:

I suppose I didn't miss anything skipping this season.

The drama behind the scene is hilarious, tho. Never heard about it until now. Fillion being made out as an rear end in a top hat bully by one party, Katic being made out as a prima donna that didn't get Fillion to dance to her tune by the other.

I wish I could find out more about it because I'm legitimately curious.

That said having seen interviews and behind the scenes stuff with Fillion and then with Katic, I tend to pretty much 100% believe Fillion's side of the story (and not just because he's pretty much the reason I started watching the show in the first place). She comes off as just reeking of "I'm too good for this" and such; she's been a charisma vacuum for seasons now and is the least interesting character.

Also notably if her beef was entirely with Fillion, they'd had her in the show just as much doing her own thing. But instead they shoved her in to the time slot of a guest star. I really am curious what the crux of the beef was about but I have to say, I'd be surprised if she wasn't kind of a prick.

That said I wish they gave the show more notice than 72 hours to end it purely in the editing room with an old B-Roll because holy gently caress that was dumb, as badly as it needed to be put out of it's mercy. Also bonus points for not using any of the immediately proceeding episodes to build to a finale so there was time to take a breath, making the 2nd to the last episode some stupid Omen episode instead.

Actually that'd been a funny ending: They're both dying on the floor and the Antichrist shows up and says "Oh I totally owe you favor, Rick!" and snaps his fingers, cut to flash forward..

Blazing Ownager fucked around with this message at 21:10 on May 20, 2016

JagGator
Oct 31, 2012
I think the fact that Fillion seems to still be friendly with all his costars from Firefly whereas Katic is star of... basically nothing else... is a pretty good indication of who is probably harder to work with.

Nemo
Feb 24, 2001

Uh! Double up Uh! Uh!
I won't believe that the stupid ending was because they were rushed after the cancellation notice.

If that's true, that means they were so sure they were being renewed that they didn't bother to put an alternate finale together, and after this whole season that seems hard to swallow.

They can't be that tone deaf.

Kurieg
Jul 19, 2012

RIP Lutri: 5/19/20-4/2/20
:blizz::gamefreak:

Blazing Ownager posted:

That said I wish they gave the show more notice than 72 hours to end it purely in the editing room with an old B-Roll because holy gently caress that was dumb, as badly as it needed to be put out of it's mercy. Also bonus points for not using any of the immediately proceeding episodes to build to a finale so there was time to take a breath, making the 2nd to the last episode some stupid Omen episode instead.

I was thinking about that too, in almost any other show the reveal of the villain's secret identity, to the audience if not the characters, would be the smash cut to the credits on the episode prior to the finale. As it is the villain maybe only gets 12 minutes of screentime total, only 5 minutes of which is time spent with us actually knowing his identity. There's also almost no time for him to actually interact with either Castle or Beckett as he does the world's briskest interrogation via truth serum ever and then wanders off to die in his magnetized murder lair.

We also get no real villain motivation speech or anything cause he's so completely uninterested in Castle or Beckett, they're just another Tuesday's worth of business to him. Both Bracken and 3XK had several episodes devoted to them as characters, not monolithic entities late for their golf game.

Blazing Ownager
Jun 2, 2007

by FactsAreUseless
You know, this is the show that actually broke me. I couldn't watch this whole season. I've literally watched the shittiest, dumbest shows ever and ridden them into the ground.. but I couldn't do it here. I skipped out on half of the last season. I have zero desire to ever go back and watch them.

Congrats, Castle. I've stuck with American Horror Story and Heroes through pure dogshit, but this was the bridge too far.

.... I should note that their idea of a "shocking cliffhanger" was so obnoxious if they had gone through with it, so again, I'm glad the show loving died. Seriously. If they had wanted real shock, Castle should have gotten to the basement just in time to see the villain throw Beckett's body into the furnace. If you were going to kill her at least that'd be kind of amazing.

Nemo posted:

I won't believe that the stupid ending was because they were rushed after the cancellation notice.

If that's true, that means they were so sure they were being renewed that they didn't bother to put an alternate finale together, and after this whole season that seems hard to swallow.

They can't be that tone deaf.

I think they literally used B-Roll from 2 seasons ago when they weren't sure if they'd be renewed. Literally a "Oh gently caress we're canceled" ending backup.

That's literally what happened.

ED: Also interestingly enough I think they started hating each other right around the time they got thrown into a romantic thing in the actual show. Not sure if it's related, just saying.

Jesus Christ was a pile of poo poo no matter the reason, though.

Blazing Ownager fucked around with this message at 22:45 on May 20, 2016

Blazing Ownager
Jun 2, 2007

by FactsAreUseless

Andorra posted:

Now, after watching the finale I think we should go back and watch the premiere to see just how much the show deviated from what made it enjoyable.

It literally inverses completely. I noticed that more and more.

A) Castle has crazy fiction theories that stumble them towards clues to lead to a grounded conclusion

Leads to:

B) Castle has crazy fiction theories that are rapidly surpassed by even crazier events

I still think the best ending would have been everything after Castle was shot = His books. In the earlier seasons he'd think he found some secret spy conspiracy and then find out it was something else; in later seasons both his parents are super secret agents, he's diffused nuclear bombs and taken down global conspiracies, time travel is real and he's not only fought a mad AI, he owns an AI he bought from Amazon.

The show turned dumb as hell. Dumb as hell.

Plus: Zoom, enhance, zoom, enhance and HE SENT OUT A CYBERNUKE!

--

Oh one serious question. In this season since I skipped some episodes did anyone explain WHAT that British agent/spy/whatever is that Castle started working with? That woman showed up originally as some kind of high-end investigative thing, then ended up with motherfucking mercenaries and sniping people during a police action by the dozen.. what the Christ?

Is she a spy? Is she a government agent? What the gently caress was she supposed to be? They literally never answered this unless it came up in the last 10 episodes (it may have). I thought she was some sort of corporate investigator until she called in armed soldiers and had no trouble wasting people.

Blazing Ownager fucked around with this message at 22:57 on May 20, 2016

Kurieg
Jul 19, 2012

RIP Lutri: 5/19/20-4/2/20
:blizz::gamefreak:
It came up in episode 14 (Where we found out that Rick knew about Loksat and that is why he had his memories erased, basically the only redeeming thing about the episode is it guest stars summer glau) that she was involved with the intelligence agency in some way and at least knew Rick's father. In episode 18 (Which was a generally good spy thriller) We find out that she's Ex British Intelligence who broke ties with them after an incident in her past.

Andorra
Dec 12, 2012

Kurieg posted:

I was thinking about that too, in almost any other show the reveal of the villain's secret identity, to the audience if not the characters, would be the smash cut to the credits on the episode prior to the finale. As it is the villain maybe only gets 12 minutes of screentime total, only 5 minutes of which is time spent with us actually knowing his identity. There's also almost no time for him to actually interact with either Castle or Beckett as he does the world's briskest interrogation via truth serum ever and then wanders off to die in his magnetized murder lair.

We also get no real villain motivation speech or anything cause he's so completely uninterested in Castle or Beckett, they're just another Tuesday's worth of business to him. Both Bracken and 3XK had several episodes devoted to them as characters, not monolithic entities late for their golf game.

Basically all of those problems would have been prevented if Loksat was revealed to be Perlmutter, and his motive would be because Castle irks him.

Hijinks Ensue
Jul 24, 2007

Andorra posted:

Basically all of those problems would have been prevented if Loksat was revealed to be Perlmutter, and his motive would be because Castle irks him.

This would have pretty much saved the entire season.

woodch
Jun 13, 2000

This'll kill ya!
I kinda got my folks interested in Castle a few years ago, and they marathoned the first couple seasons, and were regular watchers. My dad called me this week and said, quote, "What the hell was that poo poo?"

I know, Dad... I agree.

GreenNight
Feb 19, 2006
Turning the light on the darkest places, you and I know we got to face this now. We got to face this now.

My parents quit Castle when they broke up earlier this season.

10 Beers
May 21, 2005

Shit! I didn't bring a knife.

GreenNight posted:

My parents quit Castle when they broke up earlier this season.

They obviously made the right decision.

Klungar
Feb 12, 2008

Klungo make bessst ever video game, 'Hero Klungo Sssavesss Teh World.'

GreenNight posted:

My parents quit Castle when they broke up earlier this season.

Castle caused your parents to get divorced?

Blazing Ownager
Jun 2, 2007

by FactsAreUseless

Klungar posted:

Castle caused your parents to get divorced?

:bravo:

GreenNight
Feb 19, 2006
Turning the light on the darkest places, you and I know we got to face this now. We got to face this now.

Grammar! :argh:

Skychrono
May 11, 2007

I'll make you cry like I did when my daddy died!
The quick cut to the ending was disappointing, but I'm still happy they didn't go ahead with the terrible plans for next season. This was much better.

And they didn't pull a HIMYM. So good.

LethalGeek
Nov 4, 2009

I wish hoping for their deaths from the start of the episode and then they get shot. I'm going holy poo poo they're actually going to do it NOPE HAPPY ENDING LOL

Why did I keep watching this

Blazing Ownager
Jun 2, 2007

by FactsAreUseless

Skychrono posted:

The quick cut to the ending was disappointing, but I'm still happy they didn't go ahead with the terrible plans for next season. This was much better.

And they didn't pull a HIMYM. So good.

IMO they should have gone the extra mile, pulled what cast they could over the weekend, and done the Cop Rock ending

Because even that'd been better than this poo poo. I'm still laughing how it was.

Oh Castle, I never thought this show would have been the one to break me but it did. I'm glad I came back for that stupid as hell ending though in hindsight, so incompetent.

PS: If you want to see how to say "gently caress you, we're out!" with an ending, watch the reboot TV show V ending. That poo poo was amazing. It was a middling show but oh man, that made it all worth it.

Xelkelvos
Dec 19, 2012

Blazing Ownager posted:

IMO they should have gone the extra mile, pulled what cast they could over the weekend, and done the Cop Rock ending

Because even that'd been better than this poo poo. I'm still laughing how it was.

Oh Castle, I never thought this show would have been the one to break me but it did. I'm glad I came back for that stupid as hell ending though in hindsight, so incompetent.

PS: If you want to see how to say "gently caress you, we're out!" with an ending, watch the reboot TV show V ending. That poo poo was amazing. It was a middling show but oh man, that made it all worth it.

What happened with V?

Small Strange Bird
Sep 22, 2006

Merci, chaton!
So the UK had the Castle finale. Er... yeah. So the Big Bad is some random guy from a previous episode, followed by a SHOCK CLIFFHANGER - oops, no, wait, kid-filled happy ending out of nowhere? Thanks, guys.

Still, at least it didn't go full Blake's 7 and gun down the entire cast.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Skychrono
May 11, 2007

I'll make you cry like I did when my daddy died!

Payndz posted:

So the UK had the Castle finale. Er... yeah. So the Big Bad is some random guy from a previous episode, followed by a SHOCK CLIFFHANGER - oops, no, wait, kid-filled happy ending out of nowhere? Thanks, guys.

Still, at least it didn't go full Blake's 7 and gun down the entire cast.

They really should have just cut the gunshot part out if they were going to cut to the happy ending... or add a pause so there's a chance that they're dead first. It pans through rooms in Castle's house, instead of a hospital bed or a cemetery, so we know it's fine almost immediately...

  • Locked thread