Castle loses its better half

Monday doesn’t taste the same today for the Castle fandom. While the fans were going to enjoy a new episode tonight of the (former) hit-show, Castle was a trending topic for a very sad reason.

In a not surprising (I thought she would leave but it would have been her decision) but still shocking news, Deadline revealed that Stana Katic, the lead actress of the show was not coming back for the next season.

This is truly heartbreaking and outrageous. But it’s also much more. I’m fully aware that a lot of people don’t share my point of view and that’s perfectly fine but please, let’s keep the hate going to ABC.

I started watching Castle at a very hard time in my life. From the minute she arrived on screen, Stana Katic stole the show and a part of my heart. I have a massive crush on this actress. She’s incredibly talented, she’s so beautiful it hurts. Everyone (in the fandom) wants her hair, she’s generous, compassionate, concerned about the planet she lives in, she’s smart and the list goes on.

How many people watch the show and find a role model in Detective Beckett? Aside from actress Stana Katic, her co-star Nathan Fillion and the rest of the cast and crew, the character of Katherine Beckett transcended everything.

How many girls or women find a character to help them in one way or another like Kate? Yes, the show is called Castle. But Detective Beckett was the main character, whether that pleased some people or not. She wasn’t perfect, and they even tried to make her ‘more flawed’ in a most absurd situation but Detective Kate Beckett was a warrior.

A broken, insecure, stubborn, intriguing, remarkable, maddening, challenging, frustrating and extraordinary character. And there’s also some magic in Stana Katic, something that never ceases to amaze me: when she smiles, everything is better. It’s as simple as that. I don’t need to know her, I don’t even know if I want to, to not break the spell, we should never know how our idol, but yeah, the world looks better when she smiles.

That ABC has to tell Stana that she is out for ‘budgetary reasons’ has to be one of the most bullshit rhing I have ever heard.

ABC treated Castle as a minor show. The promotion was as small as possible and never thought twice about, yet this show often crossed the 10 million mark and could always count on an extremely loud and dedicated fandom.

Under the new direction that the show began to take, the audience response got worse and worse. Strangely, when a show needs to cut someone loose, women tend to leave before their male co-stars which I find really weird. In fact I really don’t understand it at all…

Actually, it’s pathetic. It’s so pathetic, I can’t find words. It’s not like it’s a surprise that Hollywood (and the world it seems) has an issue with women in general especially women who are not the stereotype of the young, busty and naive character. I’m trying to imagine the discussion that might have taken place in their reunion (for the sake of the argument, let’s pretend that the first guy is a giant dick and the other is just a moron).

Giant Dick: So. About Castle.
Moron: About what?
Giant Dick: You know… The show, monday night, the sexy detective.
Moron: Oh, yeah. Still airing?
Giant Dick: Yes. About that. It costs too much.
Moron: Hum, maybe we should shoot in a different locations? Or tell the truth to the cast and suggest we do another season but everyone agree to cut a bit on their salary. Or maybe we could do more scenes only in studio. We’ll find other ways to make the show interesting. We could…
Giant Dick: We are going to fire Stana Katic.
Moron: Brilliant idea. It’s solved. When do we eat?

Also (because I have an opinion on everything tonight) let’s not forget about Andrew Marlowe and Terri Miller because they left a sinking ship.They f***ed up the finale of season 6.

It’s a tough job and I can understand that you can’t win them all but it was a massive fuck up and they tried to find a way out during Season 7 that never appears and I can understand that it might have been too much. And I also understand that they are terribly affected by this news. But they left and in doing so, left their creation to butchers and because of that mistake, the future problems of Castle are also on them. They could have stopped everything and in our mind, Castle and Beckett would be endgame. And I have no doubt that they wanted to create a love-story that had a happy ending because Caskett meant so much to them.

I guess the sources are right and ABC are making another bad decision but we don’t know what really happened. It’s no secret that it’s tense between Nathan and Stana and if it was already affecting the show last year, this season it’s just awful.

I mean, when Nathan is alone and being the clown, the acting is fine even if there’s no interest there. When Stana is alone (and seriously, how many episodes or big part of episodes did she miss this season? It’s not like ABC was firing her after Season 4… She wasn’t the most present character either) it’s fine but when it’s a Caskett scene, there’s just no more chemistry at all. Even I have to make more effort to show that I don’t hate my coworkers in my real job.

Look at Stana’s eyes, she’s just not there. I also personally believe that it’s not entirely ABC’s fault that we haven’t had a photoshoot for years and if there are any pictures of the leading actors, it looks photoshopped to make them appear to be in the same picture.

So, yes ABC are deserving all the hate and more but something had to be done for the show. And the way it happened, when it happene, is revolting but if it can kill the show now, well, it might a good time for it to end.

The bad thing, is that I won’t ever be able to say goodbye to Kate Beckett properly. I could should have stopped at Season 7 and chose to truly believe that she was pregnant and that she and Castle and all their family would live happily ever after. I would have read baby fanfics for months and I think it would have been okay. I would have rewatched the first four seasons over and over and believe in the promises of their love.

And now?

Now I have to watch Beckett die. Oh, they will create a beautiful and emotional scene for sure. Killed by Locksat, ending her quest of justice for her mother and die for her cause. I thought we were past that for about 3 years now. And I cannot stop watching now.

I need to get as much of the character as possible even if it’s only a portion of the character I adore. So, I’ll suffer through it. And it makes me angry. I always thought they could find a way to make the show better again and even if they couldn’t I never imagined the show to end in a different way than with a Castle baby. It’s such a shame. But there are also other things that baffle me. How can Jon, Seamus, Susan, etc discover this online?

I’m not close friends with the people I’m working with everyday and still, if I was to leave the company, I would at least send an email to inform them or tell them directly. However, I’m not going to let my cynical side do the talking so I’m just going to stop right there on this one, but it’s as weird as the silence of Nathan was expected.

I saw the hashtag #IStandWithStana. Because of the way ABC treated her, (and Tamala!) I agree. But, and that’s a big but, I have been angry at Stana for months now. Even if I lover her. I absolutely hate the current season of the show. I remember how conflicted I was at the end of the Season 7 when I saw how hard it was to renew the show and how long it took Stana to renew her contract. It was obvious that Nathan got what he wanted and that she had to fight to get what she wanted.

And when I’m watching the show right now I’m wondering exactly how she could ever agree to have a part in this disaster. It hurt coming from her because I truly believe that she adores her character (and maybe that’s only why she stayed in June) but she also was such a huge Caskett shipper that I can’t understand how she could be comfortable with such a bad scenario.

She said that she loved what the new show-runners were going to do with Beckett and the show and I can’t accept that, not in September when I realized that they were ruining the show and even now, even if I’m heartbroken, I still can’t.

Because I won’t forget Season 8.

I know it existed and that it ruined the characters and Caskett’s relationship whatever the outcome is (but really she’s going to die, right? There no other way for this couple to really be over). If it had been anyone else, even Nathan, f***ing up his character, it would have been okay. But not her, not Beckett, not Stana. I might be asking too much of her but that’s the way I see it. And I’m so angry that this weird, uncomfortable thing I still watch will be the last moment of Stana as Kate Beckett. The character deserved more, the actress deserved more, the fandom deserved more.

Of course, deep down, I want the show to be canceled. Because it’s not that I don’t want to watch Castle without Stana, it’s just that it’s absurd to think that the show that we know as Castle will exist when she leaves the show. It’s simple. You cannot remove the main character of a show that lasted eight seasons without killing said show. So, it’s not like I’m going to ignore it, it just means that to me it will be another show.

And I already know that I won’t be interested in watching it. But there’s also another part of me that think about all the people who work on the show like this. The crew has nothing to do with it. Jon, Seamus, Molly, Susan, etc, they have nothing to do with it and all these people shouldn’t suffer because ABC are a bunch of morons and that the new show-runners ruined the show. And I’m thinking about them because it’s their job that we are talking about as well and I want to thank them because they did a tremendous job and I wish them all the best in their future projects.

The worst thing - and it might be weird but I was already thinking about it a lot - is how terribly bad I feel about fanfiction. To anyone who isn’t a part of the Castle fandom or aren’t familiar with fanfiction it’s impossibly to understand how talented, hard-working and selfless the fandom is about the fanfiction. There are so many incredibly talented writers out there that it was one of the main assets of the show. Which makes ABC decision even harder to swallow.

Even in their ivory tower, they have to be aware of how engaged the fandom was. People were not only watching the show, buying the DVD and merchandise, talking about the show and promoting it on social media and in real life. They were creating art. They were writing masterpieces, they were drawing fabulous things, they got engaged in charities, raised money, support hospitals and associations, they gave back to the show they loved and to the crew and cast and that’s how they get thanks?

And to go back to fanfiction, I cannot fathom how the writers will keep writing something so broken. I’m mostly watching this season to understand and appreciate the show’s fanfiction. It didn’t escape me that there were less fics, and that those were left were more angsty because the show is the muse and there were giving less and less to the writers but for all the writers still writing about it, you’re awesome.

If by chance one of the fanfiction writers of Castle is reading this: THANK YOU, from the bottom of my heart, for my mental state, for the joy, the tears, the unrealistic way I believe relationships should be and all the nights I read your words instead of sleeping, you are truly amazing, and you have all my respect and support.

I’m just a bundle of emotions and it’s hard to process everything. Sadness is there, followed by anger and mostly I’m waiting. On Castle being canceled or not, the upcoming projects that Stana will do and on my beloved little world of fanfiction.

ABC, you suck. There won’t be any Always. Stana, thank you.

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