Castle - Driven

Well, that was... different. However the lingering effects of last season's finale eventually play themselves out it's hard not to see Castle's Seventh Season opener as anything but a misstep caused by cowardice at either (or both) the network level or in the show's own writers' room about finally, permanently, putting Castle (Nathan Fillion) and Beckett (Stana Katic) together. I thought the show was past the increasingly unnecessary and lame attempts to keep the pair apart, but it appears those days aren't behind us after all.

After discovering Castle's burning car on the side of the road, Beckett leads an investigation to discover what happened to her missing fiance. The longer the investigation takes, and the discovery of the clues left the police to make it appear that Castle was responsible for his own disappearance, the more events begin to weigh on Kate, Ryan (Seamus Dever), and Esposito (Jon Huertas). When Castle is found two months after his disappearance with no answers for where he's been Beckett is forced with either accepting his word or the evidence uncovered over the past eight weeks. Sadly, the episode doesn't even allow Beckett to make that leap of faith as a small incongruity to the elaborate set-up begins to make the charade start to unravel proving to Kate that Castle is, as always, true to his word.

The overly-elaborate set-up seems to justify my suspicions that Jerry Tyson is responsible for throwing the latest wrench into Castle and Beckett's relationship. Rather than wrap up the story and offer an explanation, the season opener leaves Castle's disappearance unsolved letting the uncertainty and doubt continue to fester over what should be the couple's happy honeymoon period. With Fillion largely absent, Katic carries the episode but I would have preferred Kate to show a bit more faith in her fiance (whatever the evidence). Rather than a bang, the show's latest season limps in on a whimper (and one likely to continue adversely effecting the next several episodes in ways both big and small).