'The Human Factor' -- Castle 5x23

Warning: Spoiler Alert
Ahhh, so, now we've gotten our set up for the thing that we're supposed to be in suspense about over the summer. First it was all about whether or not Castle and Beckett would ever get together, and then, it was all about whether or not she would survive the shooting during Montgomery's funeral, and now, we're supposed to be afraid that she's going to take the job with the Attorney General. The only thing is that the writers of this show do a really horrible job with the suspense between the seasons. It was obvious that eventually the two of them would end up together at some point, and there really was never any danger of her dying (since there's no way that they were going to write her off of the show ... not when she is one of the two leads, and without her the show would fall apart). And there really is no danger of her taking the job in DC, since it's the same thing as when she was shot ... if she leaves the show, everything falls apart, since it's all about the relationship between Beckett and Castle. You can say all you want about how it's a murder mystery show, and in part it is, but the foundation of the show isn't the mystery element; the foundation of the show is the relationship between these two characters (no matter how many times I have wanted to shake the shit out of Beckett ... which is usually at least once per episode, but sometimes more). So, I don't see how they really expect us to feel like there is any danger of her going off and taking another job ... at least not at this point. Maybe she might do it when the show ends, but there is no way that she's going to do it now and only become a tertiary character that only shows up every once in a while.

I suppose that she might try to get the whole team on the payroll, but I don't see that happening; neither her asking, nor the boys wanting to go. I especially don't see it of Ryan, not after Jenny freaked out on in when he went undercover a few episodes ago. But besides that, this is a very New York show, and a very New York homicide show. I really don't see the writers changing the entire format of the show to turn it into something akin to "Criminal Minds," where they go to different sites and try to figure out what the hell is going on there. The only real difference that I see with that would be that they wouldn't be called in by the local PD to help out; they would just go there to try to get things done.

The only thing that I see coming from this is that it might create some kind of stresser in Beckett and Castle's relationship. The preview did show Castle giving her an ultimatum about the job, and I can see her not taking very kindly to that. I have a feeling that something like that would probably come back to bite him in the ass later on, and the two of them would probably have to "work through their issues" in the oncoming season. Not necessarily something that I'm overly thrilled about happening, since I'm so over the whole Beckett and Castle having a tiff that lasts forever thing. That trope has lasted entirely too long on this show.