Official "Castle" thread! Spoilers welcomed!


What I'm having trouble with in regard to this whole "things we never knew Castle did" storyline is, WHEN did he get up to these purportedly dangerous associations -- college?

The timeline that the show has constructed put him in the role of stay-at-home parent at a very early age. Furthermore, he has implied that he didn't like ever leaving Alexis with sitters, and boarding school was equally despised. So ... are we supposed to believe that whatever underworld types he might once have associated with did most of their business between 8 am and 3 pm on weekdays? Or that he took Alexis along, but she has no memory of it? (Because if Dad disappeared and Beckett ruled out associations with their cases, you KNOW that little Ms. Precocious would be volunteering all kinds of perfectly-recalled info on people and places.)

The canon of the show has kind of locked Castle into a life that didn't leave a lot of room for adventures that no one else would be aware of, given that he is a devoted single father with sole custody who was married at the age of 22 and divorced at 25. I'm curious how they are going to explain away Alexis not knowing about whatever this is, presuming it was part of his adult life. The implication has been that they were inseparable when she was little, and she was still pretty young when the show started: 13 if I recall correctly.
 
1. We know he already "had a guy" that could get him a cow when he was 17 or 18
2. They've never come out and said how old Rick is, but it was implied this year that he turned 18 in 1987, thus he's born in 1969.
3. Alexis mentions being 15 in the original episode (which aired in March 2009). They've never said when her birthday is, but we can assume either 1993/1994 (she graduated from high school in 2012). So Rick was 24/25 when she was born. Plenty of time for him to get involved with unsavory types.
4. We do know he had a contact in the Mafia, who he met with in season 1. ("Sal" in A Death in the Family). This character is probably the "Sal" who was Vinnie the Scar's cousin (Vinnie was the mobster neighbor of the victim in Murder He Wrote).
5. And he met (and had a fling with) Sophia Turner the CIA agent/traitor that Alexis didn't know.
6. And he could have met people when Alexis was with her mom. And he did have babysitters or Martha may have stayed with her at times.

It's really not impossible that Rick was involved with nasty people before his daughter was born, and even some after she was born.
 
Maybe, but it still seems a bit thin ...

In Significant Others, Meredith said they had been divorced for 15 years., and that Alexis was 3 when her mother left. In a "Rose for Ever After" it was said that Castle had married Meredith on the rebound pretty much immediately after Kyra dumped him, which was the September after graduation. It was also stated that Kyra met him just after In a Hail of Bullets was published, and that they dated for 3 years. Assuming that he graduated in four years, that would probably make him almost 23 at the time of his first marriage, which would put his birth in 1970, rather than 1969.

Andrew Bikichky tweeted a freeze-frame of the court clerk's prop computer screen when Kate discovered she was still married. It has actual dates on it for Castle's marriages. According to that, he married Meredith in Feb 1993 and filed for divorce in Jun of 97 (final Nov 97), which actually would be 4 years. According to the same photo, he was married to Gina from July 98 to Oct 04.

So, he marries Meredith on the rebound after dating her 5 months, Alexis is born not quite a year later, and Meredith takes off when Alexis is 3, in the summer of 97. A year later Castle marries Gina.

It would make sense that he might have left grade-schooler Alexis home alone with her stepmother Gina for stretches while he went off adventuring in the name of "research" -- but that doesn't jive too well with Gina complaining that he never let her get close to Alexis.

As to Sophia, probably the year he split up with Meredith; because he supposedly used that connection for background on the CIA for the Derek Storm novels -- UNLESS his affair with her contributed to the breakup of his marriage to Gina, which gives us the twist of making it clear that he does not have a clean record of marital fidelity. Which is my guess about what one of his dirty secrets is ... the show has implied by omission all along that his wives cheated on him and not the other way around, but what if that isn't true? Will Kate doubt his integrity more than before if she KNOWS that he cheated during a previous marriage?

Ah, well, time will tell, and these details probably matter not one bit. As my DH likes to say, "THAT detail is what strains your suspension of disbelief?
 
Ah ... and so all indications point to the probability that, once again, it's really all about Beckett.

I'm getting just a wee bit fatigued with the scenery inside that woman's head. Not enough to make me stop watching, of course, but geez.
 
Side trip: DD15 and I just watched the pilot for Forever on Hulu last night. Has the potential to be a really good show. Ioan Gruffudd plays Dr. Henry Morgan, who is apparently immortal. Witty, but introspective. Haven't watched the 2nd episode yet, but we were impressed.

Helps that every time he dies, he is resurrected in water completely naked. But that's just icing.
 
Another digression: Just finished Raging Heat (yeah, slow, I know, but I've been super busy just lately.) Lots of fun.

This one has even more bits from the show than past volumes, and not just from the most recent season, although there are a huge number of those. The mystery of the S.6 cliffhanger is carried over into this book, so there is the potential for Easter eggs from the book to possibly show up in the first couple of episodes of S.7: keep your eyes open for a diver's weight belt and some post-it notes in the loft, for instance.

I think I would like to see the "real-life" counterparts of Feller and Rhymer show up in the show occasionally; I especially like Rhymer. (BTW, Malcolm and Reynolds are unfortunately absent from Raging Heat.)

"Tom" is mentioned not once but twice in the book-outside-the-book, which is a pretty good indication of authorship, I think. However, I think it is possible that the Marlowes might have been contributing a bit; parts of Raging Heat sound very like them; especially the cinematic chase scenes.

Oh, and does anyone else think that the for the first time, the silhouette on the cover is actually SK?
 
Side trip: DD15 and I just watched the pilot for Forever on Hulu last night. Has the potential to be a really good show. Ioan Gruffudd plays Dr. Henry Morgan, who is apparently immortal. Witty, but introspective. Haven't watched the 2nd episode yet, but we were impressed.

Helps that every time he dies, he is resurrected in water completely naked. But that's just icing.

I've watched both episodes, and it's not bad. Not a show I'll go out of my way for, but it's OK. I do love the relationship between Harry and his 'son'. And you're right, it is a plus that he ends up naked - and he 'dies' a few times per episode!
 












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