4.20 "The Limey" - discussion

So, have you seen the Limey yet? How ya doing?
Are you: , , or ?

Thoughts about Rick? Kate?

Feel free to sound off!

I love this episode because it broke my heart for the both of them. Kate was not interested in the Brit. Det, but Castle all but pushed her towards him. Castle has given up on her, on himself, on his dreams, and the life he wants. He is self-destructing, and the only one that can stop him is being pushed away. Obviously, Castle wont do anything to save the relationship at this point, and it is being setup where Kate has to fight for what she wants and for them.. Kate up until now has been passive and has let Castle do the pushing, and she is waiting for him to signal that he wants her. He, however, no longer cares. It is up to Kate to fight for them. If she wants a future for them, she will have to make the choice for them. She will have to fight for the relationship, and by fighting for it she will prove to Castle and to herself that she wants this as much as he does.


Great little episode with the right amount of angst.

I enjoyed the case, and the talks Beckett has with Lanie, but found it very hard to feel any sympathy for Castle. His conclusion in #47 seconds was quite a leap. There are just too many other possibilities of why she might have lied. His anger was NOT over being lied to, which was what the fandom has been mad about. Instead it's his idez his got in his head about WHY she lied. It's such an immature reaction that it seriously makes me step back and go, oh wait, I WANT them to get together.

I noted Marlowe brought up Kate's doubts about his past, which I thought was fair - and she doesn't even know the half of it. His behavior here is similar to him running off with Gina in season two that it makes me wonder if he IS ready to handle a mature adult relationship. Kate is usually the one I cite as not using her words, but toight it really dawned on me that Castle is just as guilty of it when it's about what he's feeling about a situation not in his control.

I really feel like there's gonna half to be a lot on Castle's end to redeem himself. Kate admitting her feelings to him is great and necessary, but now, IMO, he also has alot to answer for. I'm curious to see how Marlowe works this out.

That is what the next episode is about. Castle continuing to try to distance himself from Kate by engaging in an assignment that places his life in real danger. He believes that because he has been shadowing Beckett that he knows what is like to be a cop, but he does not. He will see that being a cop is not as easy as Kate makes out ant that she has gone out of her way to protect him. As this dawns on him, he will realize that his attempt at playing pretend cop and putting his life in danger is not a mature reaction. It is the reaction of the old Rick. The Rick he stop being a while back. He is too different now, and he can not run away from confronting the hurt his feeling.

I believe Slaughter will be fundamental in helping Rick realize what he is doing. Slaughter will call him on his bull and his devil may care attitude, and he will knock some sense into him.

To me this arc is all about the two of them confronting their fears, and to do that we have to be reminded of their previous coping mechanisms and how those mechanisms will no longer be effective for them.

Castle' s main fear given his previous relationships is that he is not worthy of being love by the the woman he loves, so he hides in the Castle persona. The writer playboy who wants fun and is not looking to complicate his life.

Kate fears is that she is to screw up that she fears letting herself go, so she assumes the worst will happen in relationships. She has one foot out. Though she wants to be with Castle, she is preparing for him to abandon her. This is why she does not commit to him or to anybody. Unfortunately for her, until she fully dives with someone she will fail in any relationship she has.

Both have to confront their fears and overcome them. Castle has to accept that he has been a coward with regards to Beckett. He has to face her and confront her. He has to tell her what he knows, and he has to be ready for her to reject him. Kate too has to let go. She has to confront Castle and dive into this relationship even though the outcome is uncertain,

This episode left me feeling sad... for all the reasons Beckstle mentioned. And a few more but I think I've mentioned these reasons in the past so I wont harp on them some more.

But I'm holding out hope Castle redeems himself and grows up. AGAIN.

@ dstorm - Yes, but in THIS episode Kate despite her fears tries to talk to Castle about what's going on. It's KATE who identified she needed to go back to therapy and DEAL. So right now, despite that she DID lie, it's KATE whom I rhave respect for. Castle's gonna have to earn it back.

Beckstle wrote:

@ dstorm - Yes, but in THIS episode Kate despite her fears tries to talk to Castle about what's going on. It's KATE who identified she needed to go back to therapy and DEAL. So right now, despite that she DID lie, it's KATE whom I rhave respect for. Castle's gonna have to earn it back.

I agree. Kate has been trying to change, but what has not change about her is that she still is not willing to fully commit to the relationship. She has the foot outside the door, and she is looking for an excuse to bail. In a way, her own fears were fulfilled by her not fully diving into the relationship. She believes that in the end Castle will end up hurting her, so she withholds telling him that she loves him.

Without a clear indication from her, Castle has to to guess how she feels about him. He has been trying to become the better man, a man that would be worthy of Kate. For most of this season, he thought that she really loved him and that was enough for him to continue to be the mature patient guy he wants to be. The secret, however, has forced him to conclude that she never really cared for him. Thus the guy he was becoming for her, the guy he thought stood a chance, was not good enough so why continue the pretense. He gave up, and he went back to his old time persona.

Even last night, Castle asked her "why" when Kate told him that Jacinda was not his type. He was still waiting for her to give him a reason.

In a way Castle is self destructing, but Kate herself is too. Both are giving into their worst fears about themselves and about the other. They are becoming and showing the other what the other has always feared about the other. Castle is the immature jerk that goes after bimbos, and Kate the complicated person unable to feel or to even have fun.

This is a man who is supposedly smarter than everyone in the CIA.... and he can't tell that Kate is in love with him? Can't come up with another scenario as to why she might have kept her secret? The man who is suppose to have an endless amount of theories?



I think I would like Castle's behavior a little more if we hadn't seen his character progress and maybe if he wasn't like... 40 years old.

ADDING ON: Was Martha or Alexis in this episode? I don't think they were... and I didn't miss them until now. Alexis I'm not shocked at (although I was wishing she'd been in the morgue when Kate was having her chat with Lanie) but Martha I'm a little surprised I didn't miss.

fairytales wrote:

This is a man who is supposedly smarter than everyone in the CIA.... and he can't tell that Kate is in love with him? Can't come up with another scenario as to why she might have kept her secret? The man who is suppose to have an endless amount of theories?



I think I would like Castle's behavior a little more if we hadn't seen his character progress and maybe if he wasn't like... 40 years old.

ADDING ON: Was Martha or Alexis in this episode? I don't think they were... and I didn't miss them until now. Alexis I'm not shocked at (although I was wishing she'd been in the morgue when Kate was having her chat with Lanie) but Martha I'm a little surprised I didn't miss.

In another forum, we had this discussion and most of the males there pointed out that Castle's behavior is a typical male behavior. When males are hurt, they don't talk. When they feel betrayed and that their pride takes a hit, they wallow in self pity and do not care to analyze what went wrong.

I believe that underneath Castle knows Kate has valid reasons, but he is not thinking clearly right now. What he is thinking is that he made himself vulnerable to her after the shooting, and he has not seen her do the same for him.

In Rise, Castle went to Beckett expecting for both to talk about his "l love you" declaration. What does he get instead? He sees Kate with Josh, and she then tells him that she doesn't remember a thing. She even adds that somethings aren't worth remembering. She then asks him for time to be alone, and he obliges. For 3 months he waits for her, and she does not bother to call him. When she does come back, she meets him at a book signing and does not really apologize for not calling. She does tell him that she needs time to heal to have the relationship she wants with the man she wants. Castle assumes she means him, and he forgives her. We then see an additional two times in which he directly asks her if she really does not remember anything about the shooting, and each time she denies remembering. Castle is okay with that because he still believes she does in fact love him.

Thus we move into 47 Sec., Castle finds out the truth that she had been lying all this time. He had Kate in a pedestal and assumed he knew her better than most. Her lie showed him that he really didn't know her that well. If he couldn't see through the lie of her not remembering, how could he see her actions as indicating that she loves him. He can no longer trusts his ability to read her. All his assumptions about Kate are in question. He never believed that Kate would lie to him about something as important as his love declaration, but she has. Anything she therefore has said to him has to be evaluated in light of this context. She is not a truthful person, and as such what he believed true about her (that she loved him) has also been a lie. A lie he created because he wanted to believe, as Sophia told him in Linchpin, that Kate was different than all the other women in his life. He now sees he was wrong. Kate is like all the other women he has dated. Women who play with his emotions.

Again... this is what he is perceiving. We know he is wrong, and that he doesn't have all the facts. But as often happens when we feel betrayed and hurt, especially for guys, we react without thinking. We don't want to psycho analyze ourselves. We just want to wallow in our pain, and in this pain we assume the worst of the people we do love because it is the only thing that at that moment makes us feel better.

Marlowe himself confirms that this is exactly what Rick is doing. As he states:

Quote :

He’s not in a self-reflective mood. He’s just pissed and acting out. But is he going to get to what you’re talking about (about her reasons for her withholding the truth)? Yeah. But he’s not going to get there overnight — it’s going to take an episode or two.
And I think his pride was seriously wounded in that last episode. We know that men don’t like to talk about their feelings, they’re not going to go in there and confront somebody, he’s just going to quietly suffer with the pain and deal with his very complicated feelings towards her and I think we get to watch that for the next couple episodes

My guess is that in the next episode it will dawn on Castle how wrong he has been, and how immature he is behaving. There is a line in the promo where Slaughter calls him out after Castle says "this is awesome". Slaughter tells him that he is a grown man and should not be saying things like that. In a way Slaughter will call him out for being an immature jackass, and I bet Castle's reckless behavior will put both Slaughter's and his life in danger. It is when he sees how he is behaving that he will realize that he is not handling his situation with Kate in a mature manner. When he does that, the conversation that these two need to have will take place. Both going in with the acting out phase behind them.

Oh, right, I keep forgetting why I'm forever single.


I guess it is too much to ask then... to show how a grown man SHOULD behave and confront the situation instead of acting like a 2 year old

fairytales wrote:

Oh, right, I keep forgetting why I'm forever single.


I guess it is too much to ask then... to show how a grown man SHOULD behave and confront the situation instead of acting like a 2 year old

Is not too much to ask, but sometimes we forget the difference in how males and females react. Males act out, refuse to talk it out, do not psycho analyze, and wallow in self pity. Females want to understand what went wrong and want to talk it out. It is why when conflicts between couples occur males and females have different perspectives.

I would tell you that one thing I learn last week in that other forum is the surprising unanimity of how the males in that forum understood Castle's behavior. They even predicted that he would be so annoyed with Kate that he would take every opportunity to shoot her down, so in away Castle is being a typical guy. The kicker though and as the guys in the other forum said is that once this phase passes he is going to be ashamed of the way he acted but will keep the shame to himself. The only person that a guy can turn to is another guy for a good kick in the pants.

dstorm wrote:

fairytales wrote:

Oh, right, I keep forgetting why I'm forever single.


I guess it is too much to ask then... to show how a grown man SHOULD behave and confront the situation instead of acting like a 2 year old

Is not too much to ask, but sometimes we forget the difference in how males and females react. Males act out, refuse to talk it out, do not psycho analyze, and wallow in self pity. Females want to understand what went wrong and want to talk it out. It is why when conflicts between couples occur males and females have different perspectives.

I would tell you that one thing I learn last week in that other forum is the surprising unanimity of how the males in that forum understood Castle's behavior. They even predicted that he would be so annoyed with Kate that he would take every opportunity to shoot her down, so in away Castle is being a typical guy. The kicker though and as the guys in the other forum said is that once this phase passes he is going to be ashamed of the way he acted but will keep the shame to himself. The only person that a guy can turn to is another guy for a good kick in the pants.

What is interesting for me is that I can see Castle created a story for himself about what happened, and that it's what he does. So in THAT sense he doesn't feel out of character.

In all of this I see the beauty of having a male/female writing team. I have heard a number of men on twitter say they get why Castleb is being a jackass. Thing is, they all say HE'S being a jackass.

I think, that's really all I'm saying. RICK IS BEING A JACKASS, AND I am curious to see how he gets him out of it.

Yeah.

I'm not sure he feels out of character to me... I'm just sad they couldn't show more progression instead of regression into I guess what is typical male behavior. Come on Castle, show what a grown man is suppose to act like! That is all.

But maybe part of me is afraid they wont fully redeem him like other males we've seen in the past. We'll see. I'm still looking forward to how they resolve this.

True enough. Most guys that I've seen discuss the events of the past two weeks in the forum completely agree that he is being a jackass, and I love that Marlowe himself acknowledges that in Castle's behavior. We are seeing the worst in him, and Kate too is seening that. Her fears about him have been manifested. The question she now has is does she walk or try to fix things between them hoping that once they do they can repair the damage each has inflicted on the other.


It is definitely a plus for the Castle team to have both a strong female and male perspectives. It is what makes their reactions real and frustrating at the same time. For the males, Castle is a jackass, but a jackass that has a valid reason for behaving the way he has. For the females, Castle is jackass but a jackass that has not valid reason for behaving the way he has. Isn't that the beauty of this writing.

The true test, and one I can not wait to see how it plays out, is the way Marlowe and Terri will bring them together again. I hold to what Marlowe wrote in Demons during the Ashley-Alexis arc. That strong relationships are built on a solid foundation, and if two people believe in that relationship the impossible seems possible.

You've kind of already pointed out that Kate CAN'T fix this. As you said, only another guy can give Castle the kick in the pants he needs. Until that happens, there isn't a thing Kate can do.

Beckstle wrote:

You've kind of already pointed out that Kate CAN'T fix this. As you said, only another guy can give Castle the kick in the pants he needs. Until that happens, there isn't a thing Kate can do.

True.... Slaughter's role in this is that he will be the one that forces Castle to stop wallowing in self pity and to start confronting the source of his anger. By that I mean, Slaughter will tell him that he has to talk to Kate and have it out with her. Otherwise he is just running away from his fears.

When Castle accepts this advise, it will be the opening that Kate needs to tell her side and that is all she can do.

I believe that will be sufficient for him to start making amends to her, the team, and to return to the man he was just a few short weeks ago. It will take him time to fix his mistakes, but he will do so knowing that he was wrong.