What a farce. While the latest relationship story feint fortunately does not seem to have blinded many people to the identity of the third cop, the whole ending was lame and contrived to give a cheap thrill and artificial suspense. For a show called "Castle" the focus has been entirely too much on Beckett so much so that people are forgetting you can still have a show called Castle without her. Next season could be really interesting if they decide to let her die, and feature Castle trying to finish up the case on his own, with maybe some off-the-books help from his pals in the NYPD. It might actually give the titular character a chance to grow and develop and have a function beyond plot devices and comedy. It could be a really interesting show and they will never, ever, for any reason, do that. No TV show, especially on a major network, alters the formula without compelling, non-creative reasons (ratings desperation, casting issues, etc). Some shows might plausibly knock off the main non-titular character to move the title character in a new direction. Not a show as episodic and formulaic as Castle. Beckett will be back next season, and after an episode or two teasing out a couple more threads in the Big Mystery, will go right back to unusual murders-of-the-week, generally involving celebrities or wealthy people. It's called "the reset button" and it refers to the tendency to revert shows to the status quo after calender-inspired (sweeps, proximity to holidays, season-ending or hiatus-beginning) changes. Like how the season that began with Castle off on his own and none of the cops have heard from him in weeks and he's back together with his ex-wife. Oooh! The show's all different, right? Haha!

Look at the casts of TV shows that are being canceled. Find a middle-aged actor or hot actress in her thirties or forties who plays tough types. Those are good candidates to replace Montgomery next year and keep the ball rolling. Chi McBride is a strong candidate IMO, unless they decide to go the chick-route, like Bones, a similarly shallow spunky-chick-&-smirky-dude-partners-with-sexual-tension show, did a few years back. Though they might decide that making Lanie attractive was enough in that direction. With his creepy ginger daughter growing up into a not-totally-repulsive near-woman, they might be satisfied with the hotness content of the show.

Anyway, with the suspense disposed of, why the hell was Castle a pallbearer? A guy Montgomery met a couple of years ago and socializes with less than any other cop in the office? Its like when TV shows have weddings and rather than bring in new people to wear formal clothes and not talk, they fill up the wedding party with regular cast members despite the complete lack of any reason by real world standards why they should be there, or why their extended families would keep speaking to them after they picked virtual strangers and co-worker's siblings or spouses over their own siblings and cousins. That shit does NOT get forgotten, let me tell you! And I would think a pall bearer would be likewise, especially for cops and NYPD more than any other. They get really hyped up about their whole brotherhood thing, and unless Montgomery was exposed and disgraced, like Lem on The Shield, every former partner and relative on the force is really annoyed at the family for letting this civilian celebrity d-bag groupie take his slot. They even have alluded to this sort of thing once or twice on the show, that as much as they might like Castle, he is still not a cop, and the whole partner thing with Beckett would not be legitimate in the eyes of real cops.

I'm not saying this episode was not entertaining in the manner typical of Castle, but let's not get overboard about a couple of pieces of stunt-writing.