Just another post ep (because there isn't a million already) because Alexis was horribly underused this episode. Extended thoughts on the episode itself will be found at the end of the chapter.
I own nothing. It's also 1am Australian time as I post this, it's a bajillion degrees really hot, and I've flown beta free. Safe to say the only thing I own are my mistakes.
The second that Alexis saw her father traipse up the stairs to the guest room, she knew that whatever was transpiring downstairs couldn't end well. She loved her mother, but Alexis was not blind to her flaws. Not by any means. Alexis had seen her undermine more than one co-star with a flip of her hair and a quirk of an eyebrow, but she was certain that Detective Kate Beckett could hold her own against Meredith Kingston.
In a show of true maturity, Alexis sneaked towards the stairs, determined to listen to the showdown. She'd heard her mother practicing her monologue (Alexis personally thought the soufflé metaphor was a little weak, however, what she found more interesting was that Meredith had failed to attribute adultery to the reasons for the divorce) in her bedroom, and truthfully, Alexis was far more interested in seeing Kate's reaction. Surely a seasoned homicide detective would be able to see through misdirection. Hearing her father move back down the hallway, Alexis quickly slipped back into her bedroom, silently cursing the fact that she hadn't heard Kate's response.
Biting the bullet, Alexis decided it was time for action. She mussed her hair and rubbed her nose, before making her way down to the kitchen.
"Daddy, you're not making Kate a s'morelette, are you?" She asked. "I like Kate, and I want her to stay."
"You sure you don't want one, pumpkin?" Castle teased in response. To his eternal disappointment, his daughter was entirely conventional in her culinary tastes.
Alexis shook her head, wrinkling her nose. "Maybe just some toast?" She answered, well aware that she wasn't acting like the adult she was always claiming to be, but she was sick and sometimes her daddy's coddling was exactly what she needed. She patiently stood still as he checked her temperature, and held out her hand for the plethora of vitamins he insisted she take.
Alexis seated herself next to Kate at the dining room table. It didn't seem like there had been a smackdown, but Kate was intently studying her cuticles, gnawing her bottom lip and generally looking like someone had run over her puppy.
Kate raised an eyebrow when her breakfast was presented to her. "What is this?"
"Dad likes to experiment in the kitchen. Sometimes it's great. Other times…" Alexis wrinkled her nose "Dad invents the s'morelette. And yes, it is exactly what it sounds like."
Kate's face lost its brooding quality. Now she just looked hesitant.
"Ignore my offspring," Castle ordered. "Her tastes are completely orthodox."
"You know, sometimes there's something to be said for orthodox," Kate replied, picking up her knife and fork. She cut herself off a large chunk, before elegantly chewing and swallowing.
"Okay, that is gross, Castle," Kate declared.
"See, Dad, I told you! It's not just me!" Alexis interjected.
"But it's just gross enough that I want to keep eating it. Its like that weird gross but good taste," Kate reflected, cutting into the omelette.
Alexis noticed that the furrow on Kate's brow didn't entirely disappear, no matter how casually she acted at breakfast. Alexis pushed away her barely touched toast. "Kate, just before you go, do you think you could help me out with something?" She asked, desperately trying to keep her tone casual.
"What's up, pumpkin?" Castle interjected.
"Just some girl stuff, Daddy," Alexis informed him lightly, hoping he'd assume they were talking about menstruation and that he'd freak and run away.
"No problem," Kate replied.
Alexis gratefully collapsed onto her bed, tugging Monkey Bunky to sit on her lap. "You know my Mom's an actress, right?"
Kate frowned. "I'm aware," she replied, curious as to where Alexis was going.
"She's also totally obsessed with making sure that people think the best of her," Alexis added.
"What are you saying?" Kate asked.
"I'm saying that you can't trust a word that comes out of my Mom's mouth. She's totally jealous that Dad is actually in a functioning, grown up relationship that she can't help but undermine her competition to make herself feel better. Actors are fundamentally insecure beings," Alexis replied, just a hint of her grandmother's exuberance flavouring her words.
"Yeah, but I'm exactly like her," Kate whispered, unable to filter her thoughts.
"So you've cheated on my Dad?" Alexis asked.
Kate's head snapped up. "What? NO!" She replied forcefully, shocked that Alexis would be so blunt.
"I know you haven't cheated on my Dad," Alexis reassured her. "But my Mom did. They didn't break up because they're soufflé, or whatever the hell she was talking about,"
"You heard that?" Kate interjected.
"I heard her practicing what she was going to say in her room," Alexis answered dismissively. "My parents broke up because my mother was screwing around from the second she dropped her baby fat. In the divorce settlement, it was agreed to that they'd keep her infidelity out of the tabloids in exchange for my Dad getting full custody. My mother is actually that much of a narcissist that she actually cares about the opinion of random strangers," Alexis paused to cough. "And that's what that justification downstairs was all about. Her making it okay that she cheated, because apparently my Dad wasn't open enough with her."
"How do you know all of this?" Kate asked.
Alexis shrugged, replacing the cap on her water bottle. "I was fourteen, and Mom forgot all about my birthday. Didn't even call. I cried for hours, wanting to know why I wasn't good enough for my Mom to love me. Wanted the entire story out of my Dad. I already suspected that something untoward must have happened, because I remember overhearing Dad and Gina argue about the infidelity clause in their pre-nup a few years before," Alexis looked at Kate ruefully, "I had to look up what it meant."
Kate rolled her eyes, nudging Alexis's knee. "Sure you did," she teased, desperately hoping to inject some lightness in the situation.
"After a few hours of tears, and a veiled threat to ask Gram or Mom about what happened, Dad caved and told me everything. Not my finest moment, I'll admit, but Dad has been a little too good about sheltering me from the negative stuff in life. Sometimes even sheltering me from the fact that my Mom can be a raging bitch. Which you've experienced."
"I think you've caught your Dad's idealism. Your Mom might be a little vapid, but at least she tried to find out what was going on in your Dad's head," Kate argued.
"My Mom pokes and pries where it's convenient to her," Alexis argued. "She asked me all kinds of wildly inappropriate questions about my relationship with Max. But she didn't ask them because she's concerned about me making informed and sensible choices in my private life. She asked because she wanted some gossip. I'm sure she did that to my Dad. Asked about his absent father when it suited her, not when he was in any sort of space to talk about it. Why haven't you asked? Is it because you don't care? Or is it because you know what its like to have someone rattle the walls you've laid so carefully?"
Kate opened her mouth to respond, but couldn't find the words. How the hell was an eighteen year old girl so insightful? It was quite possibly the strangest and most awkward conversation she'd ever taken part in, but Alexis was stopping her from bottling up her scary thoughts and letting them fester.
"When I first met you properly, I remember thinking that you seemed sad. And you have a good reason to be. And that sadness has made you tough, and you wear that like a shield. My Dad isn't like that. He has a lot of sadness too, but he buries it deep down, and covers it up with his class clown attitude. Personally, I think he's just as wounded as you are. He just hides it better."
Kate cleared her throat, desperately willing the lump to disappear. "How did you get so smart?" She asked huskily.
"Psychology 101," Alexis replied cheekily. "I'm also brilliant, but I like to keep that on the down low."
"Well, I agree with that assessment. And thank you. You stopped me from getting too far into my head."
"No problem. I'm not being rude, but I do need to crash now," Alexis replied.
"Sleep well, Alexis."
Kate walked downstairs slowly. She knew she trusted Castle implicitly. She knew that what they had was solid. But she also knew that she'd been content to accept only what Castle told her about himself. She knew nothing of pain he kept secret for years. He'd helped her heal old wounds, rattled her cage and broken down the walls that she'd built that only served to keep her captive. It was time for Kate to bite the bullet, and do the same for him.
So, initially, I HATED the end of the episode. My immediate thought was that Kate was getting insecure in their relationship (again), which I'm starting to feel is a bit boring (and somewhat overused...its starting to feel like the writers are flogging a dead horse if they're going in that direction), to be quite honest, because Castle has proven time and time again that he's in the relationship for the long haul. However, if this is the groundwork for Kate stepping up and realising that there's a Castle onion (or a cake... maybe he's a cake, because he's sweet, and cakes have layers too) as well, and its time for her to start peeling back those layers. After chatting with a few other fans/readers/writers, I'm leaning towards Kate's hesitation at the end of the episode being more about her realisation that she has so much work ahead of her (the book/pamphlet comparison Meredith used was not incidental, i'm sure of it), and its time for her to step up.
I felt Alexis was horribly underused in this episode, and I'm quite certain that she knows her mothers behavior better than anyone, which is where this came from.
The biggest thing I've noticed is that this episode has brought out such strong opinions in people... so lets talk about it. Let me know your thoughts.