'Castle': Nathan Fillion and Stana Katic talk whether Castle and Beckett should date

If you’ve read this week’s Entertainment Weekly cover story with Nathan Fillion, you know that he and his Castle costar Stana Katic have different opinions on when Castle and Beckett should get together. She thinks sooner (Moonlighting curse be damned); he thinks later. We asked them to plead their cases, then got show creator Andrew Marlowe to weigh in (his opinion is, after all, the one that really counts). Read their arguments below. We’re taking it to a vote.

Stana Katic says date: “I might be naively romantic, but I believe that a relationship can be just as spicy when people get together as it was in the chase. The complications that happen when characters like Beckett and Castle get together can make for interesting viewing. They have ex-boyfriends and ex-girlfriends, he has a certain kind of lifestyle and she has a certain kind of lifestyle — and then on top of all that, they actually really care for each other. It would be neat to see how these two people attract each other and drive each other crazy. I’d love to see what happens when Beckett actually touches on a couple of his pet peeves. It would be fun to see her torture him a little bit, you know, in a fun way.”

Nathan Fillion says wait:“When you get people together, [viewers] stop with the yearning, they stop with the wanting. They go, ‘Ah, finally. They’re together. All right, what else is on?’ I know as an audience member, I enjoy knowing more than the characters I watch on TV know. [With our show it’s] looking at these two, saying, ‘Just turn around! She’s making the face right now! She’s making the face! You’ll see it! Ah, you missed it.’ The lack of resolution is what keeps people coming back. I think the challenge is how do you serve that so it’s not repetitive.”

Andrew Marlowe says wait, but not too long: “Fans wanting them together, network keeping them apart? Sure, there’s a dance to be done there. Look, I know from other shows that if you get the characters together too early, you can lose the audience’s interest. But I also know there is a certain point which, if you go beyond it, you’re just jerking fans around, and the characters on-screen become more like bickering brother and sister. They act like that, and the romantic spark goes away. I think there are real-life obstacles that get in the way of a relationship, which we’ll get into. And I do feel there’s storytelling to be had, once the two of them get together, because there’s stuff to figure out there — but I don’t think we’re at that point yet. I feel like my job is to keep the audience invested in the relationship without them feeling they’re getting jerked around.”

Who’s right?

I vote wait, but NOT until the final season. I don’t think you can keep putting Castle and Beckett in life-threatening two-parters (which have been the show’s best episodes) and not move their relationship forward. Plus, Castle was crowned the TV character EW.com readers would most want to date — I think the show’s strong female fan base would stick around because they want to see what that actually entails. In the end, I think Katic and Marlowe are on the same side. Chatting with her, she reminded us that unlike the audience, Beckett doesn’t know that Castle’s still coming to the station because he’s crazy about her. “These are things that he’s admitted to himself, maybe to his daughter. Beckett can guess at it, but I think to her, he’s still the man about town, a cheater, a gigolo. He’s not interested in her in that way,” she says. “I was talking to Andrew, and I said, ‘I don’t remember Beckett knowing why he broke up with his last two relationships.’ I know that it came up in one of the episodes that Gina cheated on him at some point, and I said to Andrew, ‘I think I would have remembered that if Beckett had heard that.’ He said, ‘That’s because it was information that came out in his loft, and Beckett wasn’t there.’ So there’s stuff that Beckett still doesn’t know about Castle, and there’s stuff that Castle doesn’t know about Beckett, too. There’s still some growth for the two of them along those lines.”

How close will the duo get in the coming months? Marlowe offers two teases: “We have an episode where Castle and Beckett go out to Los Angeles to investigate a murder that puts them closer than they’ve ever been in their relationship,” and, “We’ll really be dealing with where they are in their relationship in a serious way as we get to the end of the season.” Katic is equally vague: “I think the audience will see his feelings for her in a way they haven’t seen before.” Fillion, asked point-blank if we’ll see a second kiss, claims to be clueless: “There’s a story that Andrew has presented to me that I know we could play around with the possibility of a kiss,” he says. “So I know something is coming up where it could indeed happen. How’s that for a terrible hint?” (Additional reporting by Jeff Jensen)

For more Fillion — including Katic and Marlowe’s take on how much of the actor is in Richard Castle — pick up the new issue of Entertainment Weekly now on stands. Or, you can click here to buy this issue online.

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