Are you still with us Castle fans?

After four seasons of will-they-won’t-they romantic tension, the ABC drama’s Season 4 finale seemingly brought mystery writer Rick Castle (Nathan Fillion) together with his muse, Detective Kate Beckett (Stana Katic). But getting there was no easy task.

After a murder investigation put Beckett on the trail of Cole Maddox (Tahmoh Penikett), the man who shot her in last year’s season-ender, Castle had to reveal the secret he’s been keeping all season: He’s been investigating Beckett’s mother’s murder covertly in order to keep her away from the case and therefore keep her alive. The betrayal hits Beckett hard, and it seems the duo’s partnership is finished.

But after Beckett nearly dies during another run-in with Maddox — and after her recklessness causes her to resign from the police force — Beckett runs to Castle for a passionate make-out session before ultimately leading him to the bedroom.

So, did Castle and Beckett actually get it on? And what does this mean for their future? We took all our questions to creator Andrew W. Marlowe, who assures us, this is only the beginning.

So, you finally put Castle and Beckett together. Why was now the time?
Andrew W. Marlowe: Ultimately, you get to a fork in the road. If we kept them apart any longer, say another season — after what Castle had put on the table at the end of last season — in my mind, that would have been the death of the series. Then, we would have just been being artificial. They would have become brother and sister, and then we’re just ignoring everything that had happened. There comes a point where you have to confront it. … We wanted to get the point where we resolved it and made a promise for next season that these two are going to have to be dealing with their feelings for one another.

Of course, we didn’t see whatever was about to happen in that bedroom. Are you planning to pull a fast one next season?
Marlowe: I have no intention of pulling the rug out from the audience. I think that when that scene ends, everybody is clear on what’s about to happen. We don’t need to see it, but we know it’s going to happen.

So to be clear, there won’t be an urgent phone call that Castle’s mom has been in an accident or something like that?
Marlowe: No. I think we need to get to the other side of the storytelling. I think we’ve played the interruptions as much as we possibly can. And I think we’re really interested to see what’s going to happen with these two. What does that relationship look like? This is going to allow us to re-embrace some of the fun, because relationships are tricky things and they don’t always go the way you want them to.

Are you saying this season didn’t have as much “fun” as you would like?
Marlowe: Yeah a little bit. We had a lot of fun this season, but Castle and Beckett were each keeping secrets from one another and weren’t dealing with each other completely honestly. I think some of the angst of this season — we paid for some of that with some element of fun. That by no means is me saying the fun left the show, but we had to spend a little bit of that capital in a different place. Getting to the other side of this allows us to bring … [back] the back-and-forth between them and the physical comedy. It allows us to recommit to the fundamental values of what the show is.

So you want to see them in a more playful place with one another?
Marlowe: [Seeing them] figuring out their rhythms with one another is going to be fun for the audience to watch. In no way do we think this is going to end the fun and the tension between Castle and Beckett because the question is now going to become: Where does this relationship go and how does it affect their ability to work together?

Would you call them a couple at this point or is it not that defined?
Marlowe: I think those are all the questions the characters are going to be asking themselves, and that’s going to be part of the fun. When they wake up the next morning, are both of them still in the same place? And Beckett’s actually resigned from the force. So, what is she going to do with her life now? There’s all sorts of stuff to jump into next season.

Why does Beckett resign in that moment?
Marlowe: It’s a reflection on what she’s been doing with her life and how she’s defined herself. This echoes back to a conversation she had with her therapist in “Kill Shot” where she says, “I want to move past this.” [Does] letting go of her mother’s murder allow her to choose something else in life, where she’s not as driven to be a cop? Or will things happen that will force her to recommit to it?

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