Obvious spoilers, beware.
What’s up with this new disturbing trend of killing off the female co-lead? Like, no shit. It’s fucking happening all the time now, like everyone got together and said “fuck women” and killed them off. We’ve lost Laurel on Arrow, Abby on Sleepy Hollow, and Liz on The Blacklist (presumably), as well as the rumor that Kate Beckett will meet her demise in the season finale of Castle (since she isn’t returning for next season). Brennan on Bones better watch her back. Hell, at this rate, I wouldn’t be surprised if Alicia died in the finale of The Good Wife.
What the fuck is your problem, Hollywood?
Killing off your lead is shocking. True. And in each instance, the female lead was slightly more expendable than the male lead. Lets be honest. No one is watching The Blacklist without James Spader. No one will watch Castle without Nathan Fillion. I get that.
But, to that same mold, after 8 seasons of Castle, I’m sure as shit not going to watch the show without Kate. The Kate/Castle element is the whole reason Castle has thrived. Without Kate, your show goes to shit. It becomes a boring procedural. Same thing with Liz on The Blacklist and Abby on Sleepy Hollow. Luckily, we have Felicity on Arrow, so we’re not completely left cold there. But the other shows desperately NEED their female co-leads. This is not Doctor Who. If you’re going to swap the female co-lead every season, that needs to be an established trope from season one. Otherwise, we get attached, we start shipping, and the show really does become about our two co-leads. When you axe one of the co-leads, we stop watching the show. Sorry.
The fact that people in a room somewhere really thought Castle could survive without Kate astounds me. If Kate was killed in some grand fashion out of nowhere, I might be interested in a short final season (because 23 episodes of this shit would be maddening) of seeing Rick going apeshit and trying to catch her killer. Otherwise, I give zero shits about his relationship to anyone else, and I wouldn’t watch him trying to solve cases with a new partner. I stopped watching SVU when Chris Meloni left (and I presume I wasn’t the only one).
How do you feel? Do you stop watching a show when it kills a co-lead?
