Castle might have ended the fifth season with our favorite couple in rocky waters, but the most surprising thing about this season might just have been how smooth the sailing has been for Castle and Beckett. In season five, Castle pulled the most shocking move a show built on a central will-they-won’t-they couple can: it put the main duo in a healthy, happy relationship.

And guess what? The show didn’t immediately implode! In fact, after four years of push and pull and a full season of Castle pining, putting the two crime solvers together opened up a vast amount of new narrative ground to explore.

The conventional wisdom, built on the back of the poor, maligned Bruce Willis dramedy Moonlighting, is that when you resolve the sexual tension the audience has no more reason to watch.

“What if the dance is all we have?” Beckett wondered about her relationship with Castle in the season finale. From a meta perspective, the show had already answered that question after a season proving that putting the two main characters together didn’t change the magic alchemy of the show’s foundation.