When your DVDs arrive for the eighth and final season of the Castle TV show, which was cancelled by ABC in May, do not bother looking for the cliffhanger ending among the included deleted scenes. After a long period of will-they/won’t-they renewal shenanigans, the Castle cancellation came down just days prior to the series’ makeshift TV series finale.

Per TV Line, Castle  season eight co-showrunner Alexi Hawley says, “The only editorial difference between the two [shootout] scenes was the cliffhanger version used some different shots at the very end to highlight [Richard Castle (Nathan Fillion) and Kate Beckett (Stana Katic)] on the floor together, rather than getting us into the tracking shot that took us to the time jump to the happy family.”

Since Katic’s contract was not extended, if Castle had been renewed for a ninth season, season eight would have ended with that shot of the leads on the floor — bleeding out. Once the cancellation was announced, the producers added a flash forward to seven years in the future, showing Rick and Kate’s happy ending with their three children.

The report mentions that had ABC ordered Castle season nine, it would have also begun with a time-jump, “in part to accommodate the writing-out,” of Katic’s Beckett.

What do you think? Were you satisfied by the Castle TV series finale? If the show had been renewed for a ninth season without Beckett, would you have watched it or dropped it? Tell us.