MBTI Type: ESFP

Martha is all about the here and now and on living life to the fullest. She is an actress who throws herself bodily into her roles, and who also knows how to party late on the side. She often stumbles in on a walk of shame the next morning after a night out on the town, and immediately falls in love with various men she finds attractive. But her relationships don’t last long, as her son points out that he gives her moving in with her high school boyfriend six months, tops. Martha can get up one morning, feel completely different about someone than she did yesterday and because she makes all her decisions based on her feelings in the moment, turn him down and dump all of her plans. In one episode, she is contemplating moving in with her boyfriend, in the next, she has decided to break up with him, then she gets back together with him—in a wild swing of “how I feel right now.” Martha is ambitious and chases after whatever catches her attention—men, roles in plays, opportunities to act in front of the camera, etc. She is sensitive to criticism, to any inference that she might be manipulating the truth (“Mom… that is an old picture”; “Yes, but I still look like that!”), or that she might not be desirable. She tries to use Castle to get her inroads into productions, by waving around his name or asking for favors. She cares deeply about her son and granddaughter, and needs to feel as if she is contributing to their lives… but has no capacity to see through people to their real motives. She got taken for a lot of money by a con artist who convinced her that he loved her. Anxiety about the future and the unknown, at not knowing what might happen, causes her to back off from a few situations – break up with people because she doesn’t see “our future together,” even though it’s just a panic attack about the unknown. Martha does better when she focuses on the now.

Enneagram: 3w2 so/sx

Martha is obsessed with her appearance and how she comes across to others, but also surprisingly oblivious to her own flaws. In one hilarious encounter with her son, she tells him to pass out flyers for her new play production at his next book party launch. When he says he wants that evening to be all about himself, she calls him selfish, not realizing that she is trying to make it all about HERSELF. She puts up a twenty year old picture on Facebook, then complains that her high school boyfriend has done the same (it’s not fair, she wants to see how much he has aged, and if he is still attractive before she answers his Friend Request). She turns down a role in a play because it’s too unimportant, but then accepts it a few days later after her agent convinces the producers to let her at least die on stage. If she’s going to only be in the first act, she has to have a memorable departure! Martha brushes off any talk about her failed multiple marriages, how her last boyfriend swindled her out of enormous amounts of cash, and calls her son and granddaughter fortunate to have her in the house, instead of admitting she’s freeloading because she’s broke. She prides herself on being desirable and attractive even as an older woman, and assumes that she will be well-received and desired everywhere she goes, but also offers Beckett and Castle both some excellent relationship advice, separately (you need to just tell her how you feel… and I think you care about my son more than you want to admit).