The new season of "Castle" finds recently promoted to captain Det. Kate Beckett "in a fight for her life" after being preyed on by a group of mercenaries.

Spoiler TV reports as early as in "XX" (Episode 2) of Season 8, Beckett (Stana Katic) finds herself on the run and Castle (Nathan Fillion) is desperate to find out why. The premiere episode, in which Rick is slated to undergo a major crisis of his own, is entitled "XY," and the website bills the back-to-back thrillers as a way to "chronicle a major event from two different perspectives."

According to CarterMatt, Jack Coleman is also slated to return for the first episode of the season as disgraced Sen. William Bracken and the website notes there are few people Beckett fingers as villains quite on his level.

The new season will also find Castle trying to adjust to working with new security specialist expert Hayley Vargas (Toks Olagundoye). According to TV Guide, though she and Rick will be spending plenty of time together, new showrunners Terence Paul Winter and Alexi Hawley have taken great pains to assure fans their relationship will only be of a professional nature.

"It's not going to happen," Hawley said of rumors of there being a romance between Hayley and Castle.

Meanwhile Rick's daughter Alexis (Molly Quinn) is also expected to return to the PI firm to work side by side with her father and over at least the first two episodes Ann Cusack is also slated to join the cast as Rita, a character who's being described as someone with a "unique set of skills" and who has a "surprising connection to Castle."

The series airs Mondays at 8 p.m. on ABC and also stars Seamus Dever as Kevin Ryan and Jon Huertas as Javier Esposito.