Det. Kate Beckett (Stana Katic) returns to the thick of the plot in "Castle" Monday night for Season 8 Episode 7, titled "Last Seduction."

CarterMatt reports Rick (Nathan Fillion) is looking to pull out all the stops for his wife in the romance department to mark their first anniversary. Given the couple's ongoing estrangement, their relationship may hang on his success.

"Tomorrow is our anniversary and I just can't bear the thought of spending it without you," Castle shares with his wife in one promo for the episode, while in another, she contemplates divorce.

Then there's the matter of hunting down the brutal murderer of a slick conman, which leads the crew directly into the private world of New York's social elite. Beckett ultimately goes undercover and ends up in the locker room of a social club wearing only a towel.

As for all those fans still desperately hoping for a reconciliation between the wayward couple, this episode is being billed as a critical carryover into the upcoming episode "Mr. & Mrs. Castle," the fall finale that is expected to shape the course of the remainder of the season.

"You can read into that a little bit," co-showrunner Alexi Hawley recently told TV Line of a scene in which Castle intimately sniffs his wife's T-shirt. "That's a really powerful last moment that shows you that all that love is still there."

Beckett abruptly split from her newlywed husband earlier in the season over fears her work on the LokSat investigation might ultimately put him in danger.

"The reason why she created this separation, again, is out of love," fellow showrunner Terence Paul Winter added. "She wants him to remember her."