This week’s season finale of Castle opens with a man running through the park at night and making a desperate phone call at a pay phone. When the phone answers the man identifies himself as Operative 223. The person on the other end of the line says the line is not secure and hangs up. The man continues to run and stops under a bridge where he is shot 5 times.

Next we see it is morning and Castle appears to be hard at work on his next book Naked Heat as he is looking at the cover for the book. It appears he is also dodging his ex-wife/publisher Gina Griffin as he is late with the manuscript for Naked Heat. Castle talks to his mother for a bit about a part she is trying out for and Alexis comes bursting in to tell them the good news she was just moved from the standby list to active for a summer program at Princeton University. Castle is both happy for her and disappointed she will not be able to go to the Hamptons for their annual trip.

Beckett calls and Castle meets her at the park where the body of the man who was running is found. He invites her to the Hamptons as well. The victim was not robbed and all five bullets that hit the victim were removed from the tree branch they hit by whoever killed him. The body is identified as Shawn Caldwell from the company Fastwater Global Services by the badge in his wallet.

As the begin researching the victim it becomes apparent that the company Shawn worked for does not exists, and all of the items in his wallet appear to be fake. Laney finds a small piece of bullet in the victim and was able to determine that it was shot from a Glock. Beckett then receives a call from Ryan and Esposito who have found the car. In the car they find $5,000 Euros, a nice pen and an automatic weapon. As Castle is handed the pen it begins to play a message and then self-destructs. Beckett contacts the CIA, FBI, and other agencies and nobody knows who this person is. Captain Montgomery tells her and Castle to stay on the case until someone higher up says not to.

Castle and Beckett go to the meeting location the pen message gave. While there Castle asks Becket again about going to the Hamptons. She tells him she has to work and there is no way she could go. Castle then confuses a French woman as the contact and then is met by the real contact Hans Brauer. When Castle as for confirmation of the intended target Hans grabs him and slams him against the wall asking who he really is. Beckett then identifies herself and arrest Hans. Hans is cool and collected while being interrogated and states that shortly she would receive a call telling her to release him.
Meanwhile, Ryan and Esposito have located the hotel that Shawn was staying at.

Castle and Beckett go there and search it. They find more fake IDs and a docket on Kofi Amadul, the Minister of Banking from the Republic of Luvania for his assassination. As Beckett states that she needs to call the state department, Castle tells her she does not need to as he shows her on his phone that Luvania does not exist. Beckett then wonders why they would try to kill someone who does not exist. Castle thinks he knows why.

As they get back to the station, Ryan begins to tell them about the gun they found in the car when Castle says that he bets it is not real. Ryan agrees and asks how he knows. Castle continues to the holding cell where he talks to Hans and explains to him that this is not part of the game and he *really* was under arrest. Hans first complains that he is breaking the fourth wall, once he realizes that it is real, he is confused and explained he thought it was all part of “the experience.'

“The Experience” turns out to be a company called Spy Ventures and it is a pay-for-escape fantasy that will let you be a spy on high end “spy-cation”. After some research Castle and Beckett speak to the owners of Spy Ventures and find out who the victim really was named Roger Farraday. Roger’s last assignment was to have been well before he was killed. The owner’s of Spy Vaction also confirm his last assignment had been a team up with a woman named Andrea Fisher was playing a French spy, and the photo shows the woman that Castle spoke to first at the bar. In speaking with Andrea, she explains there were put together, but that she did not really know him. She also mentions that Roger had gotten a briefcase from his last stop and the owners of the company confirm it was not part of their game.

Castle and Beckett then speak to Roger’s wife and business partner who are upset because this whole adventure was suppose to be safe. Castle then overhears Demming ask Beckett about going away for the weekend. Beckett then explains to him that she didn’t say anything to him because she didn’t want things to get weird now that she and Tom were together. He then explains that it makes things easier since his book was due he was going to go to the Hamptons for the summer instead of just the weekend and this would be his last case with her.

Ryan brings in surveillance photos showing that Roger’s handler from Spy Ventures put the briefcase in his locker from his last case. Castle and Beckett bring him in for questioning.  It turns out that the Handler was making fake IDs for college kids and using the fake spies to make the drops so he could not be identified. The last job he did was for some Croatians. Kate has the team bust the address that the drop went to and found they were teenage Croatians who just wanted to drink.

As Becket and Castle are looking at the board and discussing the case he explains he needs to go. He has a poker game to host. As Castle leaves, Esposito ask Beckett if she realized why Castle had been following her for the last year. She said she was not sure, he points out that whatever the reason, it didn’t include watching her be with another guy.The poker game Castle has is with Stephen J Cannell , James Patterson and Michael Connelly. As they discuss the case James and Stephen point out that maybe they are focusing on the game to much. Maybe the game was just a way the killer covered his tracks.

The next morning Castle explains this to Beckett who said she was having the same thought. Upon investigating further, they find that his business partner was bankrupt and had left his apartment at 8pm and returned at 7am. At this he confesses that he was having an affair with Roger’s wife. The wife confirms that she and Roger had been on the outs and she was having the affair.  While looking at Rogers financials Ryan points out that he paid for two vacations. The person he paid for turns out to be Andrea Fisher who had said she didn’t know him.

In confronting Andrea, she admits to Castle and Becket that she has known Roger for a long time and they had been seeing each other in the city. As she finishes explaining her husband comes home and she begs them not to say anything. Beckett explains that he already knows. He owns a Glock pistol and had followed her to the city. He was the one who killed Roger.

After all of this Beckett talks to Demming and explains that he is a great guy but not what she is looking for right now. She then looks in on the group having a small going away party for Castle. She comes in and grabs a beer and asks to speak to Castle. As she tries to tell him how she really feels. Gina (Castle’s publisher and Ex-wife) walks in asking if he was ready. It seems that she is going with him to the Hamptons for the summer to stay on top of him while he works. Beckett never does finish what she was going to say but instead says that she will see him in the fall.