Monk

It's Saturday morning at Ashton High School, and the SAT exams have just begun. As the students settle in to their seats, cracking open their exam booklets, everyone is startled by a loud crash and the wail of a car alarm. Rushing to the window, they are shocked to find the body of beloved English teacher Beth Landow strewn across the hood of a car parked at the base of a clock tower.

While on spring break vacation in Mexico, Chip Rosatti, the son of a prominent San Francisco businessman, wins a free skydiving jump. Watching from the ground, two of his friends gaze up in horror as Chip leaps from the plane but fails to open his chute and plummets to his death. When Chip's body is examined at the morgue, local coroner Dr.

Lawrence Hammond, a high-powered corporate CEO, is driving his wife to a weekend getaway using the directions given by their car's GPS system when the electronic voice goes haywire, leading them not to a resort hotel but to a deserted lot - a lot where a killer lies in wait. Monk quickly realizes that Erin, the CEO's trophy wife, was the killer's primary target.

At a quaint sidewalk cafe, Serge Cluvarias and his young date Ariana sit enjoying a late dinner. Their quiet evening is suddenly interrupted when a mysterious masked figure dressed as a ninja leaps down into the cafe from the rooftops above, and, without warning, shoots Serge dead.

As the elderly residents of the Malden Retirement Home relax after dinner, just down the hall, Miles Holling, who is the world's oldest man and just one day shy of his 115th birthday, is being suffocated by a shadowy figure. Captain Stottlemeyer's wife Karen (Glenne Headly), who once profiled Holling in a documentary film she made, suspects that the elderly man's death was no accident.

Sharona's sister, Gail (Amy Sedaris), is starring in a play bound for New York, and Monk and Sharona are in the audience. During a scene, Gail uses a fake knife to "stab" another actor. The actor gasps and wheezes before falling to the floor - but then doesn't get up. A doctor rushes onstage from the audience and determines that the actor was stabbed in the chest.

It's a quiet afternoon in the San Francisco suburbs. Amanda Babbage chats on the phone as she retrieves her mail, confiding to her friend a recent series of difficulties between she and her brothers. Little does Amanda know that the package she's just carried into the house is in fact a bomb.

Elliot D'Souza, Chief Financial Officer for a high-powered publishing company, is working out in his private gym alone when suddenly the weight of his barbell overwhelms him and it comes crashing down violently on his throat. He's killed instantly, choked to death by his own workout equipment.

A tollbooth operator is killed at work. Across town, a woman is killed in a movie theatre. Those are just two more victims the police have added to the growing number of bizarre homicides that have sweeping the city in recent weeks. Immediately, Monk is suspicious of the details surrounding both murders and by the clues -- or lack thereof -- left at the various crime scenes.

After Nestor and Jose Alverez deliver the morning paper to their most demanding customer, Adrian Monk, they notice someone trying to steal it. While trying to stop the thief, Nestor is pushed to his death. Monk's apartment is soon turned into a hub of disorder and distractions as the police search the crime scene.

An elderly woman wins a cherry pie at a town raffle. Before she can drive home with her prize, a man approaches, demanding she give him the pie. She refuses, so the man kills her and drives away with her body. Captain Stottlemeyer and Lieutenant Disher consider the case a routine carjacking, but Monk suspects there may be more to it.

Monk and Sharona are called to the home of Susan Molloy, the ex-wife of popular TV star Brad Terry. Once there, they learn that Susan was stabbed inside the house while Brad was out front dealing with the paparazzi -- that is, until everyone heard Susan's screams. The evidence points to a break in, but Monk thinks otherwise.

An elderly woman is strapped to her chair and kidnapped from her home by two masked intruders who leave a spray-painted lightning bolt on her wall. Captain Stottlemeyer and Lieutenant Disher immediately suspect a 1970's radical group, the Lightning Brigade. Dissatisfied with the police investigation, the victim's granddaughter, Julie Parlo (Rachel Dratch), asks for Monk's help.

After a sniper's bullet kills a tow truck driver, the truck careens into Karen Stottlemeyer's car as she is making her way to work, sending her to the hospital. As Captain Stottlemeyer grapples with the possibility of losing his wife, Lieutenant Disher speculates that an ongoing local union dispute may be behind the shooting.

San Francisco antique dealer Raymond Toliver reads aloud from an old, yellowing confession written by 19th century prospector Joshua Skinner.

Just 45 minutes away from his scheduled execution, death row inmate Ray Kaspo dies in his cell from a poisoned last meal. Monk is brought in to investigate, but turns down the case - until he receives a call from his old nemesis, Dale "The Whale" Biederbeck (Tim Curry), who is locked up in the same prison as the murdered Kaspo.