The protagonist, Adrian Monk, is a skilled detective who is no longer officially employed by the San Francisco Police Department. However, due to his intelligence and observation skills, he regularly consults with the department. A widower, he has few friends other than his full-time personal assistant, Natalie, and his colleagues in the service. He needs this assistant full time due to his mental state. In this particular episode, Monk is stricken with grief and anxiety but unable to deal with those emotions at all. He ends up impulsively buying a new house and moving there. It seems that since he has already lost his wife, the death of his beloved therapist has dealt him a particularly hard blow. Before moving into his old house, Monk becomes obsessed with the sound of a young neighbor's piano - or rather, with the idea of ​​stopping it. . His assistant, Natalie, can't even hear the music most of the time. Monk cannot sleep because he thinks he hears it during the night and calls the police several times in an attempt to make the "noise" stop. We're not sure at this point why it takes up so much of his time and bothers him so much. Perhaps to escape the music, and because he admits to being bored, Monk volunteers to help the department investigate a possible suspicious death. . He goes to the home of the older man who died to investigate his untimely death. (In fact, the viewer knows that the death was a homicide because we saw the nurse drag the man in his wheelchair up the stairs and push him down the stairs.) While there, Monk remains very distracted and impressed by the order and perfection of the old house. When he learns that the man's niece is trying to sell the house, he goes to paper... in cold blood so he can keep it all. This was the reason why the nurse killed the old man; she couldn't get him to tell her where she had hidden the money she stole and hid long ago, in 1968. Meanwhile, Monk and Natalie manage to drag themselves to the fireplace and Natalie lets out an SOS smoke signal in Morse code. The two cops Monk works with see the signal and manage to get in just in time. They save Monk and Natalie from being killed and arrest the handyman. Ultimately, Monk not only solves a case, but is able to begin solving some of his own problems. He may start working with a new therapist, which was very difficult for him, and he moves back to his old apartment. He is even able to open the window of his apartment and enjoy the music, which is Chopin, the same music that once played in his late therapist's waiting room..