Navy Lieutenant Steven Albright (Casper Van Dien) shows up at Natalie's place unexpectedly. Albright knew Natalie and her late husband Mitch from years back and unsuccessfully pursued a relationship with her before she got together with Mitch.
Albright clearly still has feelings for Natalie, but his main reason for the visit is to consult with Mr. Monk. Albright is the chief medical officer of the submarine USS Seattle, whose Number Two, Lt. Commander Jason Pierce (David Jansen, uncredited), recently died while on board the ship.
The details obviously scream suicide. Pierce was absent from the bridge during a drill, and Albright went to Pierce's cabin with the ship's captain, Commander Nathan Whitaker (William Atherton), and found it locked. While trying to get in, they heard a gunshot, and after kicking open the door found Pierce dead on the floor with an empty vodka bottle and a gun, and with the keys to the room in his pocket.
But Albright has multiple reasons for doubting that Pierce took his own life, no matter how clear-cut it seems. Monk is reluctant to even go on board a submarine because of all the tight spaces. And it gets much worse when the sub leaves port suddenly for fleet exercises and Monk and Natalie are stuck on board.
The captain clearly doesn't like the presence of civilians on board but can't do anything about it for the time being. Monk investigates as best he can while being ordered to stay out of the way and while hallucinating that Dr. Bell (Héctor Elizondo) is with him on board.
Monk learns that on a previous voyage, the Seattle brushed against an underwater ridge with Whitaker and Pierce on the bridge, an incident attributed to an outdated navigation chart and that caused little damage to the ship but resulted in a crewman being critically injured.
Monk further discovers that this crewman finally succumbed to his injuries on the same day that Pierce died, and then finds an updated navigation chart. But instead of being used, the chart is hidden in the captain's possession. Monk theorizes that Whitaker and Pierce swapped out the outdated chart to avoid a court martial.
Upon finding a couple of details of the crime scene that link to Whitaker, he figures that Pierce had a change of heart about the cover-up once he learned that the injured crewman had died, and that Whitaker had killed Pierce to avoid being found out.
When Monk confronts Whitaker, the captain is apparently unperturbed, as everyone on the ship trusts him and follows his orders unquestioningly, and Monk is just a clumsy civilian who nobody (except Albright) knows.
Though Whitaker is actually worried enough to lure Monk and Natalie into a ballast tank with a fake note written as if it's from Albright, and then order a crash dive to fill the tanks with water, almost drowning Monk and Natalie. But when Albright finds the discarded note, he saves their lives and confronts the captain.
The situation is enough to make the crew suspicious — and then Monk, now dressed in a clean and dry enlisted man's uniform, explains what happened. Whitaker forced Pierce to drink the vodka at gunpoint, shot him with a silenced handgun, then placed the gun in Pierce's hand and stole Pierce's keys.
Whitaker then attached a firecracker to a lit cigarette, hid those behind a vent, and went to the bridge to order the drill, so that when he and Albright ran to Pierce's cabin, the "gunshot" sound from within the room was actually the firecracker going off.
Then when he rushed to the body, he put the keys back in Pierce's pocket to complete the illusion of a room locked from within. When the remains of the firecracker are discovered in the vent along with Whitaker's fingerprints, he backs down, and Albright relieves Whitaker from command of the ship.
Back on dry land, Monk meets with Dr. Bell, confused that Bell doesn't remember anything from on board the sub, and Steven asks Natalie on a date. She accepts.
Tropes
- Artistic License – Military:
- ASW is not "Attack Submarine Warfare", it's "Anti-Submarine Warfare".
- Ballast tanks are not accessible from the rest of the vessel. Likely to prevent this exact thing from happening.
- Submariners refer to their vessels as "boats", not "ships", and it's very much Insistent Terminology.
- The USS Seattle is supposed to be an SSBN, which are named after states, not cities. The name "Seattle" for a submarine would be for a boat like the USS Los Angeles, SSN-688. Though this could perhaps be to ensure that the boat is fictional (the name USS Seattle has been used for ships, not submarines).
- Even without a XO, the CMO would not ascend to second in command, and so Whitaker stepping down and allowing himself to be arrested would not have put Albright in command.
- In addition, the sub wouldn't have left port on a new mission without a new XO in the first place, and a surprise announcement of fleet exercises would still mean more than 30 seconds before leaving port. Certainly, there'd be time to debark two civilians whose unwilling detention on board could easily be construed as kidnapping.
- Variously averted and played straight with regards to how Whitaker is addressed. Whitaker is captain of the Seattle, and his rank is Commander. In the US Navy, "Captain" means two things, being both a rank (Captain is one step above Commander and one step below the lowest grade of Admiral) and a job description that means you are first in command of a vessel. The captain of a particular vessel is always addressed as "captain" while on board it, regardless of rank. In this episode Whitaker is variously addressed as both "captain" and "commander".
- A naval officer not wearing a hat would not normally salute a civilian wearing an enlisted uniform. However, given the circumstances, that Whitaker is going to be arrested for murder, Whitaker inappropriately saluting Monk is the least of his problems.
- The Atoner: Jason Pierce was willing to come clean about what caused the crash that killed Jonesy. Commander Whitaker, not so much.
- Blasphemous Boast: Whitaker tells Monk that he is more than just in charge, he is God of the Seattle, and goes on to refer to himself as Jehovah.
- Closed Circle: When you're in a submarine under the ocean... well, it's hard to get more isolated then that.
- Drowning Pit: Captain Whitaker tricks Monk and Natalie into the sub's ballast room to get rid of them both.
- Epic Fail: Monk really believes the fact that the USS Seattle managed to hit a mountain underwater to be a failure he just can't get over.
- Forged Message: Monk and Natalie receive a note, apparently from Steven, telling them to meet him in a room. That room turns out to be the ballast, where the two are nearly drowned. Take a wild guess who really wrote that note.
- Graceful Loser: Whitaker salutes Monk after he is exposed as the murderer.
- Helpful Hallucination: Monk imagines that his new therapist, Dr. Neven Bell, is on the ship with him. It helps keep him (otherwise) sane while dealing with his claustrophobia and seasickness.
- He Knows Too Much: Whitaker killed Pierce to cover up his failure.
- Hollywood Silencer: Whitaker shot Pierce with a pistol longways through an empty soda bottle. This would be highly ineffective at reducing sound sufficiently for the shot to go undetected by anyone else in the crew, especially in the small passageways and close quarters of a submarine. In addition, Whitaker firing a gun in such a small enclosed cabin would have seriously damaged his own hearing and caused himself considerable pain.
- I Resemble That Remark!: Monk responds to Whitaker's claim he's delusional...by having Dr. Bell, who he's hallucinating is with him, vouch for him.Monk: Does that sound delusional to you?
- Irony: When Whitaker shares his God of the Seattle complex with Monk, the latter calls him out as crazy. This coming from the guy who is hallucinating Dr. Bell is on the submarine with him. You know something is wrong with you when somebody hallucinating is calling you crazy.
- Locked Room Mystery: Jason Pierce is found dead in his cabin with a gun in his hand after a bang is heard coming from his room with the locked door being broken down. On top of that, his room key is found in his pocket. It turns out Captain Whitaker shot Pierce with a makeshift silencer from a soda bottle, set up a firecracker at the end of a cigarette, locked the door, and headed to the room with witnesses in time for the firework to go off. Once the door was broken down, Whitaker put the key in Pierce's pocket while checking his pulse.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Jason was willing to help Whitaker cover up hitting an undersea mountain by switching out the navigation charts. But when a crewman dies of the injuries he sustained in that crash, Jason decides to reveal what happened.
- Never Suicide: Jason Pierce appears to have killed himself. Knowing Monk, he didn't.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: The crewman who was killed in the crash that set off this murder is only referred to as "Jonesy".
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Why Lt. Albright doesn't believe Pierce got drunk and shot himself. First of all, he was a devout Roman Catholic and would probably have rejected suicide. Also, despite being a recovering alcoholic, he had been sober for months and was very open about his past struggles and so it's unlikely he would have relapsed without anyone knowing. Neither proves anything, but it's enough for Albright to get Monk involved.
- Shout-Out: Monk isn't the only crime show that had a murderer fake a gunshot going off with a firework.
- Sure, Let's Go with That: When Monk finally leaves the sub and finds the real Dr. Bell waiting for him, the latter goes along with Monk's delusion that he was present the whole time on the sub.
