TVSquad

(S05E08) This episode opens behind the scenes at a rock festival. A roadie is upset with a rock musician for stealing one of his songs and putting it on an album. Luckily (well, actually unluckily) for Stork, the roadie, he mailed the sheet music to himself so as to have proof that he wrote the song. The musician, Kris Kedder, knocks Stork unconscious with a beer bottle.

Back in Monkland, Monk and Natalie are trying to get Stottlemeyer to compensate them for a dry cleaning bill from a suit that was soiled while Monk was investigating another case. Stottlemeyer tells them Disher handles such things, but Disher is home sick. While they're arguing, Stottlemeyer gets a call that his son has skipped school to attend a rock concert.

Monk and Natalie discover Stork's body in a port-a-potty with a heroin needle in his arm. It appears to be an overdose, but Monk suspects more. Keeping a safe distance from the crowd of screaming, dirty young adults, he instructs the captain to investigate the port-a-potty closer, and it's discovered that the door was rigged to lock from the inside.

They question Kedder, who follows them to Stork's trailer and steals the envelope with the sheet music while they aren't looking. Monk, of course, being Monk, notices the envelope is missing, but before they can catch Kedder he burns the envelope on stage.

Meanwhile, Stottlemeyer finds his son, Jared, but it's not a happy reunion. His son is still bitter about the divorce, and it doesn't help that Stottlemeyer has no current picture of him. One has to suspend a lot of disbelief with a quirky show like Monk, and I have no problem with that, but I couldn't help but think that most fathers don't carry current photos of their children. I'm fairly certain my own father has only one picture of me in his wallet, and I'm pretty sure it's an ultrasound.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot: Disher is on the case, too. It seems he wasn't sick after all and simply skipped work to attend the concert. Stottlemeyer, standing directly behind Disher, calls him on his cell. Disher pretends to be sick until Stottlemeyer reveals himself.

Anyway, back to the investigation: the team are worried they have no evidence against Kedder, but Monk realizes a beach ball Kedder inflated while pretending to be Stork is filled with his mint-flavored asthma medicine, which could be used as evidence against him. That sounded like a bit of a stretch to me, but again, this is Monk, so I went with it. Of course, getting a beach ball from a bunch of rowdy concert goers isn't easy, so Monk gets on stage to tell them to hand over the beach ball because it contains evidence in a homicide investigation. The crowd boos Monk and refuses to hand over the ball, which I guess proves that hippies are all about peace and love, but are somehow rather complacent when it comes to murder.

Finally, Jared ends up with the ball, and despite Kedder's efforts to use his rock star status to convince Stottlemeyer's son to hand over the ball, Jared realizes he trusts his own father much more.