The year is 1984. At a house party, Nikolai Samoilov kills a woman. The guests immediately call the police, but the killer manages to escape. Moscow investigator Maxim Kovalsky (Maxim Stoyanov) calculates his location: Samoilov is arrested, and the metropolitan operative proves that this is the same maniac they have been looking for for the last two years and who has seven victims on his account. 

The year is 1989. Samoilov is in a psychiatric hospital and is being examined at the Serbsky Institute in Moscow. The famous psychiatrist Bazhenov treats him with a unique method, sincerely believing that the maniac will heal. And even prepares him for discharge, despite the fact that other doctors are against it. During the next transfer from the institute to the psychiatric hospital, Samoilov manages to escape. Almost immediately, a brutal murder takes place in the Moscow region. Leonid Ipatiev, an investigator for particularly important cases, is involved in the case. Kovalsky and Ipatiev begin to work together and try to find out if their fugitive has returned to the murders or if a new maniac has appeared in the criminal arena.