Those are as few words as I can sum this episode up in.
We start the episode by watching as sports agent Rob Sherman kills his wife and makes it look like she was killed by Dewey Jordan, a career criminal who has had several arrests for bad checks, drugs, and burglaries. Adrian Monk is soon on the investigation, and quickly pokes holes in the cover story that Sherman tells the police. Meanwhile, Natalie's daughter Julie is having a troubled love life, and these troubles are tied with the murder case - at least, we know that when we see Julie's new boyfriend contact Sherman's girlfriend.
Cons: 1. The murder could have probably been a lot more clever, and result in Monk having to do a lot more digging to find the holes in Sherman's story.
2. I'm pretty sure that Stottlemeyer and Disher could have been given some more scenes.
Pros: 1. The scene where Monk talks to Julie about her love life and how her dreams don't have to come true overnight is a very powerful, and very touching scene, representing true character development. I actually developed some tears watching this scene as he talks about what it was like to fall in love with Trudy every day.
2. There is an awful lot of good humor in the episode. Some of these moments were so funny that I couldn't resist bursting into laughter:
1. Dewey Jordan notices Sherman conjure a gun. Sherman says that it's Dewey's gun. He pulls out another one, which he says is his. This one, he says, is the one he's going to use to kill the intruder - just as Dewey realizes what Sherman means by "intruder", Sherman shoots and kills him.
2. Monk tries to explain some logic about why Sherman's lockbox is closed to Disher, noting that if he heard his wife screaming, he'd not close the box - Disher says he's not married.
3. Monk and Natalie are at the morgue, trying to intercept Sherman. Monk starts to reorganize the urns on the table, and soon there is a small cat fight as they each try to re-match the urns up with their name tags, and one of them falls over. They scramble to put the ashes back into the urns, and Monk actually tries to even one of them out by pouring some ashes into another urn! Natalie says "Those are people, maybe they weren't the same size." Monk replies, "Well they are now." Purely funny! Reminds me of one of the 'Monk' webisodes where Monk altered a blood test so that both a husband and a wife were declared pregnant.
4. During his "talk" with Julie about love, Monk tries to get Julie to play along as Natalie is outside listening through the door.
5. Disher shows Stottlemeyer a security tape that proves that Sherman and Dewey Jordan did meet at the courthouse. Stottlemeyer can't see anything, and Randy starts marking on the TV with a marker. Stottlemeyer points out that he just circled two blurs who are for blurs very blurry, claiming that it could be Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers (both of whom are dead). He then asks Randy if he just used a permanent marker, and Randy denies it until Stottlemeyer tries to wipe the marks off the screen without success. He says to Randy that he's obviously "worse than Monk."
6. Monk attempts to cross a moving bumper car floor while chasing Sherman through an amusement park. It's funny, even though in reality, I don't think they would start the ride until people had cleared the ride area.
7. As Stottlemeyer and Disher admire the incriminating photograph of Sherman, Disher says he put the photo on a mug as well. When asked why, he says "Well, I figure the jury might appreciate it. They're human, they get thirsty. 'Exhibit A. Thank you very much.'" (pretends to take a sip) "Mmmmm, *guilty*."
We start the episode by watching as sports agent Rob Sherman kills his wife and makes it look like she was killed by Dewey Jordan, a career criminal who has had several arrests for bad checks, drugs, and burglaries. Adrian Monk is soon on the investigation, and quickly pokes holes in the cover story that Sherman tells the police. Meanwhile, Natalie's daughter Julie is having a troubled love life, and these troubles are tied with the murder case - at least, we know that when we see Julie's new boyfriend contact Sherman's girlfriend.
Cons: 1. The murder could have probably been a lot more clever, and result in Monk having to do a lot more digging to find the holes in Sherman's story.
2. I'm pretty sure that Stottlemeyer and Disher could have been given some more scenes.
Pros: 1. The scene where Monk talks to Julie about her love life and how her dreams don't have to come true overnight is a very powerful, and very touching scene, representing true character development. I actually developed some tears watching this scene as he talks about what it was like to fall in love with Trudy every day.
2. There is an awful lot of good humor in the episode. Some of these moments were so funny that I couldn't resist bursting into laughter:
1. Dewey Jordan notices Sherman conjure a gun. Sherman says that it's Dewey's gun. He pulls out another one, which he says is his. This one, he says, is the one he's going to use to kill the intruder - just as Dewey realizes what Sherman means by "intruder", Sherman shoots and kills him.
2. Monk tries to explain some logic about why Sherman's lockbox is closed to Disher, noting that if he heard his wife screaming, he'd not close the box - Disher says he's not married.
3. Monk and Natalie are at the morgue, trying to intercept Sherman. Monk starts to reorganize the urns on the table, and soon there is a small cat fight as they each try to re-match the urns up with their name tags, and one of them falls over. They scramble to put the ashes back into the urns, and Monk actually tries to even one of them out by pouring some ashes into another urn! Natalie says "Those are people, maybe they weren't the same size." Monk replies, "Well they are now." Purely funny! Reminds me of one of the 'Monk' webisodes where Monk altered a blood test so that both a husband and a wife were declared pregnant.
4. During his "talk" with Julie about love, Monk tries to get Julie to play along as Natalie is outside listening through the door.
5. Disher shows Stottlemeyer a security tape that proves that Sherman and Dewey Jordan did meet at the courthouse. Stottlemeyer can't see anything, and Randy starts marking on the TV with a marker. Stottlemeyer points out that he just circled two blurs who are for blurs very blurry, claiming that it could be Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers (both of whom are dead). He then asks Randy if he just used a permanent marker, and Randy denies it until Stottlemeyer tries to wipe the marks off the screen without success. He says to Randy that he's obviously "worse than Monk."
6. Monk attempts to cross a moving bumper car floor while chasing Sherman through an amusement park. It's funny, even though in reality, I don't think they would start the ride until people had cleared the ride area.
7. As Stottlemeyer and Disher admire the incriminating photograph of Sherman, Disher says he put the photo on a mug as well. When asked why, he says "Well, I figure the jury might appreciate it. They're human, they get thirsty. 'Exhibit A. Thank you very much.'" (pretends to take a sip) "Mmmmm, *guilty*."