| ||||||
| Season 8 (Monk) | ||||||
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 |
| 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 |
| 15 | 16 | |||||
| Season 7 | THE END | |||||
Mr. Monk Goes Camping is the twelfth episode of the eighth season of Monk.
Synopsis[]
To woo the lone holdout on the reinstatement committee, Monk accompanies Lt. Disher on a scouting trip with the man's troublesome son where nature isn't the only thing the troop has to fear.
Plot[]
Adrian Monk wakes up like any other day, but there's something special about it. Monk admires his police uniform and heeds the little notes his assistant Natalie Teeger left for him: to smile (but not too much), to be yourself (but not too yourself). Monk is about to be considered for reinstatement yet again. He arrives at his hearing 6 hours beforehand, and when the hearing panel finally arrives, two of them, Horrocks and Doering, appear to be on his side, thanking him for his service, solving cold cases, and complimenting his doctor, Neven Bell. However, there's one holdout, Frank Willis, who is unsure if Monk has the temperament or necessary judgment to carry a badge and gun.
Monk and Natalie head to a crime scene, where an armored car was robbed and the driver and guard were shot, the guard fatally. Monk notes weirdly cracked open nutshells, bullet casings from the rifles used, and that there would be fingerprints on the coins the robbers used to pump the meter and avoid attention, as the armored car was an hour behind schedule. Randy Disher shows up in full camping gear, announcing that he was going on a camping trip over the weekend with the "Buddies in Blue" program, which outreaches to kids. Disher says that Frank Willis' son is going on the trip, so Monk decides that's it a good opportunity to schmooze Willis to get him on his side for reinstatement.
On the day of the camping trip, Monk talks with Frank and meets his son, Brian. Frank is an absent-minded father, and is not very well-liked by Brian. Brian also rejects Monk's schmoozing attempts, dismissing them as too obvious and ineffectual.
Back in San Francisco, Leland Stottlemeyer is grilling a woman named Winona. One set of fingerprints found in the parking meter is that of her boyfriend, Luke Johnston, a criminal who Stottlemeyer has previously arrested for smash-and-grab robberies alongside his brother Del. However, she remains quiet and alerts her boyfriend to dump the evidence up by Spider Lake, the very same campsite which Randy, Monk, and the gang are at.
One of the campers finds shell casings around the area, and uses one to make a fishing line. The bank robbers meanwhile arrive as well and stalk the campers from nearby bushes. Randy packs up the camp for the night, placing their food above ground to avoid attracting bears. Under the stars, Randy and Monk have a chat, where Randy relates a story to Monk where he read a bumper stick after a fatal car crash, stating "Happiness is a choice", explaining how he takes all the jokes people make about him. While Monk is asleep outside up against a tree, the Johnston brothers enter the camp and dump their food around the campsite. Monk wakes up shortly after to see a bear in front of him, prompting him to scream like a little girl, alerting the camp as they run far away from the site. Brian makes fun of Monk for being scared and crying, while Monk also gets berated by the other kids for making the bear situation worse by screaming.
While the campers are lost and away from the camp, the robbers take to their site, with metal detectors looking for the bullet shells and digging the bullets out of trees. By their calculations, they are missing some shells. Del argues that if they can't find the missing shells, the police likely won't find them either. They take note of Randy's phone as they hear it ringing, seeing a picture with the kid's fishing line and one of the shell cases used that could incriminate them.
They track down the campers and see that Brian caught another fish, which is so big that they were forced to cut the line, meaning the shell casing is in its guts. The robbers try to pay for the fish, but Brian refuses to hand it over, it being the first fish he ever caught, and he hopes to give it to his father so he will be proud of him. As they try to negotiate, Del cracks open a nut shell, and Monk notices that it was the same way that the nutshells around the crime scene were opened. Monk realizes the shell case in the fish is material evidence, and tries to convince Brian to give him and Randy the fish. Brian again refuses and bolts, leaving Monk to go running after him to get the fish back, telling Randy to get the rest of the kids to the highway.
Brian explains that he won't give up the fish because he wants to give it to his father so he'll finally connect with him. As Monk and Brian fight over the fish encounter the bear again, but this time Monk stays calm. He slowly takes the fish from Brian, thinking the bear wants it, but not before retrieving the shell casing. When giving the bear the fish doesn't work, Monk instead tells it a story.
Here's What Happened[]
The police recovered some shell casings from the crime scene, and if they could match them was the casings found in the campsite, they'd have an airtight case. Luke and Del were target practicing up in Spider Lake, and someone spotted them, most likely a park ranger, so they couldn't deny the shells were theirs. They came back because they knew the shell casings would tie them to the crime scene. The bear walks away, leaving Brian pretty impressed.
As the robbers try to hunt Randy and the kids down, he manages to flank Luke, knocks him out cold with a large branch, take his rifle, and trains it on Del before he can react.
Monk and Brian are now friends, and Brian tells his dad all about Monk's heroism, bravery, and detective work. At the hearing, Frank changes his mind and commends Monk for his work in the field. However, the two officers who appeared to be on his side don't think Monk is quite as ready as they thought. In denial, Monk remains happy that Frank recommended him and wants to celebrate with Natalie, Randy, and Leland. Leland says to wait until after lunch to tell Monk the real news.
Background[]
- During the episode, one of the board members mentions a "raincoat strangler" case that Monk worked on.
- Luke tells Winona that he and Luke disposed of the rifles they used in the robbery. But in Monk's summation, the rifles that Luke and Del are using seem identical to the ones they use to try and kill Randy.
"What are you doing?"[]
In every episode of Monk and the Monk Movie, at least once, some variation of the question, "What are you doing?" is asked.
| Time | Quote | From | To | RE |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0:22 | What are you doing? | Disher | Norman | Norman playing a video game by the campfire. |
| 0:22 | What are they doing? | Del | Luke | Disher hoisting the food off the ground to avoid bears. |
| 0:27 | What do we do now? | Nicky | Disher | The group recovering from the bear attack. |