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Mr. Monk Goes to the Dentist is the 15th episode of the fourth season of the television series Monk.
Synopsis[]
Lieutenant Disher quits the force when no-one believes he witnessed a murder while under anesthesia at the dentist.
Plot[]
On a rainy night, a Marshall armored car makes its way down a deserted street, running ahead of schedule. The guard riding shotgun is engaged and he is talking about meeting a wedding planner the next day as they pull to a stop at a red light behind a semi truck.
Men emerge out from the sides of the semi, open the back doors, then train rifles and shotguns at the guards. The semi's hydraulic lift activates, lowering the container to the ground. A stolen garbage truck rear ends the armored car, and shoves it into the back of the semi's container. The drivers try to radio for help, but the robbers have jammed their signals. The armed men lock the back doors behind them. The light turns green, and the semi truck and garbage track drive off, carrying the armored car with them.
Three days later, the armored car is found abandoned in an empty warehouse, both guards shot dead. Lieutenant Disher notes to Captain Stottlemeyer that the guards put up a fight against the robbers and might have injured one of them. Stottlemeyer agrees, and requests that they check hospitals for recently admitted patients with gunshot or knife wounds. He notes that the robbers left most of the loose cash behind. Randy is interrupted by an excruciating toothache, which he tries to deny having. However, Stottlemeyer, upon noticing that Randy is starting to cry, realizes that he is trying to skip the dentist to prevent using up his sick days so he may use them for his own benefits. Annoyed, Stottlemeyer orders Randy to get an appointment and Randy reluctantly agrees, and Stottlemeyer stalks off to talk to Adrian Monk. Natalie notices Randy standing by the armored car and initially thinks that he's thinking about the fact that one of the dead drivers was engaged, but he admits to having a toothache.
Monk notices several interesting details about the scene that seem to suggest that the armored car was hijacked and carried to where it is now located: the back bumper is severely damaged (from when the garbage truck first rammed the vehicle while shoving it into the semi), the side mirrors have been pushed in, and there are tire tracks from an eighteen-wheeler on the floor. Asked how the drivers were forced out of the cab, Monk extracts a small piece of plastic tubing caught in the rear fender, and realizes that it fits a small hole drilled into the Plexiglas in the rear window, indicating that the guards were gassed out.
That night, Randy visits the office of Dr. Oliver Bloom and his assistant Terri. As they set Randy down in the chair, Dr. Bloom correctly guesses Randy's rank, and confides that he is on most cops' dental plans. He also admits that he keeps his office open on certain days of the week in the event of emergencies, and informs Randy that his number 3 molar has become infected. When it becomes clear that Randy is very sensitive, Dr. Bloom has to put him under anesthesia to remove the bad tooth.
While sedated, Randy has moments of semi-consciousness. During one glimpse, the door to the room flies open, startling Dr. Bloom and Terri. A bald-headed man storms in, and angrily demands to know what Dr. Bloom and Terri have done to Barry Bonds, pointing out that he's worth $13 million. Terri insists that they don't know any "Barry Bonds". When the intruder refuses to stand down, Dr. Bloom and Terri attack him. When Randy regains consciousness, Dr. Bloom and Terri are unharmed, there is no sign of the intruder, and Dr. Bloom denies there was any fight. He writes Randy a prescription for a pain medication and Terri hands him a sticker.
The next day, at the police station, a task force has been assembled to investigate the armored car heist. No semi trucks have been reported stolen. A detective, Patterson, hands Stottlemeyer an updated copy of the armored car's manifest, and notes that the robbers only took about $10 million in negotiable bank certificates. The police begin to scour the country to see if there are any fences that could handle such a large haul. Randy comes in, refreshed and better, and Stottlemeyer starts giving him tasks on the robbery. Randy interrupts and informs him about the murder he witnessed. Stottlemeyer and another detective, also named Patterson, try dismissing it as an effect of the anesthetics. Randy insists that it was real, and even gives a profile of the victim (male, bald head, about 190 pounds). He also mentions that he was under anesthesia for two hours, not 30 minutes as Dr. Bloom said it would take, enough time for Dr. Bloom to have gotten rid of the body. Stottlemeyer advises Randy to take the day off, and asks him to deliver a copy of the armored car case file to Monk's apartment.
Randy stops by Monk's apartment, and offers to hire him for free to look into his case. Monk is unwilling to investigate this extra murder, because he has odontophobia (fear of dentists), but with some pressuring from Natalie, he reluctantly accepts. The three return to the office, but because of his pathological fear, Monk is unable to stand up from his chair. Randy uses the pretense of looking for his cell phone to get Terri to allow him and Natalie into the room where he had his appointment. They look around, and find no evidence of a murder, not even traces of blood or anything to suggest a fight. Randy notices that Dr. Bloom recently ordered some equipment, indicating that some components were damaged recently. As Randy and Natalie try to pry to Monk out of his chair, Dr. Bloom comes by and notices them. He happens to read some of the pages from the file on the armored car heist when they drop it. Randy also tries mentioning Barry Bonds to see how Dr. Bloom reacts.
Before they can get a further look around, they get called to a crime scene in the woods, where a dead body has been discovered by fishermen, stripped naked. Monk looks around, wondering why they have been brought down. Stottlemeyer notes that they found some Plexiglas in the dead man's pants cuff, indicating that during the robbery, he had gassed the guards out of the truck. They turn the body over, and Randy recognizes the victim as the man that Dr. Bloom killed. After being laughed at by Stottlemeyer and the other officers, he quits in anger, turning his badge and handcuffs over.
The dead man is identified as Denny Jardeen, an ex-cop from the Mission District, charged multiple times with excessive force and conduct unbecoming, who took an early retirement a few years ago. Monk is now flossing and gargling to the point of annoying Stottlemeyer, who tells him to cut it out. While they're talking, Stottlemeyer hands Natalie a file, which he claims is nothing, but Natalie points out that he's doing a background check on Dr. Bloom, making clear that deep down he believes there's a possibility Randy was right.
Later, Stottlemeyer later talks to Randy, who has brought his old high school rock band, the Randy Disher Project, back together and is rehearsing with them. The band plays their new song "I Don't Need a Badge", which lashes out at Stottlemeyer's dismissive attitude towards him. Stottlemeyer notes that Dr. Bloom is 100% clean, with no previous arrests of any kind, and mentions that they have found that Jardeen had a cousin who has served time in prison and now works with a trucking company. Randy refuses to rejoin the force, and Stottlemeyer leaves.
At Dr. Bloom's office, Dr. Bloom and Terri wonder how close the police are to catching them, and decide to torture Monk for information. Dr. Bloom instructs Terri to put some chloroform into a handkerchief, and make sure he inhales it. Terri is skeptical, wondering if they need more chloroform than what Dr. Bloom wants her to administer.
Stottlemeyer and Patterson interrogate Denny Jardeen's cousin Neal Graham, whose fingerprints have been found all over the warehouse and armored car. Neal claims he didn't kill the guards, saying that Jardeen went ballistic and shot them when they fought back, and he has stored the money in a tool shed at his house. But Stottlemeyer mentions that not only is Jardeen dead, but they also have searched the toolshed, and someone has stolen the money. At Monk's house, Terri shows up with a chloroform soaked rag. She knocks Monk out with the chemical, and kidnaps him to Bloom's office.
Natalie goes to the police station where Stottlemeyer, distraught at the situation he has caused with Randy, is working late. Stottlemeyer does not know where Monk is. Monk, across town, awakens strapped into Dr. Bloom's chair. When he notices that the giant tooth in the corner of the room matches the pattern of the bruises found on Jardeen's body, he solves the case.
Here's What Happened[]
During the hijacking, the two guards put up a fight with their attackers. During the fight, the driver managed to punch Jardeen in the face before Jardeen shot him dead. The hit knocked one of Jardeen's teeth loose. As an ex-cop, Jardeen went to Dr. Bloom, his own dentist, to get his tooth fixed. While he was anesthetized, Jardeen divulged details on the armored car heist and even where he was hiding the bonds - Monk remembers Dr. Bloom mentioning that a lot of his patients sleep-talk during their operations.
Instead of reporting Jardeen or the location of the money to the police, Dr. Bloom and Terri went to Jardeen's house, and took the money for themselves. They figured that Jardeen would never remember disclosing the location to them. However, Jardeen figured it out when the money went missing. A few nights later, Jardeen broke into the office while Dr. Bloom and Terri were working on Randy and confronted them about the bonds. Dr. Bloom and Terri denied it, but when he became insistent, they attacked him. During the fight, Jardeen pinned Dr. Bloom down to the floor, and Terri brought down the tooth on top of him, fatally bruising him around the chest. Then they disposed of the body.
Monk is still strapped down to the chair and can't do much with his theory. Dr. Bloom intends to torture Monk until he reveals the police's knowledge about the missing bonds. They would like to sell these bonds to a buyer in Chicago known only as Mr. Cronan whom they are afraid of approaching because they don't know if the police have him under surveillance.
At their hangout, Randy's group is having a hard time figuring out what the name of their band should be. One of them decides to open a newspaper and name their band based on the first word his finger lands on, and the word happens to be "Baghdad" since he opens a newspaper to a page with an article about the War in Iraq. Randy takes a look at the newspaper, in which there is an article about the armored car heist, which mentions that $13 million in bearer bonds were stolen. He remembers that when Dr. Bloom and Jardeen were arguing, Jardeen said that "Barry Bonds" was worth "$13 million". Randy realizes that Jardeen was actually under the impression that Dr. Bloom had stolen the bearer bonds acquired in the robbery. He calls Natalie and Stottlemeyer and asks them to meet him at Dr. Bloom's office.
By convincing Dr. Bloom to wash his hands, Monk is able to stall him until Stottlemeyer, Disher and Natalie show up to arrest them.
His band once again dissolved, Randy rejoins the force, and Monk concludes that his "super-mega-phobia of dentists" is one that is very well-founded. After they watch a music video on "I Don't Need a Badge," Randy admits that the band also broke up because they couldn't agree on anything. It soon becomes clear that one of Monk's teeth might have come loose when Dr. Bloom was torturing him, as he is complaining about a loose tooth. Now he has a different reason to fear dentists.
References to other works[]
Bloom's line of questioning to Monk - asking whether the buyer for their bonds is under surveillance - is a direct tribute to the film Marathon Man, when Nazi war criminal Christian Szell (Laurence Olivier) asks Babe (Dustin Hoffman) whether it is "safe" for Szell to go to the bank to retrieve a cache of diamonds from a safe deposit box, or whether the bank is under surveillance. Since Babe does not know what Szell is talking about, Szell tortures Babe by drilling holes into the nerve endings of his teeth.
Bloom and Terri ask Monk if he's ever seen Marathon Man; when Monk desperately tries to put off his own torturing by begging to watch it first, Bloom responds that he'll be "living it".
Background[]
- On the Monk Cast Favorites Marathon, this episode was listed as one of Jason Gray-Stanford’s favorites.
- Stottlemeyer's deduction of the reason behind Randy Disher's reluctance to go to the dentist for an obvious toothache is proven to be sound in "Mr. Monk Goes to a Rock Concert", when he catches Randy faking an illness to attend the San Francisco Band Jam.
- Photographic analysis shows that the warehouse where the armored car turns up is the same building that represents Lester Highsmith's workplace in "Mr. Monk Takes His Medicine".
- The pinball machine in the band's garage, Fireball Classic, is not actually being played. The chimes are ringing as if a pinball was being hit, but the flashing lights on the backboard are what displays when there are no credits in the machine.
- Oliver Bloom is played by Jon Favreau two years before he broke into the Disney-owned Marvel universe in the first Iron Man.
- Barry Bonds is a real baseball player who played in the MLB from 1986 to 2007, most notably for the San Francisco Giants for the majority of his career. In 2001, Bonds broke the single season home run record by hitting 73, a record that some dispute due to Bonds' use of PEDs. Whether or not Bonds is actually as good as he is in universe is unclear as in S2E2 Mr. Monk Goes to the Ballgame, Darryl Grant is the fictional holder of this record; Scott Gregorio tying it for the fictional San Francisco Saints who share a color scheme with the Oakland Athletics.
- During the time of the episode (2005), Barry Bonds was still in his 5-year, $90 million contract ($18 million per year) with the Giants, a far cry from the $13 million that Randy hears he's supposedly worth (which could've been a clue that he misheard); in 2007, his final year in the MLB, he signed a single year contract for nearly $16 million.
"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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0:00 | What the hell are they doing? | Guard 1 | Guard 2 | Robbers hijacking armored truck. |
| 0:08 | What are you doing here? | Dr. Bloom | Jardeen | Jardeen barging in during Disher's tooth extraction. |
| 0:21 | What's he doing? | Stottlemeyer | Natalie | Monk flossing. |