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Mr. Monk Is at Your Service is the twelfth episode of the fifth season of Monk.
Synopsis[]
When Natalie suspects foul play in the deaths of her parents' wealthy neighbors, Monk goes undercover as a butler to investigate.
Plot[]
In his palatial mansion, young billionaire Paul Buchanan is bullying someone on the other end of a phone call about the design for his new motor yacht. His butler, Edward Stilson, enters the parlor with his master's cocktail. When Buchanan hangs up, he confronts Stilson, whom he has now identified as the anonymous blackmailer to whom he has been sending money for the last several months. His last payment contained marked bills, which he subsequently found in Stilson's desk. Stilson begs his master's forgiveness, and promises that it will never happen again. Buchanan grabs a pistol and shoots him dead, and then burns the most recent blackmail note in the fireplace.
A week later, Adrian Monk goes to see Dr. Kroger with terrible news: the SFPD has announced a four-year hiring freeze. By the time it is lifted, Monk will be too old to be eligible for reinstatement. Dr. Kroger encourages him to be positive, and start thinking about applying his talents in a different direction.
Monk and Natalie have brunch with Natalie's parents. Peggy tries to fix Natale up with their neighbor Paul Buchanan, but Natalie is disgusted by Paul. Bobby and Peggy say she should sympathize with his family problems. Only last year, his father and stepmother died just ten minutes apart. Monk is intrigued by this, so Bobby uses the butter tray, the salt and pepper-shakers, and the pâté dish to illustrate. Ralph and Camilla Buchanan were driving home in an imported Morgan when they hit a sharp curve on Sweeney Road at about 80 mph. Camilla wasn't wearing a seatbelt, so she was thrown from the car, hit her head on a big rock, and died instantly. Ralph called 911 on his cell phone, and had a fatal heart attack during the call. Having driven past the Sweeney Road curve on their way there, Monk questions how Camilla could have hit the large rock if she was launched from the passenger seat, since the Morgan, being from England, would have the passenger seat on the left side rather than the right. Moreover, Natalie remembers from her childhood that Ralph was very strict about passengers in his car wearing their seat belts. Natalie seizes on Monk's discomfiture, and hits up her father for a down payment on Monk's fee - they are now officially on the case.
Monk and Natalie visit the crash site. Monk has second thoughts, realizing that Camilla could in fact have hit the rock after being thrown from the left side if the car flipped over during the crash. Natalie is convinced that Paul killed his parents. When she takes out her cell phone to call her parents, she gets no signal, and concludes Ralph could not have called for help from there.
Monk and Natalie drive up to the Buchanan estate. Monk is awed by the massive size of the house, and Natalie reveals why she has an axe to grind against Paul Buchanan - he stalked her for three years in high school, and she believes he beat up her boyfriend the week before her senior prom. Unable to face Paul, Natalie gives Monk a cell phone and tells him to investigate on his own. Monk goes to the garage to inspect the Morgan. One of the mechanics spots him and mistakes him for an expected job applicant. He shows Monk to the living room to wait.
Paul appears to interview Monk. Not having planned to go undercover, Monk has to improvise several lies. He claims to have lost his resume when Paul asks for one, and uses a phony name - "Adrian Melville" - gleaned from a copy of Moby Dick he notices in the room. Among his references, he brings up Natalie. Still entranced with Natalie, and impressed with how Monk cleaned up the living room while waiting, Paul gives Monk the job of butler.
Monk calls Natalie from his room and demands she pick him up. Natalie thinks it's great, and insists he use the new job to collect evidence. Monk thinks this too dangerous, but the call is cut short when Susie, assistant housekeeper, knocks on the door. Monk gives Susie his size for his uniform. She apologizes for the mess left behind by Stilson, who Paul says left after an argument about back pay. Monk is puzzled that all of Stilson's belongings are still present, but Susie points out that he can simply send for them after he cools down. Monk changes his mind about staying at the Buchanan mansion after Susie asks his opinion of the table plan for an upcoming family luncheon and he realizes that the seating arrangements need to be evened out.
That night, Monk obsessively rearranges the table settings until 2:30 AM. Mrs. Murphy, one of the household staff, is exasperated and points out that the luncheon isn't until Sunday. When Monk is repositioning people at the table, Mrs. Murphy tells him that he can't put Paul next to Monica and Clara, his stepsisters. Apparently, they were disinherited after Ralph and Camilla were killed.
At the police station, Captain Stottlemeyer and Lt. Disher are skeptical of Natalie's murder theory. Stottlemeyer plays a tape of Ralph Buchanan's 911 call, in which he says to the operator that his wife has been injured and her neck is broken, before gasping out that he is having chest pains. Moreover, the autopsies confirmed the causes of death. Monk likewise dismisses her suspicions. He announces that he has to get back to work, having found a new vocation that fits his talents. Stottlemeyer says that he is working on the issue of the hiring freeze, but Monk says he likes being a butler better than being a cop anyway.
Back at the estate, Buchanan is impressed by Monk's habits. Monk shows his new cleaning system, which he calls "the Monk way" of doing things. He explains that he was raised in a monastery where the monks were so demanding that they cleaned over 18 hours a day. Monk discovers a scrap of the blackmail note in the fireplace, but is so caught up in his new domestic duties that he fails to realize its significance. Natalie is invited to the luncheon but does not RSVP.
At the family luncheon, Paul is snubbed by Monica and Clara. Monica mentions that under the terms of their wills, the entire Buchanan fortune would have gone to Monica and Clara had Ralph died before Camilla. Natalie realizes there were no frog noises on the recording of the 911 call, even though the frogs were obnoxiously loud when she and Monk were at the scene. She calls Monk up, but he refuses to step away from the luncheon to answer the call. Natalie shows up at the luncheon, fending off Paul's advances by pretending to be pregnant with a pillow stuffed under her dress and alluding to her boyfriend being in anger management class. However, Monk finds her frog song evidence inconclusive and says he has not found anything to implicate Paul. She snoops around the garage, and takes the driver's log for the car Ralph was driving on the night of the accident, which shows that he actually returned to the house that night. Paul discovers the missing log and realizes that she's on to him. As Natalie tries to leave, he tells her that he and her parents are going on a hunting expedition, and threatens to kill her parents unless she comes along.
After Paul, Natalie, and Natalie's parents have departed, Monk knocks over a stack of Stilson's magazines and realizes that words have been cut out of some of the pages, including "police", in a reflection of how Monk has cut police work out of his life.
Monk rushes to the woods, where Paul takes Natalie on a separate path. He trains his shotgun on her and forces her to put on a vest, planning to make her death look like a hunting accident. He mentions that he dumped Stilson's body in a nearby well. Monk shows up with a shotgun he took from one of Paul's hunting buddies and fires a warning shot. Paul surrenders, and Natalie relieves him of his shotgun as Monk gives the summation:
Here's What Happened[]
Paul's father died of a heart attack, but only after he returned home. Paul found the body first, and realized that he would be disinherited unless his stepmother predeceased her husband, in which case it would all go to him. Paul put the body into the trunk of the car his father had been driving. Then he used a lie to lure his stepmother out of the house, likely a story about an accident, and drove her down to the curve on the road. He bludgeoned her with a rock, then staged the bodies to make it look like an accident. With no cell phone reception, Paul couldn't make the 911 call directly from the scene, so he had to walk over a mile up the road to get a signal. It was easy for Paul to impersonate his father because his voice was similar.
Though not mentioned, it is implied that Stilson had seen Ralph at home on the night of the murders, and this was the reason he was blackmailing Paul.
Stottlemeyer says he convinced the commissioner to grant Monk an exemption from the hiring freeze - after Stottlemeyer threatened to quit the force. As they leave the office, Monk tries to help Stottlemeyer with his coat, but Stottlemeyer tells him, "You're not my butler. You're a cop."
Background[]
- Relations between Natalie and her parents have apparently improved since she saved her brother's life at his wedding, in "Mr. Monk Goes to a Wedding."
- According to the list (which Natalie is required to carry around with her), Monk's fears include possums, soccer riots, frogs, and hailstones, in that order.
- Monk also says that he's scared of frogs, yet in "Mr. Monk Gets Hypnotized" he picks up a pet frog that he finds in Sally Larkin's yard and names it 'Hoppy'. Monk had undergone an attempted hypnosis treatment to suppress his quirks and various phobias, which backfired.
- Though it is not indicated why Monk discarded the option of "Adrian Dick" when looking at Moby Dick by Herman Melville, he may have thought this pseudonym could arouse suspicions of his true identity, since "dick" is a well-known slang term for detective.
- When one of the maids complains about Monk's obsessive attention to detail, Monk quotes the famous nursery rhyme, "For Want of a Nail...."
- The premise of Paul's scheme, that an inheritance turns on which of two people has died first, was similarly used in Dorothy L. Sayers's mystery novel The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club.
- However, under California law, it does not actually matter who died first if neither of them outlived the other for more than the "survivorship period", which is currently defined to be 120 hours and may have been even longer in a past with telecommunications technology less advanced than what we have today.
- Stottlemeyer makes reference to his threat to quit in "Mr. Monk's 100th Case," as well as to a "hole in the Commissioner's wall about the size of my fist."
- This episode marked the last appearance of Natalie's parents.
- Traylor Howard was pregnant with her son Sabu at the time of shooting the episode.
"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 |
---|---|---|---|---|
0:12 | What the hell are you doing? | Mechanic | Monk | Monk rearranging the mechanic's wrenches. |
0:42 | What are you doing? | Stottlemeyer | Monk | Monk holding Stottlemeyer's coat. "You're not a butler. You're a cop." |