Mr. Monk and the End (Part Two)

Season 8 (Monk)
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8	9	10	11	12	13	14
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Season 7				THE END

Mr. Monk and the End (Part Two)
Season	8
Season	8
Episode	16
Episode	16
Overall	125
Overall	125
Information
Name	Mr. Monk and the End (Part Two)
Release Date	December 4, 2009
Credits
Written by	Andy Breckman
Directed by	Randall Zisk
Episode Guide
Previous Episode	Mr. Monk and the End (Part One)
Previous Episode	Mr. Monk and the End (Part One)
Next Episode	Series completed
Next Episode	Series completed

Mr. Monk and the End, Part 2 is the sixteenth episode of the eighth season of Monk. It is also the second part of the two-part series finale and the last Monk episode ever made.

Synopsis

Having been lethally poisoned, Mr. Monk is in a race against time to solve case involving his wife, Trudy.

Plot

In the video, Trudy confesses that she was far from the perfect person that Adrian had always believed she was. In college, before they met, she had an adulterous affair with her law studies professor - Ethan Rickover - that resulted in her becoming pregnant. She confesses that she was a fool (not knowing that he was married at the time), and she did not love Rickover, but she did love being pregnant, and she was heartbroken when the child, a baby girl, had died shortly after she was born.

The reason Trudy is making the tape, she explains, is that now Wendy Stroud -- the midwife who attended the birth -- has disappeared, and Rickover, whom she had neither seen nor spoken to in more than ten years, has called her, out of the blue, and asked her to meet him in a parking garage, but she was worried because something about the tone in his voice did not feel right.

Watching the video is perhaps the hardest thing Monk has ever done in his life, but never more so than when Trudy finishes by saying that, if anything happens to her, she wants him to know that "you are not just the love of my life. You are my life."

Finally, after twelve years, Monk knows what happened: Rickover, afraid that she would reveal their affair, had lured Trudy to the garage to kill her at the same time as he was hoping to be appointed to the Court of Appeals. Enraged at the fact that he had the answer as to who had murdered Trudy for twelve years but had never accessed it from fear of damaging Trudy's memory, Monk becomes more than determined to hunt Rickover down and bring him in for his crime. The problem is, there is no proof.

Determined to find proof, Monk and Natalie drive to Sacramento to confront Rickover during his confirmation hearings in the state legislature. When confronted alone, Rickover denies any knowledge of what Monk is talking about, and says the poisoning must be affecting his judgment. Monk can barely control himself, but loses all restraint when Rickover desecrates Trudy's memory: at first he claims not to remember a "Trudy Ellison" among the thousands of students he taught at Berkeley, and when accused of seducing her, he breezily said that many of his female students became infatuated, even obsessed with him, and casually claims that mental instability is one thing the Monks had in common. As he turns his back to leave, Monk snaps and lunges at Rickover, before he is dragged out by security guards.

At the hospital, Monk's condition has oddly improved (though temporarily) thanks to his intense malice towards Rickover for not only being the murder, but also dragging Trudy's name through the mud. Stottlemeyer comes to see him, telling him that he is technically under arrest for assaulting a judge. But Stottlemeyer also confides that Natalie filled him in, and, having found calls made between Rickover and a burner phone Nash purchased, that he will never rest until evidence is found to expose Rickover. Monk believes that Rickover has covered his tracks too well, and will get away. Monk makes his oldest friend promise to kill Rickover; Stottlemeyer does, but Monk can tell right away that he is lying, as the best Leland can do is try getting the death penalty if Rickover is convicted.

At Monk's apartment, Natalie and Steven are morosely packing up his gear. But when Natalie uses one of Monk's wipes, she suddenly feels faint and starts seeing spots. Then she realizes a crucial detail: when they confronted Rickover at the Capitol, Monk had dropped a wipe, and Rickover picked it up for him - but he had used his pen, meaning that he had known better than to touch it with his fingers. Kazarinski had added the poison to the wipes in Monk's cart, not any of the food like they had previously thought.

At the hospital, Monk pores obsessively over the newspaper clippings about Rickover's recent elevation to the Supreme Court. When a nurse comes in to take a blood sample, she notices the clippings and mentions she has been following the story. Monk says the man is an adulterer, but the nurse says that should not be a big deal, as adultery is no longer really such a shocking offense. Monk realizes that she is right, and that Rickover must have had some stronger motive for killing Trudy.

Having found the source, the hospital is now able to synthesize a cure for the poison that can be given to both Natalie and Monk. Stottlemeyer is ecstatic to hear the news, but then Disher gives him the bad news: Monk has drugged his police guard and stolen his pistol. Guessing where Monk has gone, Stottlemeyer and Disher immediately rush towards Disher's car, and drive as fast as they can to get there. But unfortunately, they have to drive incredibly recklessly to get through the torrential thunderstorm that is pouring down, since Randy evidently sold his portable siren in a yard sale earlier. After crashing through various things, they eventually get stopped by a delivery truck. Stottlemeyer is forced to fire his gun in the air to get the driver to move the truck.

In the backyard of his home, in the driving thunderstorm, Rickover comes outside, dressed for the rain, and freezes when he sees Monk there, pointing a pistol at him. Monk throws him a shovel from his garden shed, and orders him to dig. Stottlemeyer and Disher find the two men there, as well as two cops that presumably were summoned by Rickover. Monk refuses to lower his gun until Rickover is finished, stating that, when Monk and his colleagues visited Rickover a few days earlier, they had overheard his wife saying that he would never move away from their home in San Francisco, even if it meant commuting to Sacramento. Monk also noticed that a heavy sundial in the backyard was placed right in the shade of a large tree - a spot that made no sense. Stottlemeyer and Disher finally convince Monk to lower his gun, and Disher takes over the digging from Rickover. He only goes a few more inches down when he finds what Monk expected: a skeleton.

Here's What Happened

Twelve years ago, in 1997, Wendy Stroud (the midwife whose disappearance Monk and Leland were investigating when they heard about Trudy's murder) found religion and told Rickover that she would no longer hide the truth: that she had assisted at the birth of his and Trudy's illegitimate child. When Wendy told him she planned to go to the press, he killed her and buried her corpse in his yard, marking her grave with the sundial; it also explains Rickover's refusal to move: he couldn't risk any new owners discovering the remains. Then, realizing that the only person who could connect him with Wendy's disappearance, Trudy, was now married to Monk, a cop, and that she would likely go straight to him if she remembered that Stroud was their midwife, he lured her to the parking garage and had hired hand Frank Nunn blow her up in her car with a bomb built by Warwick Tennyson. Twelve years later, when Dr. Nash was transferring the clinic's old paper records to computer files, he must have come across some reference to the child, and confronted Rickover in secret in an attempt to blackmail him. Rickover panicked, and subsequently hired Kazarinski to kill Dr. Nash, before then having him poison Monk after learning of his involvement in the case, knowing full well that the detective would likely uncover the connection between him, Trudy and Nash's murders, and Wendy's disappearance, and that if he did, then he (Monk) would never stop pursuing him (Rickover).

Trapped, Rickover confesses. Monk raises his gun again, beside himself with hatred. Stottlemeyer and Disher try to calm him as he bellows at Rickover that he "killed three innocent people over the course of twelve years" simply to maintain his job. A sudden coughing fit overcomes Monk, and he drops his gun onto the sundial. Rickover snatches it up. Stottlemeyer and Disher raise their own guns, anticipating a shootout - but instead, Rickover shouts, "You take care of her!" With that, he shoots himself and dies, finally ending the saga of Trudy's death.

It is all over. Monk and Natalie are both given the cure, and they recover from the poison. A few days later, Monk has his next session with Dr. Bell, and confesses that, somehow, he is still unhappy. Dr. Bell says that this is only to be expected: for twelve years, the need to find Trudy's killer has driven him, and now that that is finished, Monk is naturally unsure of what to do next. He advises Monk not to force things, but to take some well-earned rest and see what happens next.

Finally, Monk puts the lid on his file box with Trudy's case in it, and Natalie writes "CASE CLOSED" on the side with satisfaction. While he is gathering up the evidence from the related homicide of Wendy Stroud, he finds an obituary that was printed after her presumed death, and reads that, on the same day that Trudy's child allegedly died, Stroud delivered a baby girl to an orphanage for adoption. Stunned, Monk realizes the meaning of Rickover's last words: though Trudy never knew it, her daughter is still alive.

With Stottlemeyer's help, Monk tracks down the girl, whose name proves to be Molly Evans; she is now 26 years old and working as a movie reviewer. When told about her past, she becomes eager to meet Monk, and a bond of devotion instantly forms between them. She wants to hear everything he remembers about Trudy, and he is only too happy to share it with her.

Monk and Molly are walking on the beach and Monk is taking pictures of Molly. Now feeling he has everything he needs, Adrian tells Molly that he wants to retire from detective work and devote the rest of his life to "watching her grow up." Laughing, Molly tells him she is already mostly grown-up, but then she becomes serious and tells him that he has a gift, and that she thinks he should continue to use it "to help the other Trudys out there." She then asks what her mother was like. Monk smiles and tells her all about Trudy.

Throughout the episodes, there have been hints that Randy has been hiding something: plane tickets to Newark (New Jersey), whispered phone conversations with someone that end in "I love you" and furtive signs that he is planning to leave San Francisco. When Disher is finally confronted, he admits that he has accepted a job as Chief of Police in Summit (west of Newark), and that he and Sharona are moving in together. Delighted, everyone wishes him the greatest success, especially Stottlemeyer, who assures him that he has been preparing him for this responsibility for years.

At Monk's apartment, Natalie is stunned to see her boss taking on the habits of a normal person: He is sleeping in the center of the bed; he has exchanged his usual collared shirt and buttoned-up blazer for a more casual look comprising a dark long-sleeved T-shirt and an open sports jacket; and, most amazingly, he and Molly have a date to go to the movies that evening. For Natalie, it is quite an emotional moment, seeing him starting to rejoin the ranks of normal, happy people (there are limits, though: they will be going to Theater Number Ten, regardless of what is playing in it, something Natalie claims is proof that he still remains the Adrian Monk she knows). Then Stottlemeyer calls, wanting Monk's help with a new case. Before they head out of the apartment, Monk stops and doubles back to the kitchen to make extra-sure that the stove has not accidentally been left on.

The episode ends with a montage of several funny scenes from past episodes, and then dissolves to a montage of the present:

• Stottlemeyer gets ready for work, exchanging a fond kiss with his wife, before heading out. On his way, he notices a pillow embroidered "Leland + Trudy" on the couch, and reflects that he has stepped into his friend's shoes in having found the love of his life.
• Randy, in full police uniform, carries a box of his stuff into his new office in New Jersey and places it on his new desk, on which a photo of Sharona Fleming already has pride of place.
• A noticeably relaxed Monk (still dressed in his casual outfit) and Natalie meet Stottlemeyer at a crime scene, and they head in together. This is the final time Adrian Monk is ever seen on screen.

Background

• Trudy's remark that she plans to replace the tape with a digital watch is ironic, given that Adrian wears the last watch she gave him long after it stopped keeping good time. (Mr. Monk and the Captain's Wife)
• The last lines of the episode pay tribute to the first lines of the series, in Mr. Monk and the Candidate, when Monk interrupts his contemplation of a crime scene to wonder aloud if he left his stove on at home.
• The montage of past episodes features scenes from, in order of appearance:
  • Mr. Monk and the Candidate: Monk and Sharona at Nicole Vasques's apartment.
  • Mr. Monk Takes Manhattan: Stottlemeyer speaking with Monk at the hotel.
  • Mr. Monk Goes Back to School: Monk after he was hit with an eraser.
  • Mr. Monk and the Three Pies: Monk meeting Ambrose for the first time in years.
  • Mr. Monk and the Garbage Strike: Trash bags falling off of Dr. Kroger's roof during a session.
  • Mr. Monk Goes to the Carnival: Monk and Sharona walking.
  • Mr. Monk and the Buried Treasure: Stottlemeyer puncturing Randy's soda.
  • Mr. Monk and the Red Herring: Julie hugging Monk after he saved her pet fish, and Natalie giving him a wipe for the first time.
  • Mr. Monk and the Election: Monk and Harold arguing during the debate.
  • Mr. Monk and the Panic Room: Stottlemeyer and Darwin the monkey in the interrogation room.
  • Mr. Monk Takes a Punch: Natalie cheering Monk on at the track.
  • Mr. Monk on Wheels: Natalie pushing Monk's wheelchair up a hill.
  • Mr. Monk Gets a New Shrink: Monk and Harold arguing at Dr. Kroger's office.
  • Mr. Monk Goes to the Office: Monk bowling a strike.
  • Mr. Monk Is On the Air: Natalie and Kevin Dorfman hugging Monk.
  • Mr. Monk Is Up All Night: Natalie tucking Monk in.
  • Mr. Monk Meets His Dad: Jack Monk teaching Monk to ride a bike.
  • Mr. Monk and the Secret Santa: Natalie kissing Monk on the cheek as it snows for the first time in years.
  • Mr. Monk and the Paperboy: Monk and Sharona standing at the side of some railroad tracks after saving Kevin's life.
  • Mr. Monk Gets Drunk: Monk and Stottlemeyer.
  • Mr. Monk and the Miracle: Randy having grown a mustache in Stottlemeyer's absence.
  • Mr. Monk Buys a House: Monk meeting Dr. Bell for the first time.
• The Summit PD police car that Randy walks past on the way to his office is authentic, including the motto, "Honor, Courage and Fidelity."
• The part about one of the characters managing to solve both a current case as well as at least one cold case – of which the matter of the cold case in question heavily affected them – via a videotape was similar to how Leland Stottlemeyer and Monk solved the cases about the deaths of Miles Holling and Darren Leveroni, in Mr. Monk and the Very, Very Old Man.
• The ending to the entire series was devised and retrofitted when Andy Breckman, creator of the series, learned that Season 8 was to be the final season. He can be seen handcuffed and put into a police car in the final shot.
• Although the TV series ended with this episode, the novelizations continued beyond this point. Disher, in the novel Mr. Monk on Patrol, once hired Monk and Natalie Teeger for acting as temporary police officers, due to the Summit PD having a shortage of staffed police officers as well as controversy due to Summit's entire local government being arrested for extensive corruption increasing crimes in the area, as well as Disher becoming regent Mayor of the city.
• To keep the character of Molly Evans a secret, Andy Breckman initially gave the cast and crew a fake script that identified her as Natalie's niece rather than Trudy's long lost daughter.

"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
0:07	What are you doing?	Natalie	Monk	Monk going to "get Rickover."
0:16	What are you doing?	Nurse Judy	Monk	Monk investigating Judge Richover from his hospital bed.
0:38	What are you doing?	Monk	Natalie	Natalie cutting out a recipe for dinner with Steven.
0:39	What are you doing?	Natalie	Monk	Monk checking that the stove is off before leaving.