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Mr. Monk and the Psychic is the second episode of Monk.
Synopsis[]
Everyone believes psychic Dolly Flint has accomplished the impossible when she discovers the body of the former Police Commissioner's missing wife. Everyone except Monk.[1]
Plot[]
In the middle of a late night rainstorm, a car driven by Katherine Ashcombe is seen driving at high speed on a road in the middle of the woods. She gets a call from her husband, former SFPD commissioner Harry Ashcombe, as apparently her beloved dog has been hit by a car. What Kate does not know is that just up the road, her dog is fine, and Harry has parked his own SUV on the roadside and is planting a set of ramps in the middle of the road. When Kate hits the ramp, her car goes airborne, flies over the edge of a cliff, and tumbles down the hillside, killing her instantly.
Three days later, a psychic named Dolly Flint wakes up in her car, parked at the bottom of a hill, and is surprised to find Kate Ashcombe's body in front of her.
Dolly, who has offered to help the SFPD many times before, is ecstatic to have made a genuine "psychic" discovery. Not surprisingly, Adrian Monk is skeptical of anyone having psychic abilities, and of course, he finds evidence - scrapes on the road made by the ramps that we saw Ashcombe use, which correspond to the trajectory of the car - that makes him believe it was murder. Captain Stottlemeyer insists that it was an accident: Kate was a notoriously bad driver, and it was a hazardous stretch of road, late at night.
Sharona is intrigued by Dolly and wants to employ her for a private reading. When Dolly drives away from the crash scene, Monk notices something else amiss: Dolly pulls her seat forward when she gets into the car, implying that someone else drove it recently.
Monk explains his theory to Captain Stottlemeyer, who still believes it was an accident. The captain thinks that Monk is just mad that a psychic "upstaged" him. He explains to Monk that Dolly walks in her sleep and shows him a photograph taken by a red light camera that night, showing Dolly running a red light in her car, and proving that she was alone.
At a wake for Kate in the Ashcombe's mansion, as Monk tries to find the bathroom, he accidentally stumbles upon some boxes packed full of Kate's things, along with muddy boots belonging to Harry. Harry happens to catch Monk discovering Kate's stuff, and claims he was simply packing the stuff to cope with the loss, but Monk is certain Harry is only eager to get rid of Kate's belongings. As Monk goes through Harry's mail, he finds a package that smells like perfume addressed to someone named Jennie Zeppettelli, marked "declined." Monk deduces that Jennie is Harry's former mistress, who has broken off their affair.
Monk and Sharona interview Jennie. She says that the relationship ended because she realized Harry would never leave his wife, even though he despised her: Kate brought in money that Harry just couldn't live without. Jennie thinks of Harry as a crazy, dangerous man, and also believes that what happened to his wife wasn't an accident.
At a psychic session arranged by Sharona, Dolly feels Sharona's head and gives her a tarot reading, telling her current facts about her life and that she is going to meet a new man, with a British accent, whose name will be "something with a D." Monk continues to interrogate Dolly, until Sharona loses patience and kisses Monk's hand, announcing that she left the sterile wipes in the car, thus forcing him outside. While outside, he notices some unusual pebbles in the treads of Dolly's tires. He picks one up, and later that night, sneaks to Harry's house and gets a rock out of the tire treads of his car.
The rocks are a perfect match, and after a bit of research, determines that it is a special gravel that has only been used in a handful of driveways in the city. This strengthens Monk's theory that Harry has met Dolly before, which they both deny. When confronted about the rocks, Harry becomes a lot less confident, but doesn't admit anything. During this confrontation, Monk asks, and Harry confirms, that Kate had a $2 million accidental death policy with her insurance.
Monk confronts Dolly before she is about to be interviewed on the TV news. She pulls Monk away from Sharona and admits that she is a fraud, and has never had psychic ability. But on the day that she found Kate's body, she woke up there with no idea how she got there, and believed that she had actually made a psychic discovery. Monk believes her.
Harry calls Jenny and asks if she's been talking to the police, she denies it; he knows she's lying, and she hangs up.
Monk and Sharona are examining the crash scene again when Stottlemeyer comes down, asking if Monk has been bothering Harry. Monk realizes something: Stottlemeyer parked up on the road, because he couldn't find the service road down to the scene without a scout (Stottlemeyer points out that when he first showed up at the accident scene, he had a driver). However, Dolly found it, asleep, before dawn. Monk explains that Harry killed Kate, but a mudslide covered the car. He couldn't cash in on the insurance unless they found the body, so he "recruited" Dolly to find it, not by paying her, but by other means. Stottlemeyer agrees to help Monk prove it.
Here's What Happened[]
Harry comes home to the police in his home and Dolly Flint saying that she can "feel her" and "her aura is very strong." Stottlemeyer informs Harry that Jennie is missing, so, given the success that Dolly had with Kate, they've employed her again, and she has been quite helpful so far, to find Jennie.
Dolly finds a high-heeled shoe in the living room, and a fireplace poker with blood and hair on it. Harry denies everything that is happening. Dolly "hears" Jennie and runs out into the backyard, finding Jennie's corpse in an open grave, with a wound on her head.
Dolly says that Harry has beaten her to death in a jealous rage. Harry is going crazy, trying to figure out how Dolly knows all this, with Monk insisting that she must be psychic, seeing that she found Harry's wife. At that, Harry yells that she isn't a real psychic and that he drove Dolly to the crash scene. Jennie then arises out of the grave, showing that this was all a setup.
Monk explains: Harry needed Kate's body found, but the mudslide that night that covered the car was his biggest problem. He couldn't find it by himself without attracting suspicion, so he needed to trick a patsy into helping him. He looked up someone who would be an easy dupe: Dolly. She had a thick file with the SFPD (mostly petty convictions for confidence tricks), which included the fact that she was a sonambulist. Harry sneaked into her house, drugged her, and then drove her in her own car to the crash scene, wearing a wig and running the red light on purpose to make sure that "Dolly" was seen heading to the right place. Ashcombe is arrested.
In the ending scene, Sharona meets a British man named Daniel ("Oh, Mr. Monk, did you hear that? That's Daniel with a d!"), who then asks if Monk and Sharona are together, which causes Sharona to break out laughing.
Background[]
- It should be noted that we never see Daniel again.
- Although not mentioned in the episode itself, Harry Ashcombe is later found guilty of first degree murder and sentenced to life imprisonment without parole. He is also placed in a Maximum security wing for former cops.
"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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0:25 | What did you do? | Monk | Sharona | Sharona kissing Monk's hand. |
| 0:26 | What is he doing? | Benjy | Sharona | Monk investigating Mr. Ashcombe's car. |
| 0:28 | What are you doing? | Monk | Hardware store employee | "Sweeping up." |
| 0:29 | What are you doing here? | Mr. Ashcombe | Monk | Monk waiting next to Mr. Ashcombe's car to question him. |