Monk (2002) - 12 questions

Question: In many scenes, Monk will reach out and touch something with one finger. What is he doing? I thought at first he was straightening things, but he touches things that don't move too.

Answer: Occasionally, people with advanced OCD's are possessed of an uncontrollable urge to simply touch various things, or press their nose/lips/etc. against them. It's no more or less sensible than the other behaviours the syndrome causes. See David Sedaris's essay "A Plague of Tics" for an hilarious look at it.

Question: What did the guy mean when he said "Girls can't eat fifteen pizzas"? I fell asleep before the end and missed the reruns.

Answer: It was the license plate of the killer's car. GCE-15P.

Question: When Mr Monk is talking to the two male incompetent employees (I forget their names), one of them said that "two guys came out of nowhere and started pounding on me". Having seen the rest of the episode, it didn't explain why they did this. Does anyone know?

Answer: The 2 men that beat up the guy were working with the other girl. They beat up the guy to try and either discourage him from getting the employee of the month or just scare him off altogether.

Question: I have been trying to figure out how the death in the episode was linked to the suspect. Now I understand that being she was the housekeeper and that identifying the body would identify who she was and make him an likely suspect (he knew her, the secret bank accounts etc.) but how would that be enough to arrest him or even prosecute him for that matter? The body was not located on his property, there was no physical evidence that he killed her, he never made any incriminating statements and so on. The case seems far too circumstantial to be able to arrest him.

Answer: He'd also murdered the wig shop owner, though, and the implication was that SFPD was gathering more evidence there. Monk puts together a pretty impressive batch of circumstantial evidence for both murders, and that's enough for Stottlemeyer to arrest Harley. Many murder cases go to trial with less, and successfully convict despite a lack of absolute proof, which is, sadly, far less abundant in real life than it is on TV. Lacking concrete proof, guilt must then be established "beyond a reasonable doubt."

Question: Why was Sharona written out of the show? If it was Bitty Schram's choice then why did she quit?

Answer: Like David Caruso quitting NYPD Blue, she thought her career was about to take off and it would be good for her career to quit. Caruso didn't get another really good role for 8 years. Let's hope Bitty has better luck.

Question: The man who crashes through the beekeeper's fence and purposefully gets himself stung claims that he was drunk. Later that day, he is back at work. In Australia, where I live, drunk driving is a big enough offence to put you in jail, but the man is never put in jail. Is this a mistake, or are American laws more lenient?

Answer: Depends on where you are, your blood alcohol level. Also, having not seen the episode, was he actually drunk?

Question: I'm confused. How did Monk typing the girl's address into his computer make the address come up on the screen and hence lead the SWAT team to her house?

Answer: It was Julie's laptop, and when Monk plugged it into the SWAT team's system, Julie's friend's address (where the teen girls were having a slumber party) popped up and fooled the cops into thinking that it was the perp's house. Highly unlikely, true, but the SWAT guys storming into a house full of squealing teenage girls in pink nighties did make for a very funny scene.

Question: Why doesn't Disher feel at all sad that his uncle has just died?

Answer: I got the impression that he really hadn't known this particular uncle very well.

Question: When is the series 5 DVD going to be released in Australia?

Answer: Currently there is still no release date as of yet but my guess would be early 2008 it will likely be released in Australia.

Question: I haven't yet seen this episode, but why is it called 'Mr. Monk and his 100th case'? Natalie and Julie gave Monk a hundred trophies at one time for doing 100 cases. Doesn't that break continuity, then if THIS is his 100th case?

Answer: It's his 100th case for the San Francisco Police Department. When Natalie and Julie gave him the trophies, they were for cases overall. The total was actually a few short, but they gave him 100 because it's a nice, even number, which Monk likes.