- Title: Monk – Mr. Monk and the Earthquake
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Monk Monday takes us back to San Francisco and the toils of the defective detective Adrian Monk (Tony Shalhoub). “Mr. Monk and the Earthquake” offers extra opportunities for Shahloub to have some fun when Monk finds himself temporarily in a dissociative state spouting gibberish while attempting to communicate. As Dr. Kroger (Stanley Kamel) suggests, the condition is temporary allowing Monk to return to normal in the middle of the episode but it does reoccur after an aftershock producing one of the more humorous sequences of the series as Monk launches into his “here’s what happened spiel” without anyone being able to understand him and struggles with directing a cabbie to Sharona‘s (Bitty Schram) apartment during the climax.
The murder of the week also puts Sharona in danger as the philanthropist (Ross Petty) who she was working for was murdered just after the earthquake while leaving a message on her answering machine. Given the city being too busy getting things back to normal, it’s not surprising that Stottlemeyer (Ted Levine) doesn’t have the resources to look into the case, leaving Monk on his own as the only one who believes the man’s widow (Janine Theriault) was responsible for the “accident” during the quake that cost him his life.
With the entire block of her neighborhood closed off, meaning neither she nor our villains can reach the answering machine, Sharona is targeted by the widow’s co-conspirator (Cameron Daddo) who attempts to cozy up to her in time to get to the message before she does. As with the widow, Monk quickly susses out there is something wrong with the man further cementing Sharona’s awful taste in men established during the show’s First Season (the episode also closes out with another running gag celebrating Monk being cheap). The neighborhood being quarantined means Sharon, Benjy (Max Morrow), and Monk all find a temporary place to stay with Sharona’s sister Gail (Amy Sedaris) making the first of her two appearances of the show’s run.
