- Title: Monk – Mr. Monk Goes to the Asylum
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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 Goes to the Asylum” stands out for a few reasons. First, neither Stottlemeyer (Ted Levine) nor Randy (Jason Gray-Stanford) appear in the episode. And second, no one brings a case to Monk who ends up stumbling over one all on his own in a psychiatric institution where he’s placed on a 48-hour hold after an incident involving Adrian attempting to cook his dead wife’s favorite dish in the apartment now occupied by another family.
At the hospital, Monk meets Dr. Morris Lancaster (Dennis Boutsikaris) who seems to be a pretty good psychologist and offers Monk some valuable counsel up until the point he begins gaslighting the detective who, through interactions with other patients, accidentally stumbles on the murder the doctor committed years ago. With only the other psychiatric patients and their testimony (which involves literally seeing Santa Claus) and his own hunch, which isn’t as trusted as normal given recent events, no one really gives Monk’s theory any attention believing he’s simply seeing a case where none exists given his current mental state.
Separated from her boss but realizing he needs help, Sharona (Bitty Schram) does some investigating of her own. Finding enough suspicion to believe Monk isn’t crazy (at least not about this) she provides him the encouragement he needs (through a picture of Trudy, which is one of the nice touches to the episode having Trudy, in a way, bolster her husband’s confidence) allowing Monk to discover the truth and eventually expose the doctor. The episode ends with Monk back at home suggesting exposing Dr. Lancaster was enough for the state to certify Monk sane and put him back into the world.
