Monk Season 4
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Mr. Monk Stays In Bed is the third episode of the fourth season of Monk.

PlotEdit

Natalie is at Monk’s house, helping to re-paper his walls. Julie whines that she’s hungry, and Natalie tells her to be patient, the pizza they ordered will be there soon. As Monk demonstrates to Julie the wonders of his leveling tool, the doorbell rings. Natalie answers it to the pizza man, who quickly hands her the pizza and her change, and leaves. After he’s gone, Julie says the pizza is cold, and Natalie notices that the man overpaid her $50 in change. She runs down to the delivery car, and finds the pizza man dead behind the wheel, beaten to death.

Stottlemeyer and Disher arrive with an investigation team. It is confirmed that the victim, a boy named Julio Alvarez, was beaten to death with a baseball bat. Monk, however, is distracted when he sneezes. As incredible as it seems, he has managed to catch a germ, and is coming down with the flu. Stottlemeyer and Disher are also forced to break off when the Commissioner arrives. He pulls them off the case, saying that the entire department is being mobilized to search for a missing judge, Jillian Garr, who is also a personal friend of the mayor.

The next day, Natalie tucks Monk in bed, but he is too distracted by his condition to pay attention to her questions about the murder. Julie proudly gives him a get-well card with a musical chip that plays "Polly Wolly Doodle." Monk thanks her, but the never-ending tune soon drives him crazy. He tries putting it away in a drawer, but he can still hear it. When he is sure Julie is gone, he stuffs it in the mattress. Eventually, he has Julie compose to him a "living will," and even resorts to throwing it away.

Since Monk is out of action, Natalie goes by herself to the police station, but everyone is caught up in the search for the missing judge. The most Disher can do for her is to give her the pizza boy’s name, and the address of the parlor where he worked. She also notices from the police file on the pizza delivery boy, Julio Alvarez, that he did not look anything like the man who delivered the pizza to the apartment.

Also, Stottlemeyer and Disher are also due out to investigate a potential suspect: John Delancy, as he has a grudge against Judge Garr due to her ruling against him in a divorce case three weeks prior, causing him to scream at her in court which forced the members of the court to restrain him. The only other thing known about him is that he also hit her car as she was leaving the courtroom, although whether it was intentional or not is disputed despite three witnesses seeing it, although it was known that she neither reported it, nor did she press charges against him.

Natalie then goes over to Pizza Castle, where Julio worked, to find out where whether he did indeed go over to her house, or at the very least, verify that he got all of the receipts for his delivery run. Her attempt at getting the store manager to cooperate ends up failing when on the phone, Monk asks an employee for the Center for Disease Control's location. Nonetheless, another employee allows her to get the receipts anyway due to wanting his murder solved.

Via Delancy's assistant, Stottlemeyer and Disher track him to a private golf club. They can't get by the receptionist until he has to leave the podium due to his beeper buzzing. They then find table 6, where they encounter a man at the table, but he denies any knowledge about Judge Garr or any incidents against her. Disher eventually tells Stottlemeyer that he mixed up the tables by accident due to holding it upside down. Stottlemeyer asks the man if he likes "tie food" and dunks the man's tie in his porridge. Stottlemeyer then apologizes and gives him his own tie as a replacement, until he learns that Disher was mistaken again. He then returns to the table, and after asking for his tie back, he ends up tightening it and then asking about Judge Garr. Delancy admits that he lost his temper, even though she did cost him two and a half million dollars, although he never intended to hurt anybody as he was simply "pissed off." He then tells them that they were actually asking the wrong question, and then states that what they should be asking about is why Judge Garr never pressed charges against him. He then explains why she didn't: There was a man with her in the car and he saw them kissing. When he hit her car, the man also jumped out of the car and ran, causing Disher and Stottlemeyer to conclude he most likely didn't want to be seen and it was most likely due to the fact that the man in question was married to someone else.

At the same time, Stottlemeyer visits Monk and asks for his opinion on the missing judge. Based on credit card receipts, and Delancy's account, they have evidence that the judge was in a relationship with someone, possibly a married man. Monk theorizes that the judge was seeing someone in secret because the man had a conflict of interest – a lawyer, or a party to one of her cases.

Natalie retraces Julio Alverez’s route that night, asking his customers if they saw anything suspicious. The first family did see Julio that night. Then she reaches the second stop, the house of lawyer Reggie Dennison. When he answers the door, she notices a bruise under his thumbnail, and suddenly remembers that the pizza guy who came to the door had an identical bruise, and was also wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses. She hurriedly changes her story, claiming to be looking for a lost kitten, then retreats.

When night falls, Natalie sees Dennison leave his house. She sneaks inside and starts looking for clues. She calls Monk on her cell phone, and he manages to rally enough to take notice. She sees a law degree on Dennison's wall. Noticing a strong smell of cleaning fluid from the bathroom, she goes in and finds it scrubbed unnaturally clean. Monk tells her to look for traces of blood under the light switch, which “they” always forget. Sure enough, she finds a spot there, and Monk solves the case.

Here’s What Happened Edit

Just then, Dennison returns home, and Natalie drops her cell phone as she backpedals. While she tries to hide and stay silent, Monk starts coughing explosively, drawing to the phone, which he picks up. Unaware that Natalie is no longer on the line, he gives the summation:

Reggie Dennison and Jillian Garr were having an affair, and she was at his house that night. They must have ordered a pizza at one point. Just before Julio Alvarez showed up at their door, there was a fight, and Dennison beat the judge to death with a baseball bat. Moments later, Julio showed up. He must have seen Dennison kill the judge, and tried to stop the fight, and Dennison subsequently beat him to death as well. Now he had a bigger problem: the pizzeria knew Julio's route. If Julio disappeared, the cops would have paid attention to him. They'd poke around and they'd ask a lot of questions, and they would have suspected Dennison was involved. So he needed someone else to be the last person to see Julio alive. To do this, Dennison disguised himself, drove Julio's car, and delivered Natalie's pizza, the next stop on Julio's route.

Monk (unknowingly) alerts Dennison to the fact that he made not one, but two mistakes: the first is the blood on the light switch (hearing that, Dennison quickly finds it and wipes it away); secondly, his fingerprints are all over the pizza box, which is now at the recycling center.

Natalie grabs Dennison’s phone and tries to call Monk. Switching lines, Monk absently tells her to wait, he’s on the other line... then realizes what has happened. Just then, Dennison finds Natalie and seizes her, telling Monk not to call the police, or he’ll kill her.

Dennison drives her to the recycling center, bound and gagged. As he threatens her to help him find the pizza box, Monk arrives in a cab, still wearing his bathrobe, and tackles Dennison. As they struggle, Natalie runs to a forklift and dumps a load of shredded paper on Dennison, subduing him until Stottlemeyer and Randy arrive.

Unfortunately, they have no evidence to connect him to the murders except the pizza box, which is buried in the huge pile of garbage. Then Monk tells everyone to be quiet: he can hear faint traces of music. Julie’s card, which he stuck in the recycling bag, is still playing. Stottlemeyer and Randy locate the package. Natalie is impressed that Monk overcame both his sickness and his fears to come and rescue her. As Mitch always said, "The brave ones play hurt." And Monk has played hurt to rescue Natalie.

A few days later, Monk is back to normal. Natalie comes by the house and finds him sitting on the porch of his building. Knowing he hates the outdoors, she asks him what is wrong. He says, nothing, he is just enjoying a beautiful day. She mentions that Dennison led the cops to Judge Garr's body and confessed to both murders.

Inside his bedroom, Julie’s card has been restored to its place of honor on his dresser, and is still pinging merrily away.

QuotesEdit

Stottlemeyer: For a germ, you're like Mount Everest.

Stottlemeyer: What is that?
Monk: It’s a humidifier.
Stottlemeyer: And that?
Monk: De-humidifier.
(long pause)
Stottlemeyer: Well, don’t they cancel each other out?
Monk: Exactly.