Monk Season 6
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Mr. Monk and the Naked Man is the 3rd episode of the sixth season of Monk.

PlotEdit

Late one night, Vickie Deline frantically buzzes the intercom of a palatial beach house belonging to computer tycoon Peter Magneri, imploring him to let her in. She’s holding a manila envelope. Vickie turns around to find someone she recognizes wielding a knife at her. The unseen individual chases Vickie down a steep embankment to the beach. She bangs on the door of Chance Singer's rundown trailer for help, to no avail. She then runs out towards the water, but her pursuer catches up to her and stabs her a few times, then takes the envelope from her dead hands.

At the crime scene, Natalie, Captain Stottlemeyer, and Lt. Disher attempt to distract Monk from seeing the naked bystanders. They’re temporarily successful, and Monk is able to deduce that Vickie was clutching something when she died. But sure enough, Monk freaks out when the trailer’s owner, a nudist named Chance Singer, arrives home from a night in jail. Singer urges Monk to chill out and suggests that the owner of the beach house, billionaire software mogul Peter Magneri, might be involved.

Magneri is high-strung and impatient, berating assistants and bragging about how a recent physical at the hospital confirms he’ll outlive them all. Like Monk, he’s agitated by the nudists, feeling that they're ruining his view. In fact, he's preparing for a zoning board meeting, where he hopes the nudists will be ordered to move somewhere else. Anyway,  Magneri has a solid alibi for the night of the murder. Magneri also mentions that Singer once hit him with a microphone. This sign of aggression is all Monk needs to convince himself that Singer killed Vickie. But how?

Vickie’s roommate Arlene Boras, a newly-minted day trader, tells the detectives that Vickie had recently been spending more time at the beach. Arlene thinks Vickie was seeing someone. Monk suspects Singer. While Arlene is questioned, Natalie is using a pad of Arlene’s to write something down while she talks on the phone.

Pursuing what seems to have become a personal vendetta, Monk breaks into Singer’s trailer later that night with Natalie in tow. The two are unable to find anything incriminating. However, Singer and his nude activist friends come home in the middle of their search, and Monk and Natalie are forced to hide in Singer’s closet. Eventually, Monk hits the circuit breaker, killing the lights. In the ensuing confusion, Monk accidentally grabs Singer’s hand, not Natalie’s, and drags him out of the trailer. Monk and Singer get into a heated argument.

At the police station, Monk offers a series of increasingly implausible scenarios for how Singer could have escaped while in police custody the night of Vickie’s death. When Natalie, Stottlemeyer, and Disher attempt to reason with him, Monk launches into a vicious anti-nudist rant. Stottlemeyer, concerned, takes Monk into his office and reads him the riot act. Monk’s fear of nudity is not a mental-health issue, Stottlemeyer says, but rather hate prompted by bigotry. He tells Monk to get out of his office until Monk has dealt with his phobia.

In a session with Dr. Kroger, Monk has a breakthrough. He traces his fear of nudity to an incident from his childhood when he was naked and scared. With Kroger’s help, however, he realizes the incident is actually a case of Monk – the man with unparalleled memory – remembering the terror of birth.

Monk bursts into Natalie’s apartment to tell her the good news. There, he spots the note Natalie wrote at Arlene’s – the notepaper’s letterhead says “St. Andrew’s Hospital.” Thinking clearly for the first time in days, Monk remembers that this is the hospital where Magneri spoke of having his physical.

Here's What HappenedEdit

Arlene Boras returns to her house to find Monk, Natalie, Stottlemeyer and Disher there with a search warrant. Stottlemeyer asks her if she ever met Peter Magneri. She blanks out, and Stottlemeyer continues, explaining that Magneri had a checkup on July 23, four days before Arlene quit. They've spoken to the SEC, and apparently since that time, Arlene has become very interested in the Magneri company except she has not been investing. Rather, she's been betting against the company. Monk reveals what happened: Arlene was working as an X-ray technician at the hospital a few weeks earlier. Examining Magneri's X-ray, she realized that he is actually seriously ill. Knowing that Magneri was absolutely integral to his company’s success and that the stock would plummet upon his sudden death, Arlene switched the X-ray with a healthy patient's, then quit her job and started selling Magneri's stock short, betting against the company.

At some point, Arlene told Vickie – either she needed a partner in her scheme, or perhaps she was just bragging. But Vickie Deline couldn't condone letting Magneri die, so she grabbed the x-ray and tried to warn him. Before she could reach him, Arlene chased her down and killed her.

The proof? With the aid of a search warrant, the police have found the real X-ray hidden in Arlene's apartment. Faced with the truth, Arlene confesses. Monk informs her that if Magneri dies as a result of something she kept hidden, she will be facing a second count of murder. She admits that Magneri has an aortic aneurysm, which could burst under serious excitement or stress.

Monk remembers the zoning board meeting is happening right then as they speak! In fact, the zoning board has just ruled in the nudists' favor, and Magneri is livid. As the nudists celebrate, Singer gets a call from Monk, who implores him to help save Magneri. Singer, ultimately a peaceful man, does exactly that, announcing that he and his friends are withdrawing their motion, and will agree to relocate. Though suspicious, Magneri calms down, allowing paramedics to arrive in time to rush him to the hospital.

In the end, Magneri is so grateful for his narrow escape that he buys the nudists their own private island. Monk and Natalie go to Singer's trailer as he is packing up. Monk makes amends with Singer, resulting in a giant hug from the nudist. Realizing he may not totally be over his issues, Monk walks away, fully clothed...into the ocean.

Background Information and NotesEdit

• Alfred Molina (Magneri) was one of the three final choices for the part of Adrian Monk, besides Tony Shalhoub and Stanley Tucci (who appeared in Season Five's "Mr. Monk and the Actor").
• Molina also co-starred with Traylor Howard in the short-lived sitcom, Bram and Alice.
• Monk's fear of nudity (classified as gymnophobia) was first referenced in Season Two's "Mr. Monk Goes to the Ballgame," when he can't look at a nude art teacher.
• An aortic aneurysm was the same affliction suffered by the antagonist of Arthur Conan Doyle's "A Study in Scarlet," his first Sherlock Holmes novel.