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| MonkMania |
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A website devoted to
that obsessive, compulsive detective, Adrian Monk, and to what this
character
can teach us about clinical compulsions, obsessions and phobias. |
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Season Two |
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Buy
"Monk - The Complete Second Season" at Amazon.com. |
- "Mr.
Monk goes back to School" (Friday, June 20, 2003)
Golden Globe winner Tony Shalhoub's obsessive-compulsive sleuth returns for a second season with a new theme song and an ingenious murder case at a prep school. Randy Newman's dry-humored "It's a Jungle Out There" opens the episode on a suitably droll note as Monk annoys Sharona by fidgeting with a chess set. "You've sexually harassed every piece on this board," she gripes. As usual, their banter is interrupted by word of a suspicious death, this time an apparent suicide at the alma mater of Monk's late wife. To investigate the faculty member's demise, Monk installs himself as a substitute teacher. There, a smug science instructor (Andrew McCarthy) uses his skills to stymie Monk's probe, while the school's meathead coach (David Rasche) bullies the pensive detective.
- "Mr.
Monk goes to Mexico" (Friday, June 27, 2003)
Monk ventures across the border to Mexico to investigate the bizarre death of a skydiver who apparently drowned in mid-air during a parachute jump.
- "Mr.
Monk goes to the Ballgame" (Friday, July 11, 2003)
Is Adrian Monk a detective who happens to be an obsessive-compulsive nebbish or is he an obsessive-compulsive nebbish who happens to be a detective? It's difficult to tell in this tale when Monk's probe into the homicides of a CEO and his wife take him to an art class to interview a nude male instructor. Naturally, he cringes. "Forget about the case," he tells Sharona, "we can't solve them all." As always, the episode is built around the rapport between star Tony Shalhoub's pensive sleuth and Bitty Schram's sardonic sidekick Sharona. The pair seek a link between a superstar baseball slugger and the murders. Along the way, Monk umpires a Little League game in his inimitable fashion.
- "Mr. Monk Goes to the Circus" (Friday,
July 18, 2003)
Lolita Davidovich best known as Paul Newman's stripper mistress in Blaze becomes the latest addition to Monk's rogues' gallery as a fiery circus star. The redhead plays Natasia Lovara, a trapeze artist billed as the "Queen of the Sky" and Monk's primary suspect in the shooting death of the show's ringmaster. The mystery is clever enough, but the real fun is in the role-reversing subplot, as the normally levelheaded Sharona must confront one of her phobias when a visit to the big top exposes her fear of elephants. Worse, the όber-paranoid Monk thinks she's overreacting. "You're not a kid anymore," he tells his incredulous sidekick, "just suck it up."
- "Mr. Monk and the Very, Very Old Man" (Friday,
July 25, 2003)
Stottlemeyer shrugs off his wife's suspicion that her documentary subject the world's oldest man was murdered. That is, until Monk supports her contention after surveying the victim's living quarters.
- "Mr. Monk Goes to the Theater" (Friday,
August 1, 2003)
Monk and Sharona investigate after Sharona's sister, an actress, stabs a fellow actor during a play with what she thought was a retractable knife. In fact, the prop turns out to be all too real; the actor ends up dead; and Sharona is charged with second-degree murder. While attempting to nab the real killer, Monk is cast in the dead man's part.
- "Mr. Monk and the Sleeping Suspect" (Friday,
August 8, 2003)
Monk thinks he knows who is behind a recent explosion of mail bombings around San Francisco. Now he just has to solve how the suspect committed the crimes while in a coma.
- "Mr. Monk Meets the Playboy" (Friday,
August 15, 2003)
A slimy porn-magazine editor (Gary Cole) whom Monk suspects of murder threatens to expose Sharona's past. Monk's earthy, but sexy, sidekick has never enjoyed discussing her life prior to becoming a nurse, and this episode explains why. As a struggling single mother in Atlantic City, Sharona once posed for nude photos to make ends meet. Now the negatives are in the hands of Cole's Dexter Larsen, whose publication was on the verge of cancellation until his backer's puzzling death. It's a great tale for fans of Sharona, who refuses to allow the sleuth to abandon the case even if it means revealing the truth about herself to her son Benjy. "Mommies make mistakes too," she says.
- "Mr. Monk and the 12th Man" (Friday,
August 22, 2003)
Absurdist humor abounds in the otherwise dead-serious second-season finale as Monk investigates a series of gruesome slayings. Little escapes the scrutiny of the anal-retentive gumshoe, so it's no surprise that his dry cleaner throws a fit when he complains about the sewing of one of his buttons. "It doesn't match," he gripes. "I have to live in this town." Fortunately for the dry cleaner, Monk has more pressing concerns: his help is required to nab a possible serial killer. A skillful balance of the case's grimmer aspects with a riotous subplot involving the limelight Sharona garners as the deputy mayor's new girlfriend ranks this among Monk's best episodes.
- "Mr. Monk and the Paperboy" (Friday,
January 16, 2003)
Monk fears he'll wind up in the obituaries after a newspaper thief kills his delivery boy in this first of a series of new episodes. It's easy to see why headliner Tony Shalhoub nabbed an Emmy last year when Monk scolds an investigating officer for wiping his shoes on the sleuth's pristine welcome mat. But when will Bitty Schram be awarded the same honor? Her Sharona remains a great foil, and challenges Monk's manhood by helping him open a bottle, a gate and a car door. "You think you can take me?" he asks defensively. Alas, the mystery isn't as sharp as the banter.
- "Mr. Monk and the Three Pies" (Friday,
January 23, 2003)
Monk's agoraphobic brother Ambrose calls, for the first time in seven years, to say he thinks he has witnessed a murder.
- "Mr. Monk and the TV Star" (Friday,
January 30, 2003)
The stabbing death of a TV star's ex-wife points to the actor (Billy Burke) as the culprit, but Monk has trouble poking holes in his alibi. Monk and Sharona visit the set of a hit show, Crime Lab S.F., to question Burke's Brad Terry as he celebrates its 100th episode and a big payday. Evidence suggests that Monk has miscast Terry as the killer the actor was outside with photographers when the screams of the victim (Nicole Forester) came from inside her house. Plus, a fan (Sarah Silverman) of Terry's confesses to the crime, seemingly closing the case.
- "Mr. Monk and the Missing Granny" (Friday,
February 6, 2003)
A law student makes a deal with Monk: She'll work for his reinstatement to the SFPD if he'll solve the mystery behind her grandmother's disappearance.
- "Mr. Monk and the Captain's Wife" (Friday,
February 13, 2003)
Monk turns caretaker after Stottlemeyer's wife is apparently killed during a union dispute a mystery the twitchy sleuth has to solve to keep the captain from going over the edge.
- "Mr. Monk Gets
Married" (Friday,
February 27, 2003)
Monk and Sharona have to pretend to be married in order to investigate a con artist who is attending couples therapy.
- "Mr. Monk Goes to
Jail" (Friday, March 5, 2003)
The famously phobic detective takes on a case in the second-season
finale that provides him with decidedly unsatisfactory
accommodations in prison. When a death-row inmate is poisoned
just 45 minutes before his execution, Monk gets a call from Dale
"The Whale" Biederbeck (Tim Curry), a prisoner who's a
suspect in the crime. Biederbeck asks Monk to investigate and
offers the sleuth information about his wife's murder in exchange.
Accepting, Monk goes undercover in the big house, where he shares
a cell with suspect Spyder Rudner, who takes a shine to him.
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