Monk - Season 4
Monk DVDs
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Movie DVD
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Adrian Monk is still "the man" as this brilliant fourth season
demonstrates. Not that his confidence in his crime-solving abilities
isn't tested from time to time. In the fun season-opener, Monk finds
himself upstaged by low-rent private eye Marty Eels (guest star
Jason Alexander in a spinoff-worthy role). The very flappable Monk
is further undone by Eels' seemingly uncanny ability to find clues
in the baffling case of a jewelry store robbery ("He's cheating,"
Monk protests in vain). This is something of a "threshold" season
for Monk, to quote his psychiatrist, who is moved to openly weep
when Monk uncharacteristically allows a glass to go uncoastered at
one point. But his obsessive-compulsive disorders still get the best
of him, as in one of the season's more clever episodes, "Mr. Monk
Goes to the Office," in which Monk, going undercover, is blissfully
in his element as an "office drone," doing the same tasks day in and
day out. Just as he is accepted as one of the office gang, he
alienates them by not participating in a bowling tournament (it must
be the shoes).
Tony Shalhoub, a two-time Emmy-winner for his nuanced performances
as Monk, was nominated for his third Emmy for this season. One of
his finest hours is "Mr. Monk and Mrs. Monk," in which it appears
that his beloved late wife, Trudy, is not only still alive, but a
suspect in a murder. This season also develops Monk's relationship
with his new personal assistant, Natalie (Trayler Howard). In "Mr.
Monk Gets Drunk," it's all about trust when Natalie initially
doesn't believe Monk's implausible tale of a disappeared
wine-country-inn guest Monk claims to have met the night before.
Genius is pain, John Lennon once said, and this applies to Monk. His
neurotic tendencies alienate him from the mainstream. In "Office,"
he so wants to be accepted that he writes conversational cue cards,
and the solving of the crime doesn't compensate for him being a
cubicle laughingstock. But as the series progresses, Monk is getting
better, so much so, that Captain Stottlemeyer (Ted Levine) informs
him that he is being put under contract retainer for "16 homicides a
year." With a sly nod to the series' renewal, Stottlemeyer tells him
they best take things "one year at a time." --Donald Liebenson
