Are there any thoughts about how
the poison was administered?
I watched the scene in the grocery several times.
Who is the sailor?
But how can she have a secret past. Did the show establish that they met as freshmen in college? And we’ve met her parents, she had a “normal” home life. How deep and secretive could her past have been at 15 (“a long time before we met.”)?
My guess is the wipes. They kept showing him meticulously wiping his hands with the wipes. They usually don’t show him wiping his hands in that detail. The doctor even mentioned it. Also, they mentioned a few times that they’d tested all of the food in the grocery cart, but they don’t mention testing anything else.
Am I the only one who’s thinking that Monk will live to see Trudy’s killer caught, but will die at the end?
I wouldn’t be surprised. He’s always going to be tormented by her death. Although, they may want to leave the door open for an occasional Monk tv special.
I hope they don’t pull some silly cliche like “She’s alive after all. Her death was staged.” That would suck.
That would really be bad if they did that. That would be like The Fugitive ending with Kimball’s wife being alive. I don’t think the writers would do that. It looks to me like the writers are giving all the major characters in the show a “happy ending” – Stottlemeyer haven’t gotten remarried, Randy probably moving for love or a new career, Natalie settling down with her new man, Julie going off to college. The only question is what is a happy ending for Adrian? I do hope they don’t kill him off.
Sounds like the right answer to me! I’ve watched the grocery store scene again and
can see in Monk’s cart (driven by Natalie’s boyfriend) mouthwash, Windex wipes, spray cleaners, and in the kiddie seat area packages of wipes! The bad guy had less than 10 seconds to do his deed, so it was almost surely in the most accessible part of the cart which would be where the wipes were put. I also saw a continuity problem with what was in Monk’s cart. The kiddie seat looked empty when Natalie’s boyfriend left it alone for a few seconds. But when Natalie retrieved the cart from the bad guy there were packages of wipes in the kiddie seat. Of course, this leads one to wonder why Monk himself or any of the other detectives didn’t think to check out his wipes.
I don’t know why you’d want this in a spoiler box, but:
The sailor is Lt. Steven Albright, played by Casper Van Dien, a navy doctor who was a friend of Natalie’s late husband Mitch. He appeared in the episode “Mr. Monk Is Underwater,” in which he asked for Monk’s help investigating an apparent suicide aboard the submarine where he served. He and Natalie began to date shortly after the case was solved.
Thanks, cochrane.
But Watson, When the bad guy approaches the cart nibbling an apple, the seat is not empty.
I figure that Monk will solve his own murder (and Trudy’s) and they will be reunited in death.
Wagner did that in his opera, The Flying Dutchman. 
It does seem obvious that Craig T did the deed.
It’s unfortunate though because in its prime, he’d just be a big red herring. I have been very disappointed by most of the episode these last couple seasons and I don’t think the writing is clever enough to pull an actual twist out again, something that makes you gasp out loud while watching.
This last episode wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t excellent so my hopes for part II aren’t high.
They had an episode like that a few seasons ago, but at the end they exhumed Trudy’s body and the DNA confirmed it was definitely her in there.
Are you sure they exhumed the body? I don’t remember that. I thought Monk just went to her grave and said that he knew she was there.
And Monk did meet the woman that got a cornea transplant from Trudy. So if Trudy is still alive… ouch.
Was that actually something introduced before this episode? It seemed like the sort of thing they would invent just for this episode.
It does seem painfully obvious, so 1) bad suspense writing or 2) the dramatic tension isn’t tied up or 3) was supposed to be the cliffhanger reveal of part one or 4) redherring
Have we really never seen him before? I seem to recall something about fan theories involving it being “the judge” though I never knew which judge they were referring to.
I wonder if there’s a good “Monk episodes referencing Trudy’s murder mystery and facts learned therein” blog post or article out there?
They did that already. Though it turned out not to be true at the end.
They brought it up in the last Christmas episode. Natalie’s daughter wanted him to open it.
Dale The Whale told Monk that the man who ordered the bomb to kill Trudy was called “The Judge.” Never said it was an actual judge. And on Friday there’s going to be a marathon of all the Trudy-centric episodes of Monk.
So…there’s at least three people involved? “The Judge” ordered the kill, the man with six fingers (on his right hand) (who Monk met (and shot) a couple seasons ago) did the actual deed, and the cancer man Monk went to NYC to see built the bomb?
Is that right so far?
Whoa. He shot the six fingered guy? I presume he survived since we saw him in this episode.
I expected Monk to kill the cancer guy from a morphine overdose when he was fiddling with it, and that Stotylmeyer (sp) would not have interfered.
Monk was set up for the six-fingered guy’s death. He wasn’t in this episode.