The Monk movie:
Sharona is murdered in New Jersey, and Randy calls on Monk 2.0 to find he killer.
“Monterey county! That’s 20 minutes from here!” Oy. One last geography/setting cringe from Monk. 
As a nonregular watcher of Monk I don’t really know what to say as to the tying up of loose ends. All I can say for sure is that this last episode reminded me of this Calvin & Hobbes strip.
EDIT: And every time I think of C&B while on the internet, I have to look up this, even though it makes me sad as hell.
I loved that. Even though he was consistently a bit of a doofus otherwise, when it came to police work he grew to be competent and efficient.
While Randy never really exhibited a lot of smarts as a detective, he actually was very capable of taking down bad guys, often throwing himself into harm’s way to do so. In that way he’s not exactly incompetent.
Watching the ending again I liked that Monk’s final OCD behavior was checking that the stove was off. That was precisely the first OCD behavior he showed in the first episode of the series. So the series has neatly looped back to the beginning, and in a way, we can start all over again. Finally, the last clip was a nice tribute to many of the fine actors who have graced the series, especially Stanley Kamel who played Dr. Kroger. He was a key character in the series until his untimely death before Season 7.
Wow, that’s more sad than the final comic.
I have to say that it was satisfying. Not the best episode, but still pretty good. I’m happy they resolved Trudy’s murder early, because the effect on him of the case being solved was just as important. I’m happy that he’s still quirky but slowly loosening up. I think it was in the very first episode that Stotlemeyer said that he was always odd, but it wasn’t until Trudy died that he got really screwed up.
My only disappointment is that we didn’t see Ambrose or Dale again. It would be a lot to fit in but it would’ve been nice to see Ambrose meet Trudy’s daughter. Didn’t he blame himself for Trudy’s death since she was running an errand for him? I was also kinda disappointed that there was no “Here’s what happened” scene, since that is pretty much a trademark.
As for Randy being a police chief, he’s shown he could be a good cop. Like when Stottlemeyer joined the monastery, Randy was doing a pretty good job running the show. Summit will have some oddly named serial killers though…
Also, what happened with Monk getting back his badge? I only saw the first part of that episode, but I’m assuming it didn’t work out.
I’ll admit it, I teared up at the end. I liked the episode. I just missed how Monk found the tape. How did he come across it after all these years?
Spoilered for Hal Briston. You’ll thank me later.
Monk wasn’t happy. There was a murder of a policeman, and he wasn’t allowed to pursue his theories of what happened. He came to the conclusion that the cop was involved in a scam involving the apprehension of a serial killer. The cop ID’d the killer, leading to his arrest, but wasn’t allowed to collect a half-million dollar reward, so he offered a window washer half of the reward to come forward and publicly take the credit. The cop met the window washer to pick up his half of the money, but the window washer got greedy and killed the cop. Monk angered the other detectives by accusing the cop of being dirty and was ordered to leave the case alone. He confronted the killer anyway, who knocked Monk out and put him on his scaffold and raised the scaffold a couple of hundred feet in the air and tried to shake Monk off it. Monk survived, however, and the police showed up at the site and took the killer into custody. Monk then resigned and was made a private consultant again. Also, part of the appeal of working on his own meant Monk got to work with his old partner, Stottlemeyer. I think Monk needed that kind of consistency in his life.
I liked how Stottlemeyer showed loyalty and complete trust in Monk when Monk told him that the judge was responsible for Trudy’s death. He didn’t question it and told Monk, “You’re absolutely right. It all checks out.” I think in the end, though, when Randy said that Stottlemeyer was a good teacher, he should have acknowledged Monk, too. Monk taught everyone a thing or two. And if it weren’t for Monk, Randy almost certainly would never have met Sharona.
His partner didn’t back him up, and the killer almost killed Monk. Monk found that he enjoyed his consultant position more than working in the regimented police force.
Trudy had made the tape, then wrapped it as a gift and put it under the Christmas tree. When Monk noticed it, she made him promise not to open it until Christmas. After she died, he didn’t open it, wanting to hold onto the one last surprise she had for him.
I liked it, I liked it a lot. I understand how people could have been disappointed with it, the solution to the Trudy investigation could be called fairly early on, but in retrospect it was never really about unraveling that mystery as much as seeing Adrian move on and finding closure in his life. In that vein I agree with enalzi above.
[Spoiler] I really liked Randy moving to New Jersey to be with Sharona and I thought Trudy’s daughter was portrayed perfectly. The patience that she showed Monk was a little strange considering she’d never met him before, but it made sense in “destiny” sort of way.
It feels nice to know that Monk and Natalie are still out there doing their thing. I think Trudy would be proud.[/Spoiler]
The only thing is that if he had opened that gift after she died, he would have solved her murder then, instead of twelve years later.
Well, yes, he was a tad upset about that.
And let’s be fair, Monk was never exactly known for his rationality.
I’m surprised he was still able to play a minicam tape from 12 years ago…
If he had the player then, he would still have it today.
I had the same thought and the same response. It wasn’t very clear what Natalie was using, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was the same camera that Trudy had used to make the tape — and if it was something Monk associated with Trudy, odds of him disposing of it approach negative infinity.
I know that I tend to miss elephants in rooms and zero in on nitpicks, but one thing that bothered me:The judge using a pen to pick up the wipe. For one thing, he was distancing himself from Kazarinski, so I think it would be unlikely that he would know the method Joey would use against Monk. For another, if he did know, he wouldn’t want to telegraph the fact (“plausible deniability”). For yet another, he would probably know that the effect was cumulative and that a single touch wouldn’t make him keel over. All in all, I considered it unnecessary since it would be pretty obvious where the poison was coming from as soon as Natalie took ill.
Having disposed of my major nitpick, possibly my favorite part of the wrapup:
[SPOILER]Molly telling Monk that it doesn’t matter whether he has a blessing or a curse: there are other Trudys out there, and he has an obligation (for want of a better word) to them. And that maybe she’s there to remind him of that fact.
Oh, and: “she snored.”[/SPOILER]