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Mr. Monk and the Three Pies—1/23 Spoilers
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Posted by: ccwf

When I read that the episode would introduce Monk's brother, I kind of groaned, figuring that they would make his brother really nuts. But I wound up enjoying it nevertheless.

trainman, any hints on what was said regarding the manual? Near as I can make out, it was intended to be “ ‘Bitte drücken Sie die Aufnahme genug, drei Sekunden’ should read ‘Bitte halten Sie die Aufnahme genug.’ ” (“Please press the recording enough, three seconds” should read “Please hold the recording enough.” :confused:) However, I'm sure that's not what actually got said (bad pronunciation), and I'm also not 100% sure that's what was intended.

Posted by: TonyD79

Damned guide data things that it is a rerun (I guess) and didn't record. Your post reminded me. Thanks.

Posted by: jwjody

I was a little wary of the brother also but John Turturro was a good casting call for the role.

I thought in the series premier that Sharona said something to the affect of, Monk is like he is because of the reaction to losing his wife. But in subsequent episodes including last night, he had been that way from childhood. Apparently from the mother...

Anyway, did I misunderstand the from the first episode? Or have they gradually changed it?

J

Posted by: ccwf

I can't find a copy of the series premier script to check, but I believe that Sharona does, in fact, say that Monk's anxieties might have been triggered by Trudy's death. Of course, Sharona isn't a doctor…. A rationalization would be that Monk always had some degree of OCD and various phobias but lost the ability to handle them with his wife's death.

Posted by: murgatroyd

quote:
Originally posted by ccwf
A rationalization would be that Monk always had some degree of OCD and various phobias but lost the ability to handle them with his wife's death.

This is the most likely scenario, if Monk were a real person.

Sharona's statement could be seen as a simplification for her audience. There's no need for anybody meeting Monk for the first time to know that Monk's OCD comes from his mom or that he had OCD tendencies as a kid. She's merely telling them about the triggering event, which is why it is necessary for her to be there -- something that they could understand in a hurry.

To do otherwise would cause a big expository lump in the script each time Monk meets someone -- not a good plan.

Jan

Posted by: trainman

quote:
Originally posted by ccwf
trainman, any hints on what was said regarding the manual? Near as I can make out, it was intended to be “ ‘Bitte drücken Sie die Aufnahme genug, drei Sekunden’ should read ‘Bitte halten Sie die Aufnahme genug.’ ” (“Please press the recording enough, three seconds” should read “Please hold the recording enough.” :confused: ) However, I'm sure that's not what actually got said (bad pronunciation), and I'm also not 100% sure that's what was intended.

It's been over a month since I captioned that episode, but if I recall correctly, it was something like he had written "press the 'record' button for three seconds," but it should have been "hold the 'record' button..." Despite my last name, I don't know German, so I was going by the fact that the actual dialogue sounded exactly like what was written in the script, and it sort of made sense when I ran it through Babelfish. (It's actually a rare event when a foreign language in a script exactly matches what the actors end up saying...I assume John Turturro doesn't know German, so he didn't do any improvising there.)

Posted by: esperantisto

The German was right, the pronunciation was a bit off. Of course, that would make sense if he had just learned it in a short amount of time from books.

As to the "quirks" - They started off telling us that Monk went completely non-functional after Trudy's death, later they have indicated that he was never "normal".

Posted by: JPriller

I liked the episode and thought the brother was well done. Maybe he'll make some subsequent appearances, playing Mycoft to Adrian's Sherlock Holmes.

I was a little disappointed that Monk didn't figure it out immediately when it became obvious the neighbor was after the pies, it was obvious to me as soon as they saw him digging through that one behind the house. He had all the facts, as Sherlock would say - man looking through pies, wife missing, shots fired.

Posted by: tomo_kun

I really liked the episode.

Spoiler Alert! (highlight to read)
THEY HUGGED!

EDIT: added spoiler tag

Posted by: Rob Helmerichs

quote:
Originally posted by esperantisto
As to the "quirks" - They started off telling us that Monk went completely non-functional after Trudy's death, later they have indicated that he was never "normal".

Of course, that's not contradictory.

After all, we have just learned that in his youth, he was the fearless one! :D

Posted by: dcheesi

We've seen how Monk's obsessiveness helps him solve cases, so he must have had it to some degree when he was on the force. Plus I suspect Trudy's presence helped stabilize him a bit; not just taking Sharona's place, but also giving him more confidence and so forth. It's entirely possible that Monk was as bad as a kid as he is now, until Trudy came along and pulled him out of his shell.

Posted by: YCantAngieRead

quote:
A rationalization would be that Monk always had some degree of OCD and various phobias but lost the ability to handle them with his wife's death.

Yeah, this is what happened to me. After a traumatic illness, I became a lot like Monk, actually, but with different hangups. Before that, I wasn't really aware that I had issues with compulsion, but looking back at it, I most certainly did-as did certain members of my family. (For example, my grandmother who labels EVERYTHING she buys with markers with the date and time she bought it.) So that part has rung true for me throughout...it's a fairly common thing for people with horrible phobias to have had magnified to a ludicrous extent after a big crisis.

As for Monk not getting the solution, I sort of chalked that up to him being around his brother and that sort of throwing his thinking off. Or possibly that he was bothered that his brother noticed things that he didn't. That's how I felt it was written, anyway.

Really liked the episode, and John Turturro was fantastic. I liked to serious turn to the plot with Monk and his brother...I'm always impressed when more humorous shows can take a serious turn without it being too "On a Very Special Episode Of!" type thing.

Posted by: Frank_M

My favorite moment was Randy's reaction to the incorrect summation. I thought that was great.

Posted by: tigger

Great episode, I hope the brother is a recurring (but not too often) character.

I have to say how surprised I was when Monk brought his brother out of the burning house and his hands were all sooty and he didn't immediately freak and ask for wipes! I know he was dealing with getting his brother out of the house for the first time in years and so on, so I guess it could be chalked up to being so concerned and focused on someone/something else that he was able to forget his own neuroses for the moment?

Tig

Posted by: jwjody

quote:
Originally posted by tigger
Great episode, I hope the brother is a recurring (but not too often) character.

I have to say how surprised I was when Monk brought his brother out of the burning house and his hands were all sooty and he didn't immediately freak and ask for wipes! I know he was dealing with getting his brother out of the house for the first time in years and so on, so I guess it could be chalked up to being so concerned and focused on someone/something else that he was able to forget his own neuroses for the moment?

Tig

I kinda noticed the same thing, then just let it pass when Sharona said something like, "I can't believe YOU (Monk) went in the house! And I can't believe YOU (Ambrose) came out!"

Didn't pertain to the hands specifically just showed that they had bigger problems to deal with other than their phobias.

J

Posted by: ccwf

Assuming that Monk's aversion to germs comes from OCD and not bacillophobia, it would be something he could avoid dealing with immediately. For example, you saw an example of such OCD behavior with the police barricades. Monk didn't need to go and straighten them up right away—he was able to avoid dealing with them for a while.

Posted by: YCantAngieRead

From my perspective, when there's some sort of emergency where I need to place all my energy into worrying about someone else's well being, my wicked stupid phobias go right out the window. Now, that's not to say later I get all creepy about things that I did that I wouldn't normally have done. But even my therapist (shocking, I have one...) uses this kind of diversion tactic to get me to stop incessant needless worrying.

By the way, I've been craving pie. :D

Posted by: doom1701

quote:
Originally posted by jwjody
I kinda noticed the same thing, then just let it pass when Sharona said something like, "I can't believe YOU (Monk) went in the house! And I can't believe YOU (Ambrose) came out!"

Didn't pertain to the hands specifically just showed that they had bigger problems to deal with other than their phobias.

J

Yeah, that's how I read it as well. Both of them faced some serious phobias in that scene.

I absolutely loved this episode. I'm usually ho-hum on Monk--he's a little too crazy for my tastes. But I liked how you really got into his head on this one, and saw a person, not just a OCD maniac.

Posted by: ccouger

I had a question about this episode. Why did the neighbor tell them it was ok to search the last pie? He said go ahead. Was he supposedly giving up at that point? He didn't seem all that surprised when Sharona didn't find the bullet there. He just seemed angry.

My take on the degree of Monk's illness was that after Trudy died his habits were so severe that he hadn't left his house for some time (like his brother!) and that's why Sharona was brought in, to help him first to leave his house and then to deal with the other quirks of his illness.

One other question: Wasn't it shown before on the first season that Monk lived in a two-story house? I'm thinking of the episode where someone stayed over with him, and I thought his bedroom was upstairs. This season they have him in an apartment. Though I might not be right in this, it justs seems that he was living in a house before.

Posted by: TeeSee

quote:
Originally posted by ccouger
I had a question about this episode. Why did the neighbor tell them it was ok to search the last pie? He said go ahead. Was he supposedly giving up at that point? He didn't seem all that surprised when Sharona didn't find the bullet there. He just seemed angry.

IIRC, he was told that they would hold him there until they got a search warrant if he didn't let them search the pie. He let them do it because they would've searched it sooner or later. IMO, he was angry because he went through all that trouble (including killing someone) to get the pies and it turned out the shell casing wasn't in them after all. He was back to square one.

As to your question about where Monk lived, I always thought he lived in an apartment.

Posted by: Lakertime

Captain Stolytmeyer (sp?) in one episode during the first or second season said Monk was always a little eccentric, even when they were partners together. It was after the death of Trudy that made his problems magnified.

Posted by: YCantAngieRead

This has nothing to do with this particular episode of Monk, but I just noticed it...Ted Levine, who plays Stotlemeyer, played Jame Gumb (sp?) the "skin-suit" wearing serial killer in Silence Of The Lambs. That's just...odd. He was masterfully creepy in that movie...impressive.