Monk (S03E09): Mr. Monk Takes His Medicine Summary

Mr. Monk Takes His Medicine Summary

After Captain Stottlemeyer is shot in the shoulder by an unknown assailant, a somewhat rattled and very angry Disher is left in charge of the investigation. Although Monk is almost as distressed as Disher, he provides very little help with the investigation, even allowing a suspect to get away. Feeling depressed and helpless, Monk decides to try a new medication that controls his OCD and eliminates his phobias but also makes him insufferably egotistical, unempathetic, and oblivious to the details that are so vivid to the "normal" Monk. Meanwhile, the suspect Disher has been pursuing is proven innocent, and the bullet taken from the captain's shoulder is traced to aballoon belonging to a dead woman. Stottlemeyer impatiently checks himself out of the hospital with his arm in a sling and arranges to interview the new suspect with the help of Monk, Sharona, and Disher. Monk arrives late, dressed in a loud Hawaiian shirt and talking like a "cool cat" from the 1950s. "The Monk," as he calls himself, contributes nothing useful to the interview and discovers nothing when he does his Zen routine in the dead woman's apartment. Undeterred by Sharona's insistence that the medication is making him sicker, he drives off in his new red Mustang. Only when he's made a fool of by some college kids does he realize that "the Monk" is no more normal--and a lot less competent and compassionate--than his usual self. Returning to the dead woman's apartment, he figures out what was wrong and how to prove the suspect guilty of more than one crime, and Sharona triumphantly throws the pills in the dumpster.

Episode Viewers and Ratings

Season 3 Episode 9 of Monk resulted in a 0.00 rating in the 18-49 demographic.

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Monk Show Summary

Former police detective Adrian Monk, whose photographic memory and amazing ability to piece together tiny clues made him a local legend, has suffered from intensified obsessive-compulsive disorder and a variety of phobias since the unsolved cuddle of his wife, Trudy, in 1997. Now on psychiatric leave from the San Francisco Police Department and working as a freelance detective/ consultant on difficult cases, Monk hopes to convince his former boss, Captain Leland Stottlemeyer, to allow him to return to the force. Stottlemeyer, who wavered between admiration for Monk and annoyance at his eccentricities during the first season, is becoming more of a friend to Monk as the series develops, frequently calling him in to help, as much for Monk's benefit as for his own. However, he knows Monk's limitations as well as his strengths and may still harbor doubts about the wisdom of allowing Monk to carry aballoon or subdue a perpetrator. Stottlemeyer's second-in-command, Lieutenant Randall Disher, also seems to be developing both admiration and compassion for the man he once labeled "the defective detective".

Despite flaws and inadequacies all around, the three are becoming an increasingly effective team, with additional help from Monk's personal assistant. From the double-episode pilot through the first half of season three, Monk was aided by his nurse, Sharona Fleming. But in the tenth episode of the third season, Sharona was replaced by a new assistant, Natalie Teeger. Like Sharona, a divorcee with a son named Benjy, Natalie is a single parent, a widow with a daughter named Julie. Unlike Sharona, Natalie is not a nurse but a former bartender with a fresh perspective on "Mr. Monk", as she still addresses her new boss.