Monk S7.E13 Mr. Monk Makes the Playoffs: 
Continuing the Super Bowl themed episodes of Burn Notice and Psych; this week’s Monk episode was Super Bowl themed as well. While I don’t know why NBC felt the need to advertise for the Super Bowl with their USA shows, I have to say that after tomorrow I will be glad when it is all over. Psych did a good job with their Super Bowl themed episode while Burn Notice had a good episode but the football angle was awkward and just felt like blatant advertising. Monk fell somewhere inbetween the two. The episode wasn’t bad but it felt a little forced to make it football themed to advertise for the Super Bowl.
So the case begins with the quarterback of one of the championship teams. He goes out partying before the championship game and while he is partying his limo driver steals his playbook and sells it to the opposing team. When the quarterback realizes that his playbook was stolen he confronts the driver which leads to him killing the quarterback.
Monk and Stottlemeyer get to go to the championship game after Bob Costas sends Monk some tickets since they have been great friends ever since Monk saved him from a killer cat. They are about to enter the stadium when a grill explodes almost killing a fan. Instead of seeing the game (like Stottlemeyer wants to), Monk investigates the explosion. He determines that the grill was filled with gasoline so he thinks someone tried to kill the fan. Monk investigates further and finds the dead quarterback’s body out in the parking lot (disguised as a passed out fan).
While Stottlemeyer watches the game with Monk’s tickets, Monk continues investigating with the fan who was almost killed with the grill. He eventually finds out about the stolen playbook and steals it back from the rival team. The rival team chases Monk so in order to keep the playbook safe he plays a game of catch with Stottlemeyer (with the playbook) until they can get it to Disher. The coach is arrested for stealing the playbook while the limo driver is arrested for murdering the quarterback. We already know that the limo driver killed the quarterback to cover up his theft but he also tried killing the fan since he thought the fan knew about the murder.
This episode had it’s strengths and weaknesses in my opinion. As far as strengths, the best parts were Disher trying to watch the game at the police station. He tries to watch it first on his cellphone but then steals a bigscreen from the evidence room and it gets stuck in the stairwell upside down so he has to watch the game upside down in the stairwell. I also liked that Stottlemeyer got some significant time this week after pretty much being sidelined the last couple of episodes.Finally the whole storyline of how Monk saved Bob Costas from a killer cat was pretty funny.
On the negative side was the case itself. The case wasn’t terrible but I think it could have developed better. More work could have been put into Monk solving the case. He seemed to just come upon the solution to the case without his normal amount of effort. Combine that with the show giving us the reason why the quarterback was killed at the begining of the episode and there really wasn’t a chance to guess the cause for the murder. I always like trying to solve the murder or the motive and neither were possible in this episode.
Quotes:
Monk (to Natalie): “I would be more comfortable with male bonding time with you.”
Stottlemeyer: “It’s a tailgate party Monk.”
Stottlemeyer: “You have an off switch don’t you?”
Stottlemeyer: “This is better than sex.”
Monk: “Everything is.”
Monk: “I didn’t do it.’
Stottlemeyer: “Well at least quit smiling.”
Stottlemeyer: “You used to be a fun guy.”
Monk: “I don’t think so.”
Monk: “You want to hear something sad. You’re my best friend too.”
Your Take: What did you think of Mr. Monk Makes the Playoffs?
Photo Credit: © 2009 NBC Universal, Inc.
