Mr. Monk's Last Case: A Monk Movie is a tv-movie that acts as a sequel to the USA Network dramedy Monk.
Adrian Monk (Tony Shalhoub) is called back into service for one last case when his stepdaughter Molly Evans (whom he found about and met in the Grand Finale of Monk) loses her fiancée under suspicious circumstances. The film premiered on Peacock on December 8, 2023.
Tropes:
- Abandonment-Induced Animosity: After the TV series ended, Natalie moved away and settled in Atlanta due to her husband's military career. Monk took it personally and is resentful towards Natalie even years later.
- Always Identical Twins: Subverted — while the Funeral Directors,
both played by Richard Kind, are this outwardly, Monk notices that one twin's head is several centimeters wider than the other. This is what ultimately clues Monk in on how the murder was done. - And the Adventure Continues: The film ends with Monk once again becoming a consulting detective and going off to solve more cases, now with a dog to take care of at home.
- Artistic License – Space: Rick Eden's ambition is to be the first civilian to orbit the Earth. This already happened in 2021 thanks to the Inspiration4 flight, which sent four civilians into space to orbit the planet in September of that year.
- Babies Ever After: Randy explains Sharona not being with him on this trip with her helping Benjy with his new baby.
- Bloodless Carnage: Lucas Kubrick gets blown up by a package bomb that he's carrying. Not only is there no blood, there's even enough of a body left to drape a sheet over.
- Borrowed Catchphrase: When trying to convince Monk to investigate Griffin's death, Molly comments "He did it. I don't know how he did it, but he did it."
- Call-Back:
- This is not the first time that Monk has gone up against a killer astronaut (though in this case Rick Eden is a private citizen with plans to orbit the Earth).
- Monk's discomfort around Watson the dog recalls his reluctance to look after a dog named Shelby. This does not stop Natalie from gifting him Watson in the end.
- Monk had previously said he would pray for the sweet release of death if he ever stepped in dog poop. Here, he does exactly that and says he wants his foot amputated.
- Randy once again comes up with an insane theory that does nothing to help solve the crime.
- Rick Eden mentions that the $200 million he lost in his divorce was lost at a time when such a sum meant something, much like the money Dale the Whale lost in his suit with Judge Lavinio.
- Canon Marches On: The movie effectively overwrites all of the tie-in novels set after the series finale and a few of those that were set before. None of the characters created by Lee Goldberg appear and there are plot points that contradict the timeline he and Hy Conrad established.
- In the novels, Monk went right on solving cases after he caught Trudy's murderer, and Natalie worked on getting her PI license so she could be a more equal partner to him (after a tenure working in Summit, New Jersey as a police officer under Randy's supervision). Here, it's implied that Monk retired not long after solving Trudy's murder, and Natalie is now a realtor living in Atlanta.
- In the novels, Natalie dumped Steve Albright because he was a womanizer. In the movie, they're happily married.
- Molly isn't particularly important in the novels despite being Trudy's daughter. Here, it's shown that she adores Monk like a second father and even moved in with him during COVID to keep him from going insane.
- Character Development: Although a lot of Monk's mental health progress was undone by the COVID-19 pandemic, one sign that he hasn't completely backslid is that he doesn't recoil from physical contact with others nor does he reach for wipes or sanitizer as constantly as he used to during the main series. He even adopts a dog by the end of the film.
- Chekhov's Gun: The inflatable lady astronaut that Rick Eden's wife Skyler releases into the atmosphere ends up saving Monk's life when he uses it as a flotation device.
- Continuity Nod: Randy's musical past as a member of the Randy Disher Project is brought up when Stottlemeyer pranks him by getting some security guards to pretend they are fans of his music.
- Creepy Twins: Monk meets identical twin brothers who run a funeral home and take morbid delight in their profession.
- Darker and Edgier: The film has a darker tone than most episodes of the series given that Monk is planning to commit suicide.
- Dead Person Conversation: Monk frequently chats with Trudy throughout the movie. At the end of the movie, as he's getting ready to kill himself, Trudy returns again, this time accompanied by Griffin and the many other murder victims for whom he's found justice, and they convince him not to give up on life.
- Despair Event Horizon: Monk hits his after the publisher rejects his manuscript and asks for their advance back; he feels like he's failed Molly and doesn't know what else to do with himself now that he's retired and almost all his friends have also retired or left San Francisco.
- Driven to Suicide: Monk feels despondent about the state of his life and wants to end it so he can be with Trudy again. Fortunately, he is talked out of it by Trudy herself and the spirits of those whose murder cases he solved.
- "Eureka!" Moment: When Monk is talking to the twin funeral directors in preparation for his suicide, he makes a note that they are identical, save for a slight difference in the size of their heads. Upon looking at the slightly different tape measures they used to measure, he realizes Eden killed Griffin by having Lucas swap the tape measure used to cut his bungee cord with one longer by an imperceptible few millimeters.
- Evil Brit: Rick Eden is British, charismatic and suave. He is said to be the wealthiest man on Earth and he will stop at nothing, including murder, to get his way.
- Fictional Counterpart: Rick Eden's online shopping site Eden Express and his spaceflight company Genesis are fairly obvious expies of Amazon and SpaceX.
- Foreshadowing: Neven Bell is writing a new book about his experiences with patients, and Monk deduces that Bell is only writing about him. It's revealed, several scenes later, that Monk is the only patient he's been seeing; he retired two months prior to the events of the movie.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: Monk's publisher's name is briefly glimpsed on the outside of her office — "Beth Landlow". A name that the victim from "Mr. Monk Goes Back to School" shares.
- Friend on the Force: Stottlemeyer and Disher still have plenty of contacts in the SFPD despite being retired/living in New Jersey, and they make good use of them.
- The Ghost: Julie, Benjy, Steve Albright, and Monk's old rival Harold Krenshaw are all mentioned, but do not appear. Sharona technically qualifies as well, since she only appears in a brief flashback via footage from the series premiere.
- Goodbye, Cruel World!: Monk makes suicide notes for all the people in his life, including his old nemesis Harold Krenshaw.
- Happy Ending Override: Oh boy. The finale of the USA series showed Monk in a good place. He finally solved Trudy’s murder, bonded with her long-lost daughter, and becomes more functional as he has a new lease on life. To say Monk is in a bad place 14 years later doesn’t say it enough: Natalie moved to Atlanta due to her husband’s job; the COVID-19 pandemic kept him from leaving his house for two years, which also sent his OCD into overdrive; his book deal was cancelled; and now he can’t pay for Molly’s wedding. Monk is now hoarding prescription meds so he can kill himself by overdose.
- He's Back!: At the end of the movie, Monk decides that he has a new lease on life thanks to defeating Rick Eden and a conversation with all the victims he's given closure to and leaves the park, presumably off to get started on the 22 unsolved cases Captain Rudner mentioned earlier.
- He Knows Too Much: Rick Eden murders Molly's fiancée Griffin because he was investigating the suspicious death of Eden's business partner. He does the same to hitman Lucas Kubrick to cover his tracks.
- Idiot Ball: Rick has (at the time) gotten away with at least three murders and is alone with Monk, having just seen through his attempts to get a look at the evidence on Rick's laptop. He then leaves the room to watch fireworks, leaving Monk and his laptop unguarded, allowing Monk to grab the laptop and run.
- I Have This Friend: Monk goes to a funeral home to pick out a coffin for himself and tells the funeral directors that he's shopping for a friend of his who is about his age and isn't long for this world.
- I Never Said It Was Poison: Monk points out that Eden instantly identified Lucas Kubrick as one of his delivery drivers, even though he has over a million employees and Monk never told him what Kubrick's specific job was.
- Insane Troll Logic: As usual, Randy concocts an ... interesting theory to explain how Eden could have killed Griffin. In this case, he suggests that Eden put the bridge that Griffin was bungee jumping from on hydraulic pillars so that he could lower it on demand. He even builds a Lego replica of the bridge to demonstrate. When pressed, he suggests that billionaires lower bridges all the time because they like to go fishing and doing so makes it easier. note
- Interrupted Suicide: Twice. Monk is all set to kill himself and is picking out a coffin when he has his "Eureka!" Moment and solves the case. Then, after Eden has been arrested, he goes to his favorite park and again prepares to down his hoarded sedatives, only to be interrupted by Trudy, Griffin, and the many other victims whose murders he's solved, who remind him of all the good he's done and convince him to keep going.
- Living Emotional Crutch: Natalie, Disher, and Stottlemeyer were Monk's LECs, and now that Natalie and Disher live on the other side of the country and Stottlemeyer is retired from the force, he's not doing so well. Molly is doing her best to help, but Monk is perfectly aware that she has her own life to live and doesn't want to be a burden to her.
- Make It Look Like an Accident:
- Rick Eden arranges for Griffin's death to make it look like he had made his bungee cord too long and hit the ground. Molly is not convinced, and soon enough, Adrian isn't either.
- This appears to be Rick's style, as he previously murdered his business partner in a trip to Bermuda by ripping his mouthpiece out on a scuba dive.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: Rick Eden is an unsubtle fusion of Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk. He got his start with an online shopping website that has expanded into a multinational conglomerate (Bezos). He's now the richest man in the world and has started his own space travel company to fulfill his ambition of being the first civilian to orbit the Earth (Musk).
- Nothing Left to Do but Die: Having solved Trudy's murder and with all his friends and loved ones moving on with their lives, Monk believes that he has nothing left to live for.
- One Dialogue, Two Conversations: When Monk and Natalie are investigating an animal shelter that's been receiving threatening notes, they're introduced to a dog named Watson who is "unadoptable" because he's elderly, losing his vision, and just keeps rearranging and cleaning his enclosure. Natalie and Monk start bickering about whether the shelter shouldn't just put him down because he's old, sad, and alone, with Natalie saying that he deserves to live the rest of his life in happiness and Monk insisting that they should just put him to sleep to end his misery. It quickly becomes clear that while Natalie is talking about Watson, Monk is talking about himself, because he's planning to commit suicide.
- Padding: One of the In-Universe problems with Monk's book and why the publisher pulls the plug. He puts so much focus on things like the minutia of the stove he used to own and it being recalled/discontinued or the fact that he and a suspect both owned the same type of vacuum cleaner that it drowns out the details on his investigations, which is what readers would want to actually read about.note
- Papa Wolf: Monk goes after Eden with a vengeance specifically because the man killed Molly's fiancé.
- Paranormal Episode: Of a sort. The television series never demonstrated that any genuine supernatural forces existed in its world. Any conversations Monk would have with the deceased Trudy were typically framed as dreams or hallucinations, like when he got buried alive and imagined her there with him. This episode initially suggests that he is experiencing much the same thing, brought on by his worsening mental health as a result of the pandemic. However, at the end of the film, he is visited by all of the previous victims whose cases he's solved...and one whose case has yet to be solved. Since he has never seen her, and thus has no frame of reference for what she might look like, this implies that she, at least, is a genuine supernatural presence.
- Parental Substitute: Monk adores Molly, seeing her as the daughter he and Trudy might have had. She loves him in turn, rolling with his phobias and idiosyncrasies and diligently caring for him when COVID sent them into overdrive.
- Pet the Dog: Of course, those close to Monk still love him. Dr. Bell continues treating Monk two months after he retired because he was that worried about him. Just when it looks like Monk is gonna take the easy way out, the spirits of Trudy and those whose murder cases Monk solved show up and get him not to. One of them is from an unsolved case. Homicide division’s Capt. Rudner dangled 22 unsolved cases in front of Monk hoping it would make him come back. It worked.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Captain Rudner, Stottlemeyer's replacement in homicide, is polite, friendly, and helpful to Monk and company. When Stottlemeyer calls in a few favors with her, she tells Monk that she's always happy to oblige her old friend.
- Replaced with Replica: Eden had Kubrick steal Griffin's tape measurer and replace it with a near-identical whose inches were slightly off. Griffin, who always measured his bungee cords himself, used the duplicate measurer and ended up cutting a cord that was longer than what he would usually use, leading to his death.
- Saying Too Much: Part of what attracts Monk to Lucas Kubrick as a suspect is that when describing to a bystander what happened to Griffin, he says that Griffin cut his line 6 feet too long, instead of a more random number or just saying "too long".
- Screw the Money, I Have Rules!: Griffin turns down Eden's attempted bribe of becoming chief editor at the San Francisco Dispatch, a job that would be worth $600,000 a year plus perks. Later on, Eden offers Monk a cool billion dollars to walk away from the case, and Monk turns him down, because seeing justice done for Molly and Griffin is more important to him. Likewise, Stottlemeyer doesn't hesitate to help Monk nail Eden for the murders even though he has an incredibly cushy job as the man's chief of security (though he does tell Eden he's keeping the $20,000 watch that the former gifted him).Rick Eden: A billion dollars. What were you thinking?
Adrian Monk: I was thinking about my wife. Molly was her baby. You broke her baby's heart. - Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: Griffin notes that this is Rick Eden's default attitude towards life. He tries to buy Griffin off by offering him the editorship of a prestigious San Francisco newspaper, a job which he notes is worth $600,000 a year. Later, when he finds Monk in his beachfront mansion, he offers him a billion dollars to walk away from the case.Adrian Monk: You think money can buy anything?
Rick Eden: I do, because it can. - Sequel Hook: Early on in the film, Captain Rudner mentions that there are twenty-two cases open — coincidentally the exact number of episodes for an "average" season of American television. The film ends with Monk going off to solve them.
- Smokescreen Crime: Rick Eden kills Lucas by placing a bomb in his delivery van while he is on a route that goes by an animal shelter. This is relevant because Rick mails threatening letters to said shelter. This way, people would think his death was the result of this terrorist attack and not related to Griffin's death.
- Spirit Advisor: Trudy appears to Monk throughout the movie, trying to talk him out of the malaise he's been in for the last several years and stop him committing suicide. At the end of the movie, she, Griffin, and the many, many victims whose murders he's solved appear to him and motivate him to get back to doing what he does best.
- Spotting the Thread: Monk does it twice. First he realizes that one of the people who was present when Griffin died likely had something to do with it because the man says that Griffin's bungee cord was exactly six feet too long, rather than just guessing a number or saying that it was too long. He then picks up on it when Eden correctly identifies Lucas Kubrick as an Eden Express delivery driver, despite the fact that he has over a million employees and Monk didn't tell him what Kubrick's specific job was.
- Status Quo Is God: Most of the progress Monk was seen making at the end of the original series was undone by the COVID-19 pandemic, as the disease and isolation brought his neuroses back with a vengeance. It didn't help that Natalie and Julie moved to Atlanta and Stottlemeyer retired.
- The Stinger: The mid-credits scene reveals that Natalie has adopted Watson and gifted him to Monk so that the detective won't be alone.
- Suicide by Pills: This is how Monk is planning to end his own life. He's been hoarding his lorazepam prescription.
- Suicide for Others' Happiness: Monk seems to think that his friends and Molly will be happier if they don't have to worry about him anymore.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: For a person as neurotic and paranoid as Monk, something as life-shattering as the COVID-19 pandemic—which was enough to mentally break even some well-adjusted people, much less an obsessive germophobe—manages to basically reset the progress he seemed to be making at overcoming his issues at the end of the original series run. As it turns out, a lifetime of mental disorders doesn't magically become immune to extreme outside influences just because you finally solve your wife's murder case.
- Theme Music Withholding: Randy Newman's "It's a Jungle Out There" until the end title card. After The Stinger, Jeff Beal's Monk theme from season 1 plays over the rest of the credits.
- This Is Gonna Suck: Stottlemeyer's expression when he sees Eden talking to Lucas Kubrick on the security monitors at the Genesis launch facility and realizes that Monk is right and Eden is "the guy".
- Troll: When Stottlemeyer hears that Monk, Natalie, and Randy are coming to Rick's mansion to talk to him, he has the guards at the gate pretend they are fans of The Randy Disher Project and get selfies with him.
- Trophy Wife: Rick Eden's wife Skyler is much younger than him and quite attractive.
- Tuckerization: The publisher who closes Monk's contract is named Beth Landow, based on Andy Breckman's wife, and is played by Brooke Adams, the wife of Tony Shalhoub.
- Uncatty Resemblance: Monk and Natalie visit an animal shelter and meet Watson, a black-haired poodle that is afraid of everything and compulsively cleans his pen. Natalie adopts Watson for Monk, believing it will be good for the both of them.
- Very Special Episode: It's downplayed, since the series never shied away from serious topics, but the movie has a subplot devoted to Monk's depression, loneliness, and suicidal ideation and has a noticeably more somber tone. It even concludes with a title card encouraging viewers to seek help if they are feeling the same way.
