Recap / Monk S1E4 "Mr. Monk Goes to the Carnival"

Stottlemeyer calls Monk in to help with a case in which he has personal stakes — his friend Adam Kirk has been accused of police brutality and he wants Monk to prove his innocence. Monk agrees, hoping that Stottlemeyer will give him a recommendation for his upcoming request for reinstatement, and finds that the situation is indeed more than it seems.

This episode contains examples of the following tropes:

• Absence of Evidence: Stottlemeyer tells Randy about his first day with Monk and how Monk solved a crime based on what wasn't present:
  Stottlemeyer: Anyway, we're the primaries on a body at a hotel in the Castro. A hooker had swallowed a bunch of promazine - - you know, the big sleeping pills?
  Disher: Horse tranquilizers, sir.
  Stottlemeyer: I said 'suicide'. Every cop on the scene said 'suicide'. Medical examiner said 'suicide'. Monk walks in, says 'murder'. "Where's the water?" The room had no water! Simple. Eight people in the room, but nobody saw that.
• Attack on the Heart: As John Gitomer gets off the ride, he gets stabbed in the heart and gets his ticket permanently punched.
• Awesomeness by Analysis: Monk helps Benjy win a contest to guess the number of jellybeans in a jar without even seeing the jar. Sharona refuses to believe him when he passes it off as a lucky guess.
• Being Good Sucks: Monk starts devolving into Angrish while vacuuming because he solved the case. This means he has to tell Stottlemeyer, who just stopped him from being reinstated to the police force.
• Both Sides Have a Point: Obviously, Stottlemeyer has good reason not to help Monk get re-instated, but had Stottlemeyer told Monk beforehand that he's not going to give the recommendation, and instead left him out to dry, then Monk and Sharona wouldn't have been as angry with him.
• Continuity Nod: During the hearing at the beginning of the episode, one committee member reminds Monk of a certain event in the pilot episode when he let a perp escape because of his fear of heights acting up.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: This episode, the fourth of the first season, marks the first use of Monk's Catchphrase "It's a gift and a curse", but he uses the word "blessing" instead of "gift."
• Enhanced Interrogation Techniques: Sharona holds one of Monk's shoes hostage until he admits to her how he won the jellybean contest.
• Even the Dog Is Ashamed: Sharona is very cold and curt with Stottlemeyer for saying her boss wasn't ready to return to work.
• Frame-Up: Leonard plans with John Gitomer to do this to Lt. Kirk, framing him for Police Brutality. Unfortunately for John, Leonard left out the "little" detail that the plan is actually to frame Kirk for murder.
• Locked Room Mystery: Adam Kirk and John Gitomer get onto the ferris wheel together. While they are at the top, Gitomer starts screaming for help, and when they get back down, Gitomer has a knife in his chest. Turns out the Ferris wheel operator is the one that stabbed him while "checking" on him.
• Not This One, That One: Once Monk has solved the case, it's time to give a former detective his badge and gun back. But of course it's Adam Kirk who's getting his badge and gun back, not Monk. It just so happened that Monk was in Stottlemeyer's office when Stottlemeyer announces Kirk's reinstatement. Monk won't get his badge back until Season 8's "Mr. Monk and the Badge".
• Police Brutality Gambit: Stokes's plot works like this:
  1. 14 months before the episode happens, Stokes is arrested by Lt. Adam Kirk, a police lieutenant known for having a hot temper. It turns out that Kirk has been accused of police brutality multiple times in the past.
  2. While in prison, Stokes conceives a plan to get the confession he made to Kirk thrown out: he contacts an old friend of his named John Gitomer and has him stage a beating to frame Kirk.
  3. Gitomer inflicts bruises on himself by creating an improvised club from a gym sock stuffed with batteries and attached by a string to a ceiling fan.
  4. Gitomer contacts Kirk and arranges to meet him at a carnival with information about a (fictitious) drug shipment of purple haze. He says he'll talk if he and Kirk go up on the Ferris wheel, which they do.
  5. Once the ride starts up, Gitomer starts thrashing around and screaming, acting like Kirk is beating him up. The ferris wheel operator stops the ride when their seat reaches the bottom. Kirk gets out and stumbles off, confused.
  6. What Gitomer does not know is that Kitty Malone, the Ferris wheel operator, is also Stokes's girlfriend. As soon as Kirk gets off and has his back turned to her, Kitty runs up and fatally stabs Gitomer.
• Sock It to Them: John Gitomer does this to himself. He ties a gym sock stuffed with batteries to a ceiling fan so as to give himself contusions, thus ensuring he will actually be bruised when he frames Lt. Kirk for brutality.
• Stupid Evil: Stokes’ idea to hide from killing his girlfriend is the Ferris wheel of the same carnival. Even Monk is puzzled at the stupidity.
• Tempting Fate: Monk wants Stottlemeyer to testify at his hearing to the board, and between their friendship and his having just helped save Kirk's hide, he's pretty sure Stottlemeyer will back him up. Stottlemeyer ends up bluntly saying that Monk isn't ready to be a cop.
• Unwitting Pawn: Gitomer was in on setting Kirk up. What he didn't know was that the setup involved Gitomer getting murdered by Stokes's other accomplice, Stokes' girlfriend.
• Wounded Gazelle Gambit: John Gitomer beats himself up with a battery-stuffed gym sock, then meets with Lt. Adam Kirk under the guise of turning state's evidence on a drug deal. While they're alone, he starts screaming for help, thus framing Kirk for brutality and discrediting his testimony against Leonard Stokes, an old friend awaiting trial. What he wasn't told was that Stokes had an extra surprise in store; the operator of the Ferris wheel Gitomer met with Kirk on is Kitty Malone, Stokes's girlfriend, who stabs him, to frame Kirk.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Stokes kills Kitty in the end.

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