Recap / Monk S2E11 "Mr. Monk and the Three Pies"

Monk takes on a new case; Pat Van Ranken is accused of having shot his wife, Rita. However, the case is complicated by the accuser — Monk's brother Ambrose, from whom he's been estranged since Trudy's death. As the case progresses, Monk must go deeper not just into the Rankens' life, but into his own past with his brother.

This episode includes examples of the following tropes:

• A.K.A.-47: Ambrose identifies Van Ranken's pistol as a "Lane & Westen", a Bland-Name Product version of Smith & Wesson; the pistol itself is a Beretta 92FS, which was standard issue to the U.S. Army.
• All for Nothing: It turns out all the stuff Pat did to get his hands on the titular pies was utterly pointless, as the bullet casing he was looking for was in the flour bag his wife had borrowed from Ambrose the whole time.
• Always Someone Better: Ambrose's deductive abilities exceed Adrian's at times.
  Ambrose: He was parked by the southern entrance.
  Sharona: How do you know that?
  Ambrose: It's obvious. Why don't you tell her, Adrian?
  Adrian: Um...
  Ambrose: The yellow acorns on his truck, which can only mean he was parked under a spotted oak tree...
  Sharona: Wow.
  Ambrose: Which are found...
  Adrian: Um...
  Ambrose: Near water...
  Sharona: Wow.
  Ambrose: Which means he parked by the river, at the southern entrance.
  Sharona: Wow!
  Adrian: Please stop staying "wow."
  Ambrose: This detective stuff is easy.
  Sharona: Looks like you got a new partner.
  Adrian: Yeah, for any crime committed within thirty feet of this property.
• Awesome, but Impractical: As Adrian points out, Ambrose's deductive abilities may exceed his own, but his agoraphobia limits those abilities' usefulness to "any crime committed within thirty feet of [his house]".
• Awesomeness by Analysis: Ambrose not only heard the gunshots when Van Ranken shot his wife, he was able to identify the exact make and caliber of the pistol by its sound.
• Bad Liar: Van Ranken clearly has trouble making up an alibi on the spot when put in a position where he has to. When trying to get the flour that the missing gun shell landed in back from Ambrose, Van Ranken claims that he needs the flour for a chili recipe. Ambrose immediately sees through this since you don't typically need flour to make chili. Later, when caught by Stottlemeyer and Randy behind Ambrose's now-burning house with a gas can, Van Ranken tries to claim that he had just come from across the street to try to help Ambrose after seeing the house on fire. Stottlemeyer and Randy don't buy it for a moment and arrest him on the spot.
• Batman Gambit: Stottlemeyer tries to get rid of Adrian at the crime scene by pointing out that the crowd control barriers are askew. Monk sees the gambit, but can't stop himself from rearranging them.
• Big Brother Instinct: Adrian saves Ambrose when realizing that Pat Van Ranken intends to murder Ambrose for the evidence.
• Blunt "Yes":
  Sharona: Ambrose, come with us.
  Ambrose: Uh... no.
  Sharona: You're just gonna hide in this house for the rest of your life?
  Ambrose: That's my plan, yes.
• Borrowed Catchphrase: Ambrose repeats Adrian's usual, "it's a gift, and a curse"; he also intones, "I am as God made me", echoing Adrian's "I am what I am" from "Mr. Monk Takes A Vacation".
• Breaking Old Trends: Monk, Sharona, Randy, and Stottlemyer confront Van Ranken after Monk realizes that Van Ranken is looking for a missing shell casing from the gun he used to kill his wife, which would lead to him getting fingered since his gun is registered, and he thinks that it's in the pies his wife cooked for the festival before she was killed. After Monk does his summation, Sharona digs her hands through the last pie... and finds jack squat to the shock of everyone, including the killer. Randy lampshades how the case is usually solved after Monk does his summation.
• Changed My Mind, Kid: After Monk and the killer's theory that the missing shell casing was in one of the cherry pies the killer's wife baked for the town festival turns out to be wrong, Stottlemeyer and Randy leave in annoyance and embarrassment. However, the end reveals that they continued to follow up on another piece of evidence brought up by Ambrose: the location where Van Ranken buried his wife's body. They arrive just in time to confront and arrest Van Ranken (just as he was trying to burn down the Monk family home), having declared that they found Rita's body and have started to have Van Ranken's mistress (who pretended to be Rita and went to Argentina to explain away the former's disappearance) extradited back to the States.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • As an excuse to meet him, Monk and Sharona go to get back a bag of flour from Pat Van Ranken that he borrowed from Ambrose. Later, both Adrian and Van Ranken realize the missing bullet casing was in that bag all along.
  • Ambrose told his theory on where Van Ranken buried his wife to Sottlemeyer offscreen, which leads to the latter and Randy finding the body and arresting Van Ranken just as he was trying to kill Ambrose after they seemingly abandoned the case when Monk turned out to be wrong where the missing shell casing the killer was after was.
• Cooldown Hug: Adrian offers Ambrose one when Ambrose blames himself for Trudy's death.
• "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot: Adrian gets a Jerkass Realization when Ambrose says the reason he didn't contact Adrian for seven years is that he blamed himself for Trudy's death. Ambrose believed that if he hadn't asked Trudy to pick up cough medicine for him, she wouldn't have been in that garage where the car bomb blew her up. Adrian pities him and gives Ambrose a hug, reassuring him that Trudy's death wasn't his fault.
• Daddy's Girl: A gender-swapped example; Ambrose obsessively saves the mail he gets for his father and sets up dinner, making his dad's favorite dish and setting a place for him, in delusional hope that he'll come back after leaving the family nearly 30 years ago.
• Dead Person Impersonation: Pat has his mistress pretend to be Rita and fly to Argentina to explain Rita being gone. As Pat's being arrested, Disher says they are working on bringing said girlfriend back to the US for her role as an accessory to murder.
• Department of Redundancy Department: Adrian's brother Ambrose comes up with a classic example when talking about the police.
  They no longer respond to my complaints because I call them more often than I should. I'd like to complain to them about it, but they no longer respond to my complaints.
• Disowned Sibling: Monk's attitude towards Ambrose; he always told Sharona he was an only child and tries to deny Ambrose's existence when he calls.
• Dysfunction Junction: It was heavily implied in the series starting with this episode that Monk's family was dysfunctional, and contributed to most of Monk's quirks. In just this episode alone, Ambrose is agoraphobic and a hoarder, their mother numbered their mugs so they would always put them back in the right order (and there was an incident where apparently freaked out after Ambrose broke the ninth mug, which he feels terrible about), and their father disappeared many years ago. After learning about his family, Sharona gives Adrian a hug, as thanks for helping her put into perspective how relatively normal her own family is.
• Everyone Has Standards: Trudy's death may have broken Adrian, but he wouldn't blame his brother for what happened. When Ambrose confesses that he asked Trudy to get cough medicine for him and he wishes he hadn't because she was in the garage where the car bomb killed her, Adrian insists that it wasn't his fault.
• Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: When Monk is done with his reenactment of the murder, he realizes the bullet casing actually landed in a flour bag that Rita had borrowed from Ambrose... and then he remembers that they got the flour bag back from Pat, and Ambrose is in real danger.
• Expy: The episode deliberately draws parallels with the relationship between Sherlock Holmes and his elder brother Mycroft. Like Mycroft, Ambrose is demonstrably smarter than Adrian in several ways, but much less active and less involved with the outside world (Ambrose because of his agoraphobia, Mycroft because of his weight and indolence).
• Forgiveness: Adrian finally forgives Ambrose for shutting him out for seven years after learning that Ambrose blamed himself for Trudy's death and tells him that Trudy's death wasn't his fault.
• From Camouflage to Criminal: A variant, as Pat doesn't seem to want to make a career as a criminal, but Stottlemeyer tells Monk that Pat used to be a Sergeant in the Army, explaining why he has a gun.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: When Ambrose shows Adrian and Sharona the article about the deadly carjacking, in the close-up of the article, you can see that the victim's name is Gladys Dohan.
• The Ghost: Pat's girlfriend that can pass for his wife is never seen, as she's already flown to Argentina as part of Pat's coverup.
• GPS Evidence: Ambrose points out that of course Pat Van Ranken's rusted-old pickup truck runs, and that it had been to a certain section of the park, because it had yellow acorns in the truckbed that only grow in one spot in the park. That's impressive knowledge of the local ecology, for a guy who never leaves his house.
• Heroic Fire Rescue: After failing to get Ambrose to give him the flour bag containing the shell casing, Pat Van Ranken sets his house on fire. Monk runs in to rescue his brother, knowing that the agoraphobic Ambrose wouldn't be able to leave the house by himself.
• Hypocritical Humor: Adrian is Oblivious to His Own Description while explaining his non-relationship with Ambrose to the others:
  Adrian: Look, we're not close. He has issues.
  Stottlemeyer: (raised eyebrow) Your brother has issues?
  Adrian: Don't you people have work to do? There's a dead woman over there!
• Identical Strangers: Pat has been dating a woman who bears an uncanny resemblance to his wife Rita.
• It's All My Fault: After Monk snaps and chews him out, Ambrose finally confesses to why he didn't call for seven years: on the day Trudy died, she was getting cough medicine for him, and when she was killed by the car bomb, he blamed himself.
  Ambrose [crying]: It was me, Adrian! It was my fault!
• It Was with You All Along: The fourth and last shell casing that Van Ranken has been trying so hard to find was actually in Ambrose's bag of flour, which he had loaned to Van Ranken's wife and was still in Van Ranken's kitchen right up until he gave it back to Adrian and Sharona.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Randy comments that the plot of the episode should have usually ended with Monk's summation. It did not.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Monk tells Sharona to speed up in traffic to get to Ambrose when he realizes the shell casing implicating Pat Van Ranken in his wife's murder is in Ambrose's house. Sharona lampshades this by saying that he must really be worried about his brother.
  • Both Adrian and Ambrose hug each other after Adrian forgives Ambrose for distancing himself from him after learning that he blamed himself for Trudy's death. They couldn't even shake hands when they reunited and Ambrose was crying and dripping snot from his mouth while hugging Adrian, who surprisingly didn't care.
• Platonic Declaration of Love: Monk is trying to walk out of his life again when Ambrose says that he loves him. Monk, having controlled his irritation through entire episode so far, snaps, saying that people who love each other don't wait seven years before calling, especially when one of them is having a tough time.
• A Rare Sentence:
  Stottlemeyer: Mr. Van Ranken, we would like permission to search your pie.
  Van Ranken: What?
  Stottlemeyer: Please don't make me say that again.
• "Rashomon"-Style: In the black-and-white flashback shown by Monk's summation, Van Ranken shoots his wife four times and the last shell casing lands in one of her freshly-baked cherry pies. But when the pie is searched, there's nothing there, and Monk and Van Ranken both separately deduce that it landed in the can of flour.
• Red Herring: Both Adrian and Van Ranken believe that one of the three pies that the latter's wife donated to the fair contains the missing bullet casing.
• Screw the Rules, I Make Them!: Ambrose identifies Van Ranken's pistol as a 9mm "Lane & Westen". Adrian says Lane & Westen doesn't manufacture a 9mm pistol, but Ambrose counters that they did until 1992 - he wrote the manual for it.
• Sibling Yin-Yang: Adrian and Ambrose: both are meek and awkward, but Adrian can be fiery and snarky while Ambrose stays mostly timid, Adrian is more social than Ambrose, who never leaves his home, Adrian has severe OCD and a Neat Freak, but Ambrose is a hoarder, who's home is filled with random collections, which are meticulously organized, but still messy by Adrian's standards.
• Second Place Is for Winners: Pat Van Ranken intentionally wins second place in a potato sack race to win a cherry pie as part of an attempt to retrieve an incriminating shell casing.
• "Shaggy Dog" Story: Of the sort. At first, it seems the missing shell casing was in the pies and therefore the pies are the main focus. As it turns out, the casing wasn't in any of them; it had fallen into the flour that Ambrose lent to Rita, so the pie hunt and the murder of the lady who won one of them in the raffle were for nothing.
• Shared Family Quirks: The Monk brothers. Adrian and Ambrose are both Insufferable Geniuses, and both are psychologically crippled (Adrian has OCD, Ambrose has agoraphobia and hoarding issues). Their mother is implied to have had similar psychological issues with her numbering of mugs.
• Shout-Out:
  • The episode takes elements from the Sherlock Holmes stories The Adventure of the Six Napoleons and The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle—Pat Van Ranken is tracking down cherry pies that may or may not have an incriminating shell casing in them ejected when he shot his wife. Turns out to be a Red Herring: the shell casing in question is in a bag of flour at Ambrose's house.
  • Ambrose paraphrases Hercule Poirot's line from Cards on the Table, "I am as the good God made me."
• Skewed Priorities: While searching the burning house, yelling for Ambrose, Adrian stops for a moment and straightens a pile of books on a table.
• Two Scenes, One Dialogue: Towards the end, the episode cuts between Adrian and Pat Van Ranken each reenacting the shooting of Van Ranken's wife in their respective kitchens, with the dialogue and positions of the two aligned.
• Would Harm a Child: In order to win the second pie in a sack race, Pat Van Ranken isn't above knocking down a little girl to secure second place (which wins the pie).
• Villain Ball: While Van Ranken killed his wife, he only did it out of self-defense due to her coming at him with a knife. If he simply reported the truth to the authorities, he would have gotten off with minimal charges, if any. However, to hide the killing entirely, he went on to murder an old woman and later try to kill Ambrose, resulting in him getting caught and guaranteeing that he gets locked away for a long time.
• Working the Same Case: Adrian and Sharona drop by as Stottlemeyer and Disher are investigating the scene of a routine carjacking, but leave midway through. Ambrose later connects his suspicions that Pat Van Ranken killed his wife with the carjacking, the link being that the old woman was carrying a cherry pie.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Sharona tries to encourage Ambrose to at least walk out his front door and to the end of his driveway. He can't, and she tells him that Adrian is afraid of plenty of things, but he doesn't let it stop him:
  Sharona: Okay, now you tell me: what does he have that you don't have?
  Ambrose: He has you.