Natalie finally manages to track down a pizza delivery guy who had given her fifty dollars too much in change, only to find him dead. Stottlemeyer begins investigating the case, but he's quickly pulled from it by the disappearance of judge Jillian Garr, and Monk becomes sidetracked when he comes down with the flu, so Natalie takes it on herself.
This episode includes examples of the following tropes:
- Alone with the Psycho: Natalie breaks into Dennison’s house to search for evidence on him being involved in the delivery driver’s death. Unfortunately for her, he arrives back and knows Natalie is in the house.
- Amoral Attorney: Dennison is a lawyer, and when apprehended he plans to turn the whole case on its head literally with him as the victim and Natalie and Monk the transgressors. Fortunately, Monk was able to prove him guilty on the spot.
- Batter Up!: Both Judge Garr and Julio Alvarez were killed by being beaten to death with a baseball bat.
- Big Damn Heroes: Monk arrives at the recycling dump to save Natalie from Dennison. Natalie, once she gets away from him, dumps shredded paper on Dennison, which immobilizes him long enough for Stottlemeyer and Disher to grab him.
- Cassandra Truth: Reggie drags Natalie to the recycling dump, and demands she tell him what the pizza box with his fingerprints was in when the recycling was picked up. Natalie tells him the complicated way Monk packs his recyclables to such an extent that Reggie starts thinking she's messing with him.
- Chekhov's Gun:
- When Stottlemeyer is trying to walk Monk through his case, he mentions that Judge Garr took a trip to Oakley, Idaho with a man in February. While Natalie is sneaking around Dennison's house looking for evidence, she finds a half-burnt photo of Dennison with a woman at a hotel that says "Oakley", letting Monk know Dennison killed the judge.
- When the (fake) pizza delivery man comes to Natalie's door, she notices a bruise under one thumbnail. She later sees that same bruise on Reggie Dennison's hand, prompting her to suspect him in the murder.
- Chekhov's Gag: Julie gives Monk a get-well card. It plays "Polly Wolly Doodle" incessantly, even after Monk tries to muffle the sound several times. He finally throws it out, only it turns out to be what leads the police to the evidence that will prove that Reggie Dennison killed a judge during a fight and then proceeded to kill the pizza delivery boy who tried to intervene, before impersonating the latter to make sure the police didn't get to him.
- Clingy MacGuffin: The get-well card.
- Corrupt Politician: The mayor orders all senior officers to work on the case of the missing judge - because she happens to be his friend.
- Damsel in Distress: Zig-zagged; Natalie is captured by Dennison and brought to a recycling center in order to get some incriminating evidence. Monk has to follow her and save her, but then his illness combined with his existing lack of fighting prowess forces Natalie to save him from Dennison, though it helps that Stottlemeyer and Disher show up to restrain him at the same time.
- The Dead Have Names: When Natalie comes over to discuss the case, Disher refers to it casually. Natalie chews him out, saying the victim had a name.
- Dead Person Impersonation: Once Reggie has killed Julio after murdering Judge Garr, he realizes that if it's found out that Julio's last stop was at his house, there could be something to tie him to the judge and her murder. Thus, he drives to Julio's next stop, delivers the pizza, and then drives somewhere secluded to leave Julio's body in the car to let it be found by someone else. Unluckily for him, that stop is at Monk's apartment where Natalie and Julie are.
- Fun with Alphabet Soup: Natalie brings Monk some alphabet soup while he is sick with the flu. Due to his obsessive personality, he insists on eating the letters in alphabetical order.
- Heroic Bystander: When the delivery boy arrived at Dennison's house, he tried to save Jillian Garr from Dennison, although his efforts were fruitless and Dennison killed him as well.
- "I Can't Look!" Gesture: Parodied; Monk asks Julie to turn her back when he needs to blow his nose. She doesn't, so Natalie ends up covering Julie's eyes with her hand to placate her boss.
- I Have a Family: After being taken hostage by Dennison, Natalie begs him not to kill her, saying she has a daughter. He retorts that maybe she'll get to see her again if she cooperates.
- Incessant Music Madness: Julie buys Monk a get-well card that plays "Polly Wolly Doodle" on loop. It quickly drives Monk to distraction, especially because it won't stop playing.
- Interrogation by Vandalism: Stottlemeyer dips a suspect's tie into his food to freshen his memory. Then Randy quietly says that he was holding the chart upside down; they have the wrong table. Finally, after Stottlemeyer tries to make amends and walks away, Randy discovers he had the right table after all.
- Jumping-to-Conclusions Diagnosis: Monk immediately concludes he has a cold after sneezing once, which Stottlemeyer dismisses, saying it could be anything. Turns out he has the flu. He later comes to believe he has Ebola, but Natalie corrects him.
- Needle in a Stack of Needles: The best evidence they have against Dennison is a discarded pizza box, hidden among a large pile of trash in a recycling plant. Fortunately, Monk was able to find it thanks to the never-ending tune from Julie's card which was thrown together with the box.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Monk calling Natalie and going through The Summation over the phone, not knowing that it was actually Dennison on the other end. This alerts Dennison of Natalie's presence as well as tell him of the evidence that will implicate him.
- Oh, Crap!: Monk, when he realizes Dennison has been hearing him give his summation to Natalie.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: After spending most of the episode way off his game and distracted from everything by the flu, Monk overhears Dennison abduct Natalie while she's evidence-hunting. The miserable and germophobic detective gets off his sickbed, takes a backseat ride in a cab to the garbage dump where Dennison took her to find the incriminating evidence and attacks the killer with a full trash bag to protect her. Monk confronting at least three phobias (backseat, garbage, current illness) shows how intense the situation is.
- Red Herring: John DeLancy, who Judge Garr ruled against, is the police's initial suspect. He isn't the killer.
- Sick Episode: Monk comes down with the flu, and still has to solve the murder of the week and has a musical Get Well card that just won't stop. He also proves to be an Annoying Patient.
- Shout-Out: The name of the first person the police suspect (incorrectly) for the murder, John DeLancy, is a nod to the actor John de Lancie.
- Soup Is Medicine: While sick with the flu, Monk gets a bowl of alphabet soup. Being Monk, he takes the trouble to find each letter so he can eat them in alphabetical order.
- Working the Same Case: Stottlemeyer and Disher are roped into investigating the disappearance/murder of superior court judge Jillian Garr on a deputy commissioner's orders. While they're doing that, Monk is bedridden and Natalie is investigating the murder of a pizza delivery boy who was apparently attacked shortly after delivering a pizza to Monk's apartment. Natalie suspects that a guy named Reggie Dennison committed the murder. Upon carrying out an unauthorized search for evidence (due to the police being too busy to send a uniform over), she stumbles on evidence that shows Dennison was having an affair with the missing judge. It turns out Dennison had killed the judge in his bathroom with a baseball bat just as Julio showed up, and then killed Julio when he tried to intervene. He then took on Julio's uniform and made the pizza boy's next delivery, before ditching him, so that someone else would be the last person to see "Julio" alive and Dennison could divert attention from himself.
