Directed by: Andre Belgrader
Written by: Joe Toplyn
Two San Francisco residents die soon after receiving voodoo dolls. Then Natalie gets one.
This episode contains examples of the following tropes:
- Accident, Not Murder: The first two victims really did die in freak accidents. Angeline made it look like they were victims of a voodoo curse to cover up her murder of her uncle.
- Chekhov's Gun: Once again, Natalie's surname getting misspelled is a clue to identifying the guilty party.
- Comically Missing the Point: Randy does not believe in voodoo. His reasoning? He's not superstitious because he's a Pisces.
- Gaslighting: The last voodoo doll was for scaring Monk off the case. It didn't work on him, but it did with Natalie, since the doll was made in her likeness.
- Hollywood Spelling: Averted. The doll the killer sends to Natalie has her name spelled "Natalie Teager". When Natalie notices the same spelling on Angeline Dilworth's chart, it tips her off that she's the killer.
- Hypocritical Humor:
- Randy says he's not superstitious because he's a Pisces.
- Natalie trolls Monk as he lectures her about rational thought over superstitions at the end by twice claiming he missed one of the parking meters he touches during their walk.
- Inheritance Murder: Why Angeline killed Robert Boyd, as he was her uncle and owned a cell phone company.
- Lack of Empathy: Monk is definitely not a superstitious person. So naturally, he shows no empathy for Natalie's belief in voodoo.
- My Greatest Failure: Midway through the episode, Natalie confesses to Monk why she believes in voodoo. Right before Mitch's last mission, she got a superstitious warning, which she passed off. When Mitch died soon afterwards, it convinced her that this kind of thing existed and that she had failed to protect her husband.
- Not My Driver: When Natalie needs an ambulance.
- Properly Paranoid: Natalie has every right to be afraid she'll be decapitated when she gets the same voodoo doll as the previous "voodoo" victims.
- Serial Killings, Specific Target: An inverted example. It appears someone is killing people by cursing them with voodoo dolls meant to kill in freak accidents. As it turns out, only the third victim was murdered. The other two were killed in accidents, and the dolls were planted in their homes after the fact by the killer, who snuck postmarked boxes with the dolls into the houses of people who had died in freak accidents - which she knew about because she was a paramedic on the scene of their deaths.
- Shout-Out: There's one to The Exorcist when Reverend Jurgensen arrives at Natalie's house.
- Spot the Thread: Monk figures something is wrong with Robert Boyd's death when a good luck horseshoe at the scene is hung upside down, which wouldn't make sense if Robert was as superstitious as Angeline claims he was.
- Too Dumb to Live: Ralph Farris, the second person to die in the episode. He was killed because he was playing golf even during a storm and thus was struck by lightning. Stottlemeyer even called the guy a jerk and said he proved Darwin's theory correct.
- Voodoo Doll: A connection intentionally made between the cases to hide the fact that the third was a murder. The other deaths were accidents, and the dolls were placed after deaths.
