History Recap / MonkS6E10MrMonkAndTheManWhoShotSantaClaus

* WorseWithContext: While talking about Christmas with Dr. Kroger, Monk says all of them were miserable before he met Trudy. As an example, he recounts one Christmas in which his mother and Ambrose spent most of the time shut away, and his father gave him a walkie-talkie. When Dr. Kroger says walkie-talkies can be fun and comments that he had a pair, Monk tells him that his father just gave him ''one'' walkie-talkie.

* BitchInSheepsClothing: Brandy plays up Michael Kenworthy's lovable qualities as a grandfather, a parole officer with a distinguished record, and a man who spontaneously decided to dress up as Santa and donate toys to a San Francisco crowd. He also masterminded a diamond heist with a crew of hardened criminals and bludgeoned a sweet old lady to death with his charity bell.

* GilliganCut: Stottlemeyer tells Brandy Barber to lay off of Monk. She crosses her arms indignantly, saying she's a professional journalist and not out to ''"make a monster"'' out of anyone. Cut immediately to her KentBrockmanNews report, painting a large target on a caricature of Santa Claus, and playing up Monk's history of mental illness.

* NeverTrustATitle: Mr. Monk and the man who shot "Santa" are not seperate individuals.

* BadSanta: It's even in the episode. Monk shoots a man dressed as Santa Claus — he claims self-defense, but he becomes a public pariah. As it turns out, the man in the Santa suit was acting as a diversion for a diamond heist. At the end of the episode, Monk refers to him several times as a "bad Santa."

* HollywoodLaw: Monk and the team are trying to investigate a crime scene while a crowd is jeering at Monk for his shooting and wounding of a man dressed in a Santa suit a few days earlier. At one point, someone throws an egg that hits Natalie. Stottlemeyer appropriately does get angry at the crowd and immediately has Monk and Natalie escorted away by officers for their protection. However, given the egging happened while Natalie was inside the crime scene perimeter, Stottlemeyer should also legally have had the authority to have the entire crowd arrested for interfering with a police investigation and possibly contaminating evidence. Perhaps he figured this was impractical, but the episode never raises that as a potential solution.
* ImmoralJournalist: Stottlemeyer describes Brandy Barber as "a vampire with a press pass." She confirms it, making the children cry for the camera by raising the possibility that Santa could die and purposely skewing Monk's explanatory interview to make him look bad. She's seemingly disappointed when she has to change her coverage to something complimentary after he solves the mystery.

* KentBrockmanNews: Brandy Barber. For one thing, most of her reports are emotionally charged rather than done rationally, and often has her skewing the story to humiliate the interviewee. Her story about Monk's shooting of a BadSanta with his own weapon in self-defense is rigged such that it portrays the incident as occurring without good reason rather than in self-defense. As a result, Monk and Natalie get harassed everywhere they go, but the city takes a HeelFaceTurn once Monk stops the diamond heist said BadSanta was trying to commit. It seems that pretty much everyone - except the police officers in the San Francisco Police Department - believes Barber's reports.

* SuddenlyAlwaysKnewThat: In previous episodes Monk is portrayed as being (at worst) fairly inept at fighting and (at best) able to hold his own in moments of desperation, typically just holding out long enough for backup to arrive. Here he soundly delivers a beatdown to the much larger BigBad, even when the latter pulls out a knife.

* SuddenlyAlwaysKnewThat: In previous episodes Monk is portrayed as being (at worst) fairly inept at fighting and (at best) able to hold his own in moments of desperation. Here he soundly wins a street brawl against the much larger BigBad to the point that it’s almost a CurbstompBattle, even when the latter pulls out a knife.

* WorseWithContext: While talking about Christmas with Dr. Kroger, Monk says all of them were miserable before he met Trudy. As an example, he recounts one Christmas in which his mother and Ambrose spent most of the time shut away, and his father gave him a walkie-talkie. When Dr. Kroger says walkie-talkies can be fun and comments that he had a pair, Monk tells him that his father just gave him ''one'' walkie-talkie.

* AmoralAttorney: Garrett Price is willing to do anything to get his client off, including asking him to lie about a bomb threat.

** When Monk is brought to the police station initially after the shooting, he brings Garrett Price, the lawyer he met in "[[Recap/MonkS3E13MrMonkGetsStuckInTraffic Mr. Monk Gets Stuck in Traffic]]", as his lawyer.
* ConvenienceStoreGiftShopping: Monk mentions that this trope was partially the reason why all of his Christmases were the worst barring those spent with Trudy, as in 1964, he received only one walkie-talkie from his father, to which his father knew was useless, but gave it to him anyways because Monk doesn't have any friends to play with anyway. Ironically, that memory is also what leads to Monk solving the case about what the Santa was doing the day he was forced to shoot him in self defense.
* DeadlyRinger: In order to ensure that one of the inside guys at the museum is on shift on a certain day, Michael uses his Santa outfit to look like he's collecting for charity, then bludgeons one of the museum's employees, Alice Dubois, to death.

* HollywoodLaw: Monk and the team are trying to investigate a crime scene while a crowd is jeering at Monk for his shooting and wounding of a man dressed in a Santa suit a few days earlier. At one point, someone throws an egg that hits Natalie. Stottlemeyer appropriately does get angry at the crowd and immediately has Monk and Natalie escorted away by officers for their protection. However, given the egging happened while Natalie was inside the crime scene perimeter, Stottlemeyer should also legally have had the authority to have the entire crowd arrested for interfering with a police investigation.

* VillainWithGoodPublicity: Kenworthy quickly becomes a martyr after Monk shoots him out of self-defense. He later loses his good publicity when he takes out a knife during a stand-off with Monk.

* DeadlyRinger: In order to ensure that one of the inside guys at the museum is on shift on a certain day, Michael uses his Santa outfit to look like he's collecting for charity, then bludgeons one of the museum's employees, Alice Dubois. to death.

* ImmoralJournalist: Stottlemeyer describes Brandy Barber as "a vampire with a press pass." She confirms it, purposely skewing Monk's explanatory interview to make him look bad and seeming disappointed when she has to change her coverage to something complimentary after he solves the mystery.

* ImmoralJournalist: Brandy Barber purposely skews Monk's explanatory interview to make him look bad, and seems disappointed when she has to change her coverage to something complimentary after he solves the mystery.

* HatedByAll: Monk gets this after he shoots a guy dressed as Santa due to Brandy Barber running a biased story making him out as a Grinch when he really shot the guy in self-defense.

* ZeroPercentApprovalRating: InUniverse, Monk gets this after he shoots a guy dressed as Santa due to Brandy Barber running a biased story making him out as a Grinch when he really shot the guy in self-defense.

* KentBrockmanNews: Brandy Barber. For one thing, most of her reports are emotionally charged rather than done rationally, and often has her skewing the story to humiliate the interviewee. Her story about Monk's shooting of a BadSanta with his own weapon in self-defense is rigged such that it portrays the incident as occurring without good reason rather than in self-defense. As a result, Monk and Natalie get harassed everywhere they go, but the city takes a HeelFaceTurn once Monk stops the diamond heist said BadSanta was trying to commit. It seems that pretty much everyone - except the police officers in the San Francisco Police Department - believes Barber's reports.

* BadSanta: It's even in the title. Monk shoots a man dressed as Santa Claus — he claims self-defense, but he becomes a public pariah. As it turns out, the man in the Santa suit was acting as a diversion for a diamond heist. At the end of the episode, Monk refers to him several times as a "bad Santa."