Monk and Natalie's newly opened private eye business receives its first case in the new office when an attorney hires them to find out why her client, accused of murder, won't explain things to the police. While they're still working the first case, a second, more personal one pops up — a workplace shooting with a single survivor puts Lt. Devlin in the hot seat after the shooter somehow disappears under her nose. With two mysterious cases and some personal problems to handle, the emergent agency of Monk and Teeger will have its hands full.
This episode includes examples of the following tropes:
- All Love Is Unrequited: Monk becomes interested in the survivor of the shooting, Sarabeth Willow. She doesn't return the feelings and is already married, something she doesn't tell Monk until he meets her husband.
- Bad Liar: When Lt. Devlin questions Natalie keeping some information from Monk, Natalie points out that he's currently with the suspect they're staking out. She argues that he's a rotten liar and asks Devlin if she can imagine Monk being able to avoid letting something slip. Devlin reluctantly admits she can't.
- Call-Back: The Lucarellis from "Mr. Monk Meets the Godfather" end up being persons of interest in the Pickler case and "Fat Tony" turns out to have murdered the victim Henry Pickler was caught trying to bury.
- Cargo Ship: In-Universe. When he sees that Henry Pickler has a 1973 Jaguar XKE, Stottlemeyer pauses to take a good look, saying that he was more in love with these than with girls as a high-schooler.
- Celebrity Paradox: Natalie suggests her and Monk's client Henry Pickler is a secret drug cooker like Walter White. Several of the guest stars in various episodes of Monk also happened to appear in Breaking Bad: for example, a Marin County police detective in the episode "Mr. Monk and the Bad Girlfriend" is played by Christopher Cousins (Hendrix; Ted Beneke), the episode "Mr. Monk Goes to Jail" featured Danny Trejo (Spyder Rudner; Tortuga), the episode "Mr. Monk and the Garbage Strike" had a murder victim played by Michael Shamus Wiles (Jimmy Cusack; ASAC George Merkert), "Mr. Monk and the Big Reward" guest-starred DJ Qualls (Rufus; Detective Getz), "Mr. Monk Goes Camping" guest-starred Maurice Compte (Del Johnston; cartel buttonman Gaff), and others.
- Clear My Name: Subverted. Henry Pickler gets arrested when he's caught dragging a dead body into a lot by his house. The dead man is Esteban Rivera, a drug runner for Carlos Menendez, a cartel leader. Monk and Natalie are hired by Pickler's lawyer to find evidence that exonerates him. It turns out that Rivera was killed by Fat Tony Lucarelli and dumped in the lot, in sight of Menendez's girlfriend's house, as a message for Menendez. Through some private eye work, Monk and Natalie end up discovering that while Pickler is innocent of the Rivera killing, he was not a fully innocent man: when caught, he was actually about to bury Rivera's body in the vacant lot because he killed his wife months earlier and buried her in that lot, and he feared her remains would have been found by the investigation into Rivera's death. Not to mention he may have killed his parents and buried them there as well.
- Close to Home: Monk sympathizes with the widower of one of the victims who says that he needs to know why all this happened. Natalie's narration notes that Monk has a special empathy for husbands of murdered wives.
- Do Wrong, Right: A variant; when Monk lets Natalie know he's figured out that she and Lt. Devlin set up a stakeout without telling him, he advises his partner that when they next stake out somewhere, they should use a less obtrusive color and avoid illegal parking to minimize attention.
- Grand Romantic Gesture: Monk drives cross-country to apologize to Ellen and win her over. Natalie suspects that his chauffer considered this quite romantic and was therefore happy to help. It went badly for everyone.
- Hospitality for Heroes: Natalie mentions a local restaurant, Rassigio's, whose owner Monk helped out with some case offscreen. Since then, they're willing to do everything possible to cater to him, from putting out a fake rating card from the board of health to refusing to charge him when he eats there.
- Invented Individual: Monk quickly figures out that the shooter's name (Wyatt S. Noone) is an obvious phony, as a pun of "Wyatt is no one." Suspicion begins to rise that Sarabeth may have been assisting "Noone" since she was left alive. In the end, Monk discovers that "Wyatt Noone" never existed: the victims' boss refused to give them raises, so they decided to create a fictitious financial manager and split "his" paychecks to embezzle from their boss. One of them created the social security number and imitated "Noone" for paperwork and the phone calls, and they were so tight-lipped that they never even told their own family members, always claiming that "Wyatt" was absent for whatever reason or had resigned. They even added to the realism by having Mel pose as "Wyatt" by wearing a bald wig for a Christmas photo. But then Sarabeth's husband was stricken with terminal cancer, and being desperate for money, she demanded a bigger cut of the money they were embezzling so she could afford to pay for treatment. They didn't budge, so she killed her accomplices, and shot herself non-fatally to frame "Wyatt".
- Malicious Misnaming: The Lucarellis call Stottlemeyer "Captain Stumblebum".
- Once Done, Never Forgotten: Disher and Devlin both get raked across the coals for an incident in the book; Disher arrested the mayor for a murder he didn't commit, and Devlin seemingly let a triple-murderer escape from under her nose. Though Monk's investigation exonerates Devlin, she tells Natalie that she fears she can't escape this and is thinking of transferring. A phone call at the end informs Natalie that Disher is having similar thoughts.
- On the Rebound: Monk and Ellen Morse break up for good early in the book, and Monk immediately becomes smitten with the sole survivor of the shooting, Sarabeth. Natalie is initially relieved that her boss/friend hasn't entirely given up on romance, but then she realizes that this is probably a rebound relationship. Dr. Bell agrees when he hears about the "romance" from Natalie after Monk cancels a session.
- Ship Sinking: Monk and Ellen Morse suffer a nasty breakup. On the heels of all his inconsiderate behavior earlier in the series, Monk goes to New Jersey to smooth things over. While there, he investigates a murder and ends up figuring out that Ellen's brother was the killer. After that, she never wants to see Monk again.
- Shout-Out: "Fat Tony" Lucarelli does a mocking John Wayne impression when taunting Stottlemeyer.
