Monk is called to the death scene of former actress Susan Malloy, who was apparently stabbed to death while her ex-husband, Crime Lab: SF actor Brad Terry, was being interviewed on the front lawn. As he delves deeper into the case, Monk becomes more and more suspicious about the TV star, but how can he prove his case when Malloy was killed after Terry left the house?
This episode includes examples of the following tropes:
- Abnormal Ammo: When Monk, Sharona, Stottlemeyer and Disher walk into the dubbing studio to arrest star/executive producer Brad Terry for murder, he's in the middle of doing dubbing work for an episode in which a corrupt senator apparently shoots and kills a hooker and covers his tracks with bullets made of his own frozen blood.
- Amicable Exes: Brad and Susan seem to be on relatively good terms despite their divorce. But, as it turns out, Brad's show Crime Lab SF is about to go into syndication and since he was still married to Susan when the show first began airing, she's entitled to half of the syndication money. Since Brad doesn't like that, he stabs her while she's doing her yoga workout and makes it seem like she was stabbed by a deranged fan while he was outside talking to paparazzi.
- Chekhov's Gun:
- Monk sees Terry hooked up to a heart rate monitor during an exercise session and his heart rate did not change as he lied to a worker about her script. Monk brings it up later as evidence he could have beaten the polygraph.
- During the investigation, it comes up that Marci has seen Frat Party Massacre multiple times. Monk ultimately realizes that was how she knew Brad was guilty; Susan's "death scream" sounded identical to her scream in the movie.
- Close to Home: Subverted; when the evidence seems to say Terry is innocent, Monk thinks that he was projecting his own resentment over a popular classmate who snubbed him onto the guy. It turns out Monk was right.
- The Dissenter Is Always Right: An actress is murdered in her own home, and Monk suspects that the murderer was her ex-husband who is also a famous TV star. All of the remaining main characters disagree with Monk, partly because the actor was outside being photographed by papparazzi when the murder was occurring, but mostly because they're starstruck with him and get to go to cast parties and hang out with him on a TV set if they don't accuse him of murder. Monk momentarily changes his view after another suspect has confessed to the crime and after the actor passes a polygraph test and partly due to being peer-pressured by the other characters, but goes back to his original theory when he realizes the man is a sociopath who could easily beat a polygraph. In the end, Monk manages to prove that the actor committed the crime, and his friends very quickly turn against the actor as they go to arrest him.
- Divorce Assets Conflict: Popular crime show actor Brad Terry is divorced from his former wife Susan Malloy, but still owes her money because of the marriage. He sets up an elaborate scheme to kill the wife while providing him a perfect alibi, as his show is about to be syndicated, and he doesn't want to split the profits.
- False Confession: Marci confesses to the murder of Susan Malloy because she recognizes her alleged death screams from an old slasher movie she was in, a big hint that Brad is guilty.
- Fingertip Drug Analysis: Brad's character tastes some of the cocaine found on a criminal in an episode he's filming.
- Friendless Background: During the episode, Monk looks at his yearbook. The only signature is his mom's.
- Gag Echo: While he's acting as a police consultant on Crime Lab: SF, Stottlemeyer walks an actress through the correct procedure for putting handcuffs on, and tells her that the character she's dealing with is a bad guy and she shouldn't be hesitant to slap him around a bit. He and Randy repeat the same routine when they arrest Terry.
- Loony Fan: Marci Maven. She's apparently stalked Brad Terry for some time and even falsely confesses to Susan Malloy's murder in an attempt to "protect" him. She switches her attentions to Monk after he cracks the case and shows up at his apartment in the middle of the night to gush over him and request that he never change the theme song of his series (if he ever gets one).
- Media Scrum: Brad Terry exploits this trope when he stabs and kills his ex-wife Susan Malloy. He deliberately gets "drunk" and stages a fight with a bartender so that the paparazzi will follow him everywhere, even camping out outside Susan's house. By editing Susan's yoga tape, he is able to make it look like she was killed while he was talking on the driveway to the paparazzi, when in reality the supposed "death scream" was coming from the TV screen and Brad was actually going into the house to stab Susan when he appeared to be entering the house to "save" her.
- Opinion Flip Flop: Sharona agrees with Marci Maven about the new theme song being bad until she hears Brad say he likes it, at which point she agrees with him.
- Playing Drunk: Brad Terry picks a fight while pretending to be drunk so as to attract paparazzi attention, which then gives him an alibi so he can stab and kill his ex-wife Susan Malloy and make it seem like the murder happened seconds before it really did. Monk is suspicious, and his suspicions increase when he sees the check Terry wrote to the bartender — it was neatly written and exactly on the lines, not something a drunk person would typically be able to do.
- Recorded Audio Alibi: Actor Brad Terry uses an old recording of his ex-wife screaming in a horror movie she had appeared in to make it seem like he was being interviewed by paparazzi at the exact moment she was being attacked.
- Rescue Romance: Because Monk cleared her of all charges, Marci becomes obsessed with him.
- Snub by Omission: Terry invites Sharona, Stottlemeyer, and Disher to the 100th-episode party but not Monk. The next therapy session, Monk tells Dr. Kroger this happened in sixth grade when he was the only one not invited to a classmate's birthday party. To add insult to injury, it turns out Dr. Kroger was also invited to that party.
- The Sociopath: Monk gets a red flag that Brad Terry is one when he notices him lying about how great someone's script is whilst his steady heart rate is measured on a treadmill, then admits to someone else how he hates the script.
- Take That!: The episode is a potshot against "modern" detective shows like CSI that use "science" to solve mysteries as opposed to traditional observational skills by showing that the "science" is fake as it comes in the form of ridiculously unreal instruments, like spectroscopes being used to find fibers (leading Sharona to boast that Monk solved the case without such a tool when they are arresting the lead star). Notably, the "frozen blood bullet" murder method used as an example of how ridiculous Crime Lab: SF is, isn't much more ridiculous than an actual murder method from an episode of CSI which aired 2 years prior to this episode, where the bullet was frozen meat. Also, when watching the taping at one studio set, Monk calls out a geographic mistake in the characters' conversation.
- This Is Gonna Suck: When Monk tries to gently break it to Sharona he's found evidence to prove Brad Terry's guilt, she figures out in a defeated tone: "He did it, didn't he?"
- Who Would Want to Watch Us?:
- After Brad Terry is arrested, Marci begins idolizing Monk instead, even gushing that he should get a TV show based on him. She then immediately makes him promise he will never change said show's theme song (a complaint she used against the previous actor she was obsessed with). At the start of Season 2, Monk had changed its theme song to one that fans didn't quite like as much; the original was played over the end credits as a Self-Deprecation.
- And it wasn't the first time the show had changed theme songs. Episodes 1 and 2 used the very theme song that would be used from season 2 onwards (as an opening theme song, the other song being used for close). Both songs gave Monk a Best Theme Song Emmy two times, one per each song, a feat shared by no other show.
