Monk investigates a circus owner murdered by a strangely acrobatic killer with an elephant gun. Monk goes to the circus to dig further, but the situation quickly becomes complicated by the impossibility of the prime suspect, Natasha Lovara (his ex-wife and an acrobat...who has her leg in a cast), and Sharona's phobia of elephants.
This episode includes examples of the following tropes:
- Accidental Murder: Dede didn't mean to kill her trainer. She had the bad luck of Natasha taping a walkie-talkie to her ear and giving the command to stomp.
- Big Damn Heroes: Dede ends up saving Sharona when Natasha Lovara nearly runs her over in the climax. The elephant does this by running in front of Sharona, forcing Natasha to hit the brakes.
- Character Development: Monk starts out in the episode unsympathetic to Sharona's phobia. Later on, when Benjy asks something of his mother when she's clearly having a rough day, Monk off-handedly tells the boy to give her a break. This does not go unnoticed by Sharonna. While it doesn't earn much forgiveness for earlier, she admits it's his first step towards understanding empathy.
- Complexity Addiction: Natasha might have gotten away with the murder if she hadn't done the acrobatic stunts to craft an alibi.
- Crime After Crime: Natasha Lovara, a high-flying acrobat, fakes breaking her leg, then shoots and kills her ex-husband with an animal wrangler's revolver, doing some acrobatic stunts so that witnesses confirm the killer was an active acrobat. Then she goes back to the circus, where she has Dede, an elephant, crush her left leg, so that the police will confirm her left leg is useless when they request an x-ray. But Natasha is seen by Dede's trainer, who mentions having seen her, so she tapes a walkie-talkie behind one of Dede's ears, then from hiding, orders the elephant to crush her trainer's head while he is showing off some tricks to Monk and Sharona. Which means adding in an extra murder to get rid of a witness — a witness who explicitly told her he understood what she did and wasn't going to report it.
- Didn't Think This Through: Natasha taped a receiver to Dede to help orchestrate her second kill for the episode. She seems to forget that the murder in question would instantly label the elephant an accessory to the crime and be placed under 24-hour supervision from then on. Because of this she never got to remove the receiver.
- Disability Alibi: Natasha's story is that since she broke her foot two weeks prior to the murder, she couldn't be Sergei's killer. However, she faked the initial accident that broke her foot (she got away with not having a confirmatory x-ray then due to pleading a dislike of hospitals from her Romani heritage), killed Sergei, and then used Dede the elephant to break her foot for real.
- Driven by Envy: From what the other circus performers can tell, Natasha can't stand anyone being happier than her, especially not the victim, her ex-husband.
- Epiphany Therapy: Subverted twice. Monk in his attempt to show sympathy to Sharona tries to have her watch Dede perform a trick with her trainer to prove that elephants are harmless; this effort backfires due to Natasha ordering Dede to stomp on the trainer. Even after Dede saves her, Sharona pets her with nervousness. She makes peace with Dede, which is progress.
- Everyone Hates Mimes: An annoying clown follows the main characters around mimicking their actions, which causes them no end of irritation. When he continues doing it during the summation, Stottlemeyer finally snaps and arrests him, charging him with "impersonating an officer" when the mimic protests.
- Feud Episode: Sharona gets even more fed up with Monk than usual because he makes light of her pachydermophobia.
- Gory Discretion Shot: Dede crushing her trainer's head under Natasha's orders. We only hear the sound effect and Sharona's horrified reaction.
- Handicapped Badass: After Monk proves that they can charge her with the murder, Natasha manages to hoist herself, with a broken leg, into a jeep and nearly makes a getaway.
- Hypocrite: Sharona often goes to great lengths to be supportive of Monk's multiple phobias and appeal to his idiosyncrasies. Yet, when it comes to learning Sharona is afraid of elephants, he merely laughs it off and tells her to "suck it up".
- Ironic Echo: After he treats her phobia with an insensitive "Suck it up", Sharona spares Monk no passive aggressiveness whenever she throws those same words back at him.
- My Country Tis of Thee That I Sting: Monk determines horse trainer Ariana Dakkar is taking her US Citizen's exam soon because she is studying the US Constitution, something no American would do.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Monk brought Sharona to see Dede with her trainer so she would overcome her fear of elephants. His efforts are sadly negated when Natasha makes Dede stomp on her trainer, pushing Sharona deeper into her phobia.
- Obfuscating Disability: To murder her ex-husband, acrobat Natasha Lovara stages a fall at a circus to make it seem like she's broken her left foot. She claims to have a fear of hospitals, being Romani, so she sets her own plaster cast, and for two weeks, until the circus reaches San Francisco, she pretends that her left foot is broken. One night, she slips out of the cast, grabs the circus panther wrangler's revolver, and trails her ex-husband to a restaurant, wearing a ski mask to hide her face. Natasha then shoots her ex-husband there, but to make sure no one suspects her (since she supposedly had a "broken" foot at the time), she does several dramatic acrobatic moves for the witnesses' benefit before escaping. Since she's aware the police will consider her a primary suspect and want an x-ray, Natasha then returns to the circus and commands one of the elephants to crush her left leg, breaking it for real. Unfortunately, the elephant's trainer happens to wake up and see her, so she kills him by commanding the elephant to crush his head in the same way via radio while he's demonstrating for Monk and Sharona.
- Oh, Crap!: Natasha when Monk reveals they can get her fingerprints off the walkie-talkie batteries.
- Revealing Cover-Up: Natasha falls victim to two separate incidents. When she commits the murder, she does a number of acrobatic stunts to "prove" that she couldn't be the killer. (She had faked breaking her leg in a botched circus act earlier, and she got Dede to crush it afterwards to make sure that any x-rays would show her leg was broken.) One of the major reasons Monk suspects her is questioning why the killer needed to do those stunts, unless it was a coverup. Later, she kills Dede's trainer, who was a witness to things that could have linked her to the murder. The police place Dede under surveillance as an "accessory to the crime". This means she can't retrieve the receiver she used to give Dede the "foot down" command or wipe the batteries.
- Scream Discretion Shot: Elephant trainer Edgar Heinz demonstrates to Monk and Sharona how his elephant Dede can gently place its foot upon his head, on a stump. Unfortunately, Natasha Lovara has duct-taped a walkie-talkie to Dede's ear and gives the command for Dede to put the foot down. We hear the hideous crunch of Heinz's skull fracturing but cut to Sharona screaming in shock and Monk trying to calm her down instead of seeing the gore.
- We Want Our Jerk Back!: Throughout the story, Sharona wishes for Adrian to show a little empathy for her phobia. When he tells Benjy to give her a break, she's pleased that he's finally learning. After Natasha is arrested, Monk acts overly empathetic, annoying Sharona, who groans that she's created a monster.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Sharona calls out Monk for showing No Sympathy towards her phobia, given that she often has to show sympathy as part of her job.
- Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Sharona has a phobia of elephants, which Monk (strangely, given his own issues) doesn't handle well, just urging her to get over it. This drives a wedge between them for much of the episode.
