TVSquad

(S05E06) I think it's fairly easy to tell a person's high school or college experience by how excited (or not excited) they become when it comes time for a class reunion. I know my response to people asking if I was going to attend my ten year high school reunion was pretty much "hell no." My school experience was decent enough, but Adrian Monk's wasn't so great. In this episode he returns to Berkeley for his college reunion, after receiving an invitation addressed to "Captain Cool." We later find out he received that particular nickname not because he was popular, but because he defrosted the dorm refrigerator every weekend.

Before all that, of course, we get the obligatory Monk opening murder. A man, his face more or less obscured, pushes an old woman down a flight of stairs, and then breaks a beaded necklace to make it look as if she slipped and fell by accident. Disher and Stottlemeyer investigate, and Disher falls for the ruse, but Stottlemeyer points out that there are a lot of gaps Disher himself didn't notice. He turns it into a homicide investigation, which is good because otherwise the episode would only be five minutes long.

At his reunion, nobody really remembers Monk, but they all remember his girlfriend, and later deceased wife, Trudy. There's a very funny and very bittersweet moment when Monk is talking with a classmate (Reginald VelJohnson, aka "Carl Winslow" from Family Matters) whose wife has also passed away. Monk insists that, "all we can do is live our lives alone in quiet desperation," which is when the man excuses himself to go be with his second wife and family.

Monk also shows Natalie his old dorm, which has a tie on the door. Anyone who went to college knows exactly what that means, but Monk was always under the impression it meant his roommate was rearranging his closet. In fact, he rearranged it almost four or five times a week.

Meanwhile, Stottlemeyer and Disher are still investigating the murder, but their first lead turns out to be a dead end. Disher gives a list of reasons why that particular suspect isn't the one they're after, the second reason being he died a long time ago. Stottlemeyer points out that was really the only reason he had to give.

As it turns out, the husband of one of Monk's classmates, a woman named Dianne, is the one who murdered the college nurse in the beginning of the episode. His wife has a lot of money, and he figures out a way he can kill her and make it look like a suicide. He tries to recreate moments from a suicide note she wrote in college so it will match what she wrote twenty-five years ago. This is yet another one of those convoluted Monk-type things, which isn't a slight against the show at all. If anything, I love that the show itself is just as quirky and eccentric as its protagonist.

Some moments I liked:

Dianne's husband (the murderer) insists they play touch football so he can trick his wife into breaking a pane of glass, something she wrote about in her suicide note. When he tries to explain a football play, Monk explains that if what he's saying is actually to scale, he's going to end up in the shrubs. I'm assuming football players aren't usually that literal minded.

While Stottlemeyer is on stage asking for help with the investigation, pictures of him breaking up and "No Nukes" rally appear on the screen, and he's booed off the stage. He insists their permit expired at noon.

Best line: (Monk looks at his old freezer, which is full of frost) I'm going to need a spatula, a pan, and a Bible.