Mr. Monk and the Really, Really Dead Guy

This episode focused on a pair of murders that occurred on the same dreary night in San Francisco. However, the murders are quickly determined to be unrelated to one another, and the refocus of the investigation on the male victim, an innocent street performer, is demanded by the federal agents that are sent by Washington to investigate the crime. Why? Because it appears to be a serial murder case in the making, with the street performer's corpse being left with a note promising another, similarly brutal death in only 36 hours' time.

The federal agents on the case, led by the overzealous and cocky Agent Thorpe, rely on the newest technological devices to solve their crimes. Their over-emphasis on technology leads Adrian to seek his own way onto the World Wide Web. Watching him deal with a computer is hysterical, and when he takes control of Natalie's daughter's computer, a Dell laptop with a pink, floral design scheme on the back side, his quirky computer-related shenanigans simply increase in number.

It's hard to take an episode like this too seriously, and although Monk and his friends at the San Francisco Police Department are "put in their place" by the federal agents time and time again, it's our friends Monk, Stottlemeyer and Disher that get the last laugh when Monk solves the case, connecting both the murder of the street performer and the murder of the female victim whom they were initially investigating. The feds have no choice but to put their tails in between their legs as a result.

This episode of Monk didn't only prove that Adrian can outsmart even federal agents' high technology. It also proved that the series can remain fresh by throwing at us a hodgepodge of episodes that vary in seriousness, humor, character concentrations and storylines.