Monk becomes involved in a kidnapping case when law student Julie Parlo's grandmother is abducted from her house, with the evidence pointing to a seemingly-defunct anarchist group who make bizarre demands in exchange for Granny Parlo's return. Adrian is not originally interested, until Julie tells him that her mentor, a brilliant professor, has mentioned a legal loophole that could be used to get Monk back on the police force; she offers to trade the information for Monk's services, and he eagerly agrees, beginning to prepare for his reinstatement. Things take a turn for the strange when Granny Parlo is returned unharmed, and while Julie is thrilled, she still offers to help Monk if he can figure out why anyone would kidnap her grandmother. Can Monk get to the bottom of the case—and can he overcome his neuroses enough to rejoin the SFPD?
This episode includes examples of the following tropes:
- Acquired Situational Narcissism: Monk becomes extremely overconfident with his chances of passing the written test to rejoin the police, bragging that the questions are easy for him. He even goes so far as to have his old uniform cleaned and pressed so he can get right back to work. Somewhat justified, as Monk is a genius and has been on the force before.
- Affably Evil: The kidnappers treat Granny Parlo well and even give her pizza during her brief imprisonment. Justified in that they're not interested in her, but the chair she's sitting on. They have no reason to harm her and hope that her unexpected safe return will distract her granddaughter from pursuing the case.
- Alliterative Name: Julie's legal professor is named Eugene Emery.
- Always Murder: The first episode of the series to completely avert this trope. The storyline only deals with a theft and kidnapping, with no-one dying either in the episode or its backstory. At most, one of the perpetrators tries to make an attempt on Monk's life, but it fails.
- Blindfolded Vision: Monk invokes this trope when he, Sharona, and Granny Parlo recreate the route the kidnappers took—he realizes that even though Mrs. Parlo was blindfolded, her other senses likely picked up some clues. Sure enough, she remembers the scent of fresh bread (proving that the group passed a local bakery), a long pause followed by a creaking noise (Sharona connects this to a bridge that always opens at a particular time of day), the smell of cough drops (which Adrian connects to eucalyptus trees), and it raining at precisely 8:00 according to her watch's alarm (which turns out to be an automated sprinkler system).
- Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Played with. Julie Parlo and her friends really are terrible legal students, but they know enough about disability law to find a loophole that Monk can use to try to get back onto the force. It's also downplayed in that the only reason Julie knows this information is that one of her professors specializes in that kind of law.
- Deliberate Under-Performance: Stottlemeyer reasons that Monk's OCD triggering to such a massive scale while performing his reinstatement test is a result of him subconsciously not wanting back on the force through a loophole. He wants to prove he's truly worthy of the responsibility of being an officer and not simply "cheat" his way there.
- Didn't Think This Through: When Monk and Sharona meet Julie's study group, they notice some of the books read are in Spanish. One member of the group, Tom Burton, reveals that this is so he can take his bar exam in Peru, where all the questions are True/False. Adrian points out that that would mean he's only qualified to practice law in Peru. Tom realizes he hadn't thought that far ahead.
- Earn Your Happy Ending:
- Julie is at a rough patch in her life: her parents both died recently, she's going to law school despite hating law to honor their last wishes, and her only living relative is kidnapped while she's out jogging. By the end of the episode, though, her grandmother is safe and sound, the two have come into a fortune with the realization that they own a rocking chair originally used by Thomas Jefferson, and she's going to achieve her dream of opening a bakery thanks to the money they'll make from selling the chair.
- Subverted with Monk, who thinks he's a shoo-in to rejoin the police force...until his OCD kicks in during his written test, and he can't even get past the first question thanks to filling in a bubble "wrong."
- "Eureka!" Moment: Monk, having a bad reaction to failing his test to get back onto the force, locks himself in Stottlemeyer's office, using a chair with great sentimental value to the captain to bar the door. After observing Stottlemeyer's reaction, Monk realizes that the kidnappers' mysterious admonitions to each other to take care weren't referring to the kidnapping victim, but to the chair she was sitting in.
- Everybody Lives: No one is killed in this episode; there's just a kidnapping and a robbery, as well as an unsuccessful attempt on Monk's life.
- Frame-Up: The kidnappers try to make things look like the work of a radical group from the 70's.
- Groin Attack: Granny Parlo says that she should have stabbed her kidnapper "in his particulars". Multiple times.
- Hidden in Plain Sight: Mrs. Parlo's rocking chair, which she uses every day, is actually a priceless piece originally owned and used by Thomas Jefferson.
- Kidnapper's KFC: After Mrs. Parlo is rescued, she remarks that the criminals treated her remarkably well and even bought her pizza so she wouldn't go hungry. Monk uses this information to help locate the kidnappers' hideout by doing a Sherlock Scan for a house with recently discarded pizza boxes in the trash.
- The Oner: The initial crime scene investigation at the Parlo house is one continuous 89-second-long tracking shot that follows Stottlemeyer as he and Randy look at the lightning bolt spray painted on the wall, converse with the CSI phone tech who has set up the recorders, and converse with Julie Parlo as they walk through the house.
- Outliving One's Offspring: Julie's parents are both dead, but she has at least one living grandmother (likely paternal, since the last names match), so the grandmother has outlived at least one of her children.
- Plot Allergy: Randy has an allergy to cats, which makes things difficult as Mrs. Parlo owned one. This turns out to be the thing that keeps the thieves from getting away with their crime. They claim the chair belongs to them, which Monk and company can't disprove until Monk realizes that Randy wasn't showing signs of allergy when he was in their house. They claimed they had a cat, so Randy should have had symptoms. This raised the question as to why the thieves visited Mrs. Parlo's house involving a lost cat, which finally caused the police and Monk to check the "lost cat" poster... which happened to be a photograph of the chair with the cat on it.
- Raised by Grandparents: Downplayed; most of Julie's life was spent with her parents, but they died a few years ago and now she lives with her grandmother.
- Sherlock Scan: After arriving in the neighborhood where Granny Parlo ended up, Monk does one of these to find which house belongs to the kidnappers, pointing out a stack of pizza boxes in a trashcan (Mrs. Parlo was fed pizza while she was locked up) and a sprinkler system turning on (which Mrs. Parlo felt happen as she was led into the house).
- Smokescreen Crime: An old woman is kidnapped from her house by two members of a radical group (which Monk quickly determines is a frame-up) with the ransom being to serve a decent meal to the homeless. The woman is released unharmed after the ransom is paid, but Monk later realizes that the kidnapping was a cover-up to steal her antique chair which the kidnappers used to carry her out of her house.
- Supreme Chef: Julie is an exceptionally talented baker, and tells Monk that she's always wanted to open her own pastry shop. But her parents wanted her to be a lawyer, and after their deaths, she's trying to honor their wish by going to law school (even though she's awful at it). In the end, it's implied that Julie will get to open the bakery after all, as the sale of Thomas Jefferson's antique chair will provide the funds she needs to start it.
