Randy's mother gets remarried to a much younger man, and they're honeymooning at a marriage retreat. Finding this strange enough to warrant investigation, Monk and Sharona go undercover as a married couple at the retreat, and find out that Mrs. Disher's new husband is hiding a dark secret.
This episode includes examples of the following tropes:
- Ambiguously Gay: At the start of the episode, Disher strongly hints that his main reason for believing the marriage to be a sham is that he thinks Dalton is a homosexual. While it's made clear several times that Dalton feels no attraction to Mrs. Disher, it's never clarified whether this is because he isn't attracted to women full stop, or because of her age and/or him not even bothering to put the effort into faking attraction seeing how he intends to kill her off or ditch her as soon as is convenient.
- Artistic License – History: Monk notices that one antique map in Dalton's store is probably a phony because of it featuring West Virginia, saying it became a state after the Civil War. West Virginia actually became a state in 1863, during the Civil War. That having been said, Monk's point - that a map which marks West Virginia as a separate state isn't a genuine 1845 map - is completely accurate.
- Artistic License – Physics: Gold melts at just under 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit, well above the temperature at which paper burns, so Monk's demonstration of where the gold was hidden (by burning a few journal pages to melt it out) is impossible. It's also very hard to dissolve except in certain concentrated acids, which would have destroyed any paper on which Skinner tried to write with his gold-infused ink.
- Badass Boast: The Sheriff gives Dalton one when he tries to come at him a hammer.Sheriff Matheson: Son, either drop your hammer. (Cocks his revolver) Or I drop mine.
- Bad "Bad Acting": Monk and Sharona act like a couple with bad marriage problems to get into a marriage therapy clinic (Monk being the cowardly mop salesman and Sharona being his alcoholic wife), and do such a terrible job of it that the couple's therapist is relieved to hear they aren't married.
- Bludgeoned to Death: Both Gully Watson and Raymond Toliver died the same way: hit violently on the head by their business partner and friend.
- Buried Alive: A variation; the antagonist causes a cave-in while Sharona and Monk are exploring in a cave on the property, blocking the cave entrance. They manage to escape (because they still had cell service), although the experience freaks Monk out.
- Celebrity Paradox: The episode guest-stars Nestor Carbonell as an antiques dealer scheming to locate a prospector's long-hidden stash of gold. In the novel Mr. Monk and the Dirty Cop, Natalie makes a reference to The Dark Knight at one point, a movie in which Nestor Carbonell plays Gotham City mayor Anthony Garcia.
- Drinking on Duty: Randy in the beginning. However, it becomes apparent that Randy doesn't usually do this, and had a pretty justifiable excuse for doing so, as he is shocked that his mother Maria has not only dated, but also married, Dalton Padron, a guy who is significantly younger than her, and she isn't even rich, but they are spending their honeymoon at a marriage counseling place. It is bizarre enough to hire Monk and Sharona to investigate and eventually get a fake marriage in order to do some sleuthing at the mansion.
- Extremely Protective Child: Randy kickstarts the plot by telling Monk and Sharona about his mother’s relationship with a younger man accelerating faster than normal. Once he arrives to arrest Dalton, he demands to know what happened to his mother.
- Fake Relationship: Monk and Sharona pretend to be a married couple to infiltrate a couple’s counselor retreat and spy on Dalton. Naturally, since they argue Like an Old Married Couple on a daily basis, the counselor is easily convinced they have marital problems.
- Foreshadowing: Joshua Skinner wrote 947 journals of nothing but nonsense. Dr. Waterford figures he had a mental condition that caused hypergraphia (compulsive writing). It turns out, there was a reason he had to use up all that ink.
- Gold Fever: Two murders, committed 125 years apart:Joshua Skinner: (in a letter) Funny thing about gold: the metal itself don't change much. Heat it up, melt it down, bury it in the ground, the gold itself never changes. It sure changes people, though.
[Skinner bludgeons his partner Gully to death with a shovel.]
(125 years later)
Raymond: He killed his partner over some gold. Can you believe that?
Dalton: (bludgeons Raymond to death) As a matter of fact, I can. - Greater-Scope Villain: Joshua Skinner, who murdered his mining partner and hid their stash of gold. By the time of the episode, he's already been dead for almost a century. This is driven home when Monk's summation isn't about the murder Padron committed, but rather how Skinner hid the gold.
- Handy Cuffs: Dalton Padron is able to grab the sheriff's gun because he was cuffed with his hands in front of him.
- Hidden in Plain Sight: "Where is the gold? The answer is in the journals." Skinner meant that literally, as he melted his gold, and turned it into ink and wrote in his journals.
- History Repeats: In 1849, prospector Joshua Skinner murdered his partner Gully Watson so that he could have all of the gold they'd found together. In 2004, Dalton Padron murders his partner Raymond Toliver after the latter showed him Joshua's letter confessing to the deed.
- Humble Hero: Randy, after saving the day, is genuinely embarrassed when his mother kisses him and calls him her hero.
- I Need a Freaking Drink: Monk and Sharona visit Randy at the police station late at night, and find he's already three-quarters in the bag:Sharona: Have you been drinking?
Randy: Yes, I have. I couldn't think of another way to get all this Scotch into my body. - Immediate Self-Contradiction: Played for Laughs. As Sharona and Monk prepare to leave at the end of the episode, the marriage counselor encourages them not to give up on their relationship. When they tell her that the marriage was fake, it greatly puts her mind at ease and she tells them not to get married.
- Karma Houdini: Joshua Skinner managed to get away with Gully Watson's murder.
- Kick the Dog: When Randy's mother tries to rekindle her relationship with Dalton by suggesting sex, he coldly rebuffs her, saying she's just "embarrassing herself". Poor thing cries her eyes out in the bathroom.
- Let's Get Dangerous!: Ditzy comic relief Randy gets deadly serious when his mother is in danger.Randy: (pointing his gun at Dalton) Where the Hell is my mother, you son of a bitch?!
- Love at First Sight: Maria Disher and Sheriff Mathis, after they are locked in the retreat's closet with the other guests.
- Never Trust a Title: Mr. Monk does not really get married, he and Sharona only pretend that they are already married.
- Obfuscating Insanity: Skinner wrote everything he could write into those journals, even if what he wrote sounded crazy and overly detailed, so he could use up as much gold ink in them as he could.
- Parental Sexuality Squick: Randy is uncomfortable when his mother says "Ronald" (Sheriff Mathis) is giving her a ride home, and even more uncomfortable when she says she will call her son "in the morning."
- Parents in Distress: Padron marries Mrs. Disher as a cover to get into the retreat. Unfortunately for him, her son becomes suspicious and calls in the force's greatest detective. Then he finds the body of Padron's partner. As Dalton tries to escape, he's met by a furious Randy, who demands to know where his mother is.
- Plot Allergy: When he returned from his prospecting, Joshua Skinner claimed Gully Watson died of a bee sting. Adrian points out that it was winter when he went missing, so it would be unlikely that bees would be out in the woods.
- Returning the Wedding Ring: Subverted. Monk loans Sharona Trudy's ring so they can act as a married couple; she returns it at the end, mentioning that she understands how much he trusted her to hold onto something so valuable to him.
- The Scrooge: Joshua's confession letter says of all the gold he collected, he only spent enough of it to build his house.
- Shovel Strike: Joshua Skinner killed his partner Gully this way.
- Take Me Instead: When Padron gets a gun, one of the husbands at the marriage retreat thinks he'll probably want to take a hostage to help with his escape and volunteers so Padron won't go after his wife. Padron doesn't accept, as his plan for escape involves locking everyone in a closet instead. It still improves the couple's problems, however.
- Tragic Keepsake: The ring Sharona is wearing for the fake marriage is Trudy’s ring.
- Unexpected Inheritance: According to the sheriff, the gold rightfully belonged to Gully Watson, so it'll be going to his descendants who, as he notes, will be in for "one pretty surprise."
- Who's on First?/Exact Words: "The answer isn't in the journals. The answer IS 'in the journals'!"
