Recap / Monk S2E5 "Mr. Monk and the Very, Very Old Man"

Karen Stottlemeyer comes to her husband with a request — investigate the death of Miles Holling, the oldest man in the world. Though natural causes seem like the most likely explanation, Monk realizes that Miles was indeed murdered, prompting questions as to why anyone would kill a 115-year-old man. Stottlemeyer and Monk dig deeper into the mystery, while Stottlemeyer grapples with his problems about an old case and his marital difficulties with Karen.

This episode includes examples of the following tropes:

• Actor Allusion: Kurt Fuller plays the deputy mayor of Malden in this episode. It's not the first time.
• Adopted to the House: Monk lets Stottlemeyer stay at his house after Karen throws him out because Stottlemeyer helped him after Trudy died. Unfortunately, they quickly drive each other crazy.
• Alliterative Name: Miles's son, Hiram Holling.
• Bad Liar: When Karen drops in at the station, Stottlemeyer hurriedly sets up the dreamcatcher and the waterfall-style fountain she gave him in his office; lacking any water to fill it, he pours coffee into it, describing it to her as a "coffee-fall".
• Bavarian Fire Drill: It's implied that Karen Stottlemeyer did this after realizing that Holling was murdered — she announced it was a murder and demanded that the nursing home lock down until the cops arrived. As Leland points out, Karen had absolutely no authority to do so, but used her position as the captain's wife and her own forceful personality to convince the facility's staff that the order was legit.
• The Bet: Back when the time capsule was first buried, Holling made a friendly bet with the mayor so that they would reopen it if he was still living 5 years later. This bet is later revealed as the motive for Holling's murder so he wouldn't reach that milestone.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: At the retirement home, a nurse learns that she'll have to work extra shifts for Miles's birthday bash the next day, and complains that she'd already made plans with her family for the afternoon. Her fellow nurse jokes that maybe she'll get lucky and Miles won't wake up.
• Cannot Keep a Secret: The detail that always bothered Stottlemeyer about the Leveroni hit-and-run case was that no one ever confessed, not even to a friend or family member:
  Stottlemeyer: I mean, how can you live with yourself? You've gotta tell someone...
  Monk: The urge to confess.
  Stottlemeyer: It's the cop's best friend.
• Chekhov's Gun: When Monk and Stottlemeyer enter George Rowe's house, they discover that he kept three large snakes, two of which have escaped. Stottlemeyer recaptures one, but they never find the other (prompting Monk to hide in the car for the rest of the search). Later, Monk is able to prove that Dennis Gammill is the murderer by spotting a snakebite on his wrist, proving that he was recently in Rowe's home.
• Compliment Backfire: Stottlemeyer calls Monk to look at Miles Holling's room, as a way of proving to Karen that he is taking her suspicions seriously. This backfires when Monk concludes that she is right, Holling was murdered.
• Continuity Snarl: Darren Leveroni's tombstone reads that he lived from 1980 to 1997. Makes sense, considering he was 17 when he died. However, Dennis' confession letter states that he hit Darren on December 2nd, 1998.
• Cool Old Guy:
  • Miles Holling, the world's oldest man, proves remarkably spry and cheerful for his age of 115 years. He's still mobile, active with his hobbies, and enjoys cracking jokes with other people. He also shrugs off the death threats that his murderer-to-be sends, throwing a wrench in the killer's Fright Deathtrap plans. Miles even puts up a fight against that murderer; it doesn't do much good (largely because the killer is at least sixty years younger than him), but points for trying.
  • Miles's son, himself in his 80s, also fits this trope when he remarks that, after the cops track down his father's killer, he wants five minutes alone in the room with the criminal.
• The Cuckoolander Was Right: Karen Stottlemeyer is depicted as an artsy New-Age Retro Hippie with a focus on crystals, Bikram yoga, and other Granola Girl traits. Leland dismisses her "hunch" about Miles's murder as a lark, and fully expects Monk to agree with him—but of course Karen is correct. It's downplayed in that Karen doesn't just use her intuition to pursue the investigation: she notices several inconsistencies with the crime scene and uses those to ask Leland to look into it.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Bless him, Miles tries to fight off his killer, but considering the killer is 65^* Kurt Fuller was 49 years old when the episode was in production years his junior, the fight isn't even close.
• Crime After Crime: Dennis Gammill accidentally killed an innocent teenager in a drunken hit and run years before the plot happened and covered it up. Unable to resist confessing somehow, he wrote a letter detailing his guilt and put it in a time capsule, which was supposed to be opened again sooner than expected if Miles Holling were to live five more years. The politician eventually killed a security guard to get into the nursing home and kill Holling. He goes down for triple homicide in an attempt to cover up his single hit and run.
• A Day in the Limelight: This is the first episode to focus on Karen Stottlemeyer, Leland's wife. She's the first to determine that Miles Holling was murdered, and her documentary about him provides a vital clue to solving not only Holling's murder, but a five-year-old cold case as well.
• Deceased Parents Are the Best: The victim's octogenarian son may not be a "baby boy" anymore, but the way he speaks highly of the victim, one can feel they shared a special bond as father and son, a bond that's had 80 years to mature with age.
• Description Cut: When Randy tries to distract Karen by showing off his pistol, she informs him she Doesn't Like Guns and has successfully convinced her husband that he doesn't need to carry one. Cut to Stottlemeyer in his office, hurriedly removing his holster and locking it in a drawer, then tossing a stuffed duck behind the bookcase.
• Did I Just Say That Out Loud?: Stottlemeyer, looking over a crime scene: "Monk, don't touch anything, this isn't our house... Jesus, did I just say 'our' house?"
• Did You Think I Can't Feel?: A mild example with Stottlemeyer. While he normally shows nothing but respect for Monk's amazing detective skills, he confesses to Disher that they sometimes make him feel inadequate. Stottlemeyer is still clearly grateful to Monk for his genius and values him both as a colleague and friend, but the fact that Adrian is always right and capable of incredible feats leaves Stottlemeyer questioning his own worth.
• Died on Their Birthday: Miles Holling is murdered only a few hours before his 115th birthday, which was supposed to be a grand party for the oldest man in the world.
• Doesn't Like Guns: Karen, which is why Stottlemeyer hurriedly hides his own sidearm, and the stuffed duck in his office, when she drops by to visit him.
• Do Not Go Gentle: Upon noticing that the security guard in his room isn't the usual one, Miles immediately realizes that something is wrong and starts calling for help, despite the man being sixty years his junior. When the murderer grabs him, Miles fights back as best he can and spits insults at the killer until he's smothered.
• Drunk Driver: Dennis Gammill drove drunk one night, and ended up killing a 17 year old boy.
• Fright Deathtrap: The Scared Stiff variant, in an attempt to kill the oldest man in the world. It didn't work, so the intended victim got smothered with a pillow instead.
• Heroic BSoD: Leland has a cold case about a high school valedictorian killed in a hit-and-run, which, combined with Monk's greater skill as a detective, left him frequently despondent. The fact that he was having marital problems that led him to live with Monk for a short time didn't help matters.
• He's Back!: Stottlemeyer has his "Eureka!" Moment while watching Karen's documentary:
  Stottlemeyer: Monk, I'm going to say something I've wanted to say for a long time.
  Monk: What is it?
  Stottlemeyer: I just solved the case.
• Hidden Depths: Karen Stottlemeyer, ostensibly a hippie filmmaker, turns out to have a touch of detective in her as she pulls off a successful Sherlock Scan to pick up on a few discrepancies indicating that Holling was murdered.
• I Always Wanted to Say That: When Stottlemeyer has his "Eureka!" Moment, he turns to Monk and announces, "I'm about to say something to you that I've wanted to say for years...I just solved the case."
• I Have No Son!: A non-familial variant. The Mayor sees his staff as family, but when he learns that, aside from killing George Rowe and Miles Holling, Dennis Gammill ran over a boy while driving under the influence, he is not pleased, to say the least. Gammill desperately pleads that the Mayor knows him, but the Mayor coldly replies "I don't know you at all..."
• Lap Pillow: Stottlemeyer questions why Monk insists on leaving the coffee table crooked when everything else in the house is perfectly neat and orderly. The end of the episode reveals that Trudy would sometimes pull one end of the table toward the couch to put her feet up on it so Monk could rest his head on her lap.
• Like an Old Married Couple: Monk and Stottlemeyer get this way after only two days of living together. In one instance, they get into an argument about when Leland will be home for dinner, while onlookers Randy and Sharona giggle.
• Long List: It's already been established that Monk is afraid of many things, but this episode establishes the hierarchy of his phobias, including the useful fact that higher-ranking fears "trump" lower-ranking ones:
  Stottlemeyer: I thought you were afraid of heights.
  Monk: Snakes trump heights. It goes, germs, needles, milk, death, snakes, crowds, heights, mushrooms, elevators...
  Stottlemeyer: Okay, okay, I don't need the entire list.
• Meaningful Background Event: Stottlemeyer ends up solving the case when he notices Dennis Gammill's horror at the mayor offering to dig up the time capsule early so Holling could add more to his autobiography.
• Meaningful Echo: While Stottlemeyer is discussing a cold hit-and-run case, he mentions his disappointment that nobody confessed to it, calling the urge to tell someone about wrongdoing "the cop's best friend." It turns out that the two more recent murders happened because the hit-and-run culprit put an incriminating document in the time capsule. When Stottlemeyer finally reads the killer's confession:
  Stottlemeyer: The urge to confess.
  Monk: It's the cop's best friend.
• Mugged for Disguise: Murdered for disguise. Deputy Mayor Dennis Gammill poses as a guard to kill the oldest man in the world. To gain access to the man, he killed one of the nursing center's real guards to steal his security pass and uniform.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Played With. Gamill was racked enough with guilt over killing Darren that he wrote a confession letter and joined Alcoholics Anonymous shortly after. However, that guilt wasn't enough to lead him to confess to the actual authorities, and it certainly wasn't enough to stop him from killing two other innocent people to cover it up.
• Never One Murder: Dennis Gammill kills a seventeen-year-old boy in a hit and run, then, five years later, murders both the world's oldest man and a security guard at his nursing home to ensure the first crime remains undiscovered.
• Not The Illness That Killed Them: A variation happens in which everybody believes Miles died from natural causes because he was so old. Only Karen believes something wasn't right with his death, which turns out to be murder.
• No Warrant? No Problem!: Monk and Stottlemeyer show up at George Rowe's house, following a lead in the death of Miles Holling. Stottlemeyer sees a messy room through the window, and suggests there could have been a fight. Monk briefly challenges Stottlemeyer on whether that qualifies as probable cause to enter without a warrant, then they enter.
• Oh, Crap!: Karen's documentary of Miles' life includes a recording of the day the time capsule was buried. When the mayor makes his (at the time semi-joking) proposal that if Miles lives five more years he will unbury the capsule, Gammill (who is standing behind them) very visibly reacts in shock. This ends up becoming a major clue for Stottlemeyer.
• Out of Focus: Both Sharona and Disher spend less time on screen than usual; Sharona is only in three scenes and gets fewer lines than normal, too. It's justified in that the episode focuses on Stottlemeyer and Monk's relationship, so naturally those two get the lion's share of screen time.
• Poor Communication Kills: Both Monk and Stottlemeyer drive each other crazy while living together, but refuse to tell the other for fear of hurting the other's feelings. Monk talks to Sharona about the issue while Stottlemeyer talks to Disher, but they refuse to talk to each other, which would have cleared things up quickly.
• Rage Breaking Point: Stottlemeyer reaches his after Adrian starts vacuuming his rug right after Stottlemeyer just finished vacuuming, explaining that while Stottlemeyer vacuumed in a way that leaves diagonal lines in the carpet, Adrian prefers to make a grid with the lines. Leland blows his stack:
  Stottlemeyer: [Yanks the vacuum's plug from the wall] You win. I give up.
  Adrian: Excuse me?
  Stottlemeyer: You know what I'm gonna do? First thing in the morning, I'm gonna call the Vatican, and I'm gonna nominate your late wife Trudy for Sainthood, because you are impossible!
  Adrian: The lines. They're all...diagonal. I have to LIVE here!
  Stottlemeyer: FORGET ABOUT THE RUG! THIS! IS NOT! ABOUT! THE RUG! Do you know what you are?! Do you know what you are?! You're the world's BEST marriage counselor! You could save every marriage in California! All people have to do is live with you for two days! TWO DAYS, and they'd never complain about their spouse again!
  [Stottlemeyer starts packing his bag]
  Adrian: What are- what are you doing?
  Stottlemeyer: I am going home! I'm gonna beg Karen to take me back. I am going to beg her to take me back, I am going to tell her I am a different man, and I will not be lying!
• Revealing Cover Up: Dennis Gammill murders two people for fear that his letter confessing to an accidental killing from five years ago would be revealed when the time capsule was dug up so that the world's oldest man could add a new chapter to his autobiography. The murder investigation leads to the letter being dug up, and now he has two more murder charges to face. Had he done nothing, he probably would have been fine, because the odds of them going through every letter and reading them all were fairly slim, considering that everyone who wrote their letter was still alive and they had no reason to open them.
• Screw the Rules, I Make Them!: The cops were able to determine that the hit-and-run case from five years ago was caused by a driver in a sky-blue Oldsmobile, and requested a list of all of the drivers who owned cars that matched that description. Deputy Mayor Dennis Gammill's office personally oversaw this request...largely so Gammill could leave his own car off the list and protect himself from being found out.
• Sherlock Scan:
  • Karen quickly figures out that something's wrong upon seeing the death scene; Holling was found lying on his bed with a book on his chest, but he didn't lie down to sleep and his eyesight was so poor he couldn't read.
  • As is par for the course, Monk does this at the first murder scene: Holling, a one hundred- and fifteen-year-old man, left his walker in the middle of the room but was found on the bed, and he clearly couldn't walk that distance unassisted. Then, the blinds in the room were pulled down, but Holling was too short to reach the pull cord for one of the windows and preferred the blinds be left up at all times. Furthermore, Monk determines that George Rowe was killed by a stranger because the murderer broken three panels in the front door—they didn't know where the lock was and had to try multiple times.
• Soundtrack Dissonance: The world's oldest man is suffocated with a pillow....while a gramophone plays an inappropriately upbeat piano piece in the background.
• Spotting the Thread: Karen Stottlemeyer goes to see Miles Holling's room after he died and notices some problems: Miles was found lying on his mattress, but he slept sitting upright in a chair for fear of being unable to get out of bed, and had a book on his chest, but was nearly blind and couldn't read any more. These flaws, plus her own intuition, lead her to realize Miles was murdered and call in Leland to investigate.
• Stylistic Suck: Karen's documentary on Miles is incredibly artsy and overblown, with Monk and Stottlemeyer clearly struggling to sit through it. When Leland rewinds it after realizing what the murder was really about, Adrian initially complains since they were so close to the end of it.
• Tempting Fate: At the beginning of the episode, a nurse learns that she'll have to work extra shifts at the nursing home to provide additional staff for Miles Holling's 115th birthday party and gripes about it. Another nurse jokingly remarks "Maybe you'll get lucky and he won't wake up"—naturally, a minute later, Holling is murdered. Ouch.
• That One Case: Early in the episode, Stottlemeyer's is dispirited over the death of a high school valedictorian killed in a hit-and-run five years earlier. That case is later revealed to be related to Holling's death, and Leland finally gets closure after Monk exposes the culprit.
• Tranquil Fury: Stottlemeyer, after Monk proves Karen was right, speaks calmly into his cell phone: "Sweetheart, I'm gonna strangle Monk, and then I'll call you right back."
• Tuckerization: Dennis Gammill gets his last name from Tom Gammill, one half of a writing duo he has with Max Pross that tend to work on the show.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: When the time capsule was first buried, the mayor invited Miles Holling to write his memoir as a contribution. During the burial ceremony, the mayor (apparently off the cuff) made a joking wager with Holling, saying that if Holling lived another five years, he'd order the capsule to be dug up so Holling could add a new chapter to his book. It eventually led to both Holling's murder and George Rowe's.
• Vorpal Pillow: Miles ultimately spends his last minutes as a 114 year old man being smothered to death this way.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Monk sees a murdered man's terrarium, labeled with the names of his three snakes: Larry, Moe, and Curly. Then he counts only two snakes in the tank and leaps up onto the table in fear.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Monk knows he's the better detective, but he also knows that Stottlemeyer doesn't give himself nearly enough credit.
  Monk: So what do you think?
  Stottlemeyer: Well, why ask me? My hippie wife's a better cop than I am.
  Monk: Don't say that.
  Stottlemeyer: Look, I don't mind living in your shadow, Monk, you're a freak of nature...
  Monk: Thank you.
  Stottlemeyer: But when Karen starts seeing things that I miss, I might as well just hang it up.