Recap / Monk S3E3 "Mr. Monk and the Blackout"

A power station bombing takes out all electricity to San Francisco and sets Monk on the tail of a 90s terrorist called Winston Brenner, despite the fact that the man has been dead for years. Simultaneously, Monk tries to take on an even scarier challenge — dating.

This episode includes examples of the following tropes:

• Accidental Murder: Brenner ends up causing the death of three hospital patients during the first blackout.
• Absurdly Long Stairway: Monk makes a reservation for himself and Ms. Rivas at Bianca's, a fancy restaurant that happens to sit on the top floor of a 52-story skyscraper. Things go poorly when the phobic Monk declines to take the elevator. Not only do they exhaust themselves, but also Bianca's gives away their table in the meantime. The incensed Ms. Rivas insists on taking the elevator on the way down.
• Always Murder: The central plot is about a city blackout, yet it does become a murder case halfway through when the culprit behind the blackouts also murders his Secret-Keeper.
• Artistic License – Physics: In reality, Monk would probably have been blinded if he was still wearing the night-vision goggles when the power came back on. At the very least, he would have known immediately that the lights were back on.
• Chekhov's Gun: After her date with Monk ends in failure, Ms. Rivas mentions another, even more disastrous, date when she went with her co-worker Gene Edelson to go line dancing. It turns out that Edelson went to a country music concert which turns out to be the same concert that keeps getting blacked out and watching a recording confirms for Monk that Edelson is really Brenner.
• Cut Phone Lines: In addition to blacking out Monk's apartment, Brenner also cut the wires to the phone. Fortunately, the police still manage to arrive in time.
• Didn't Think This Through: Brenner cuts the lights to Monk's house, ready to kill him and whoever else was inside...but he didn't have any means to see in the dark (while Monk could). The police burst in and the power gets back on, leaving Brenner's attempt All for Nothing.
  • Monk buys a set of night-vision goggles in anticipation of another blackout, but since he's not wearing them when the power goes out...
    Monk: I cannot find my night-vision goggles! There is a fatal flaw in the night-vision goggle plan!
• "Eureka!" Moment: When Sharona complains about missing the concert again due to the second blackout, Monk realizes that the blackouts were caused specifically to interrupt that program.
• Faking the Dead: Ten years prior, Winston Brenner pretended to blow himself up before his trial, and assumed the identity of Gene Edelson.
• He Knows Too Much: Alby Drake originally covers for Winston Brenner when the police interrogate him, but when he learned the blackout killed three people, he considers turning Winston in. That doesn't exactly fly with Winston...
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Alby Drake chained himself to a tree to make it as difficult as possible for the authorities to get him down. When Brenner takes a backhoe to the tree, Drake tries to climb down, but finds he can't unfasten the chain quickly enough. Then an impact at the trunk of the tree knocks the key out of his hands.
  • As a final indignity, he calls 9-1-1, only to be dismissed as a crank when he tells them he's chained to a tree.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Monk only figured out a connection between the Willie Nelson special and the blackouts because Brenner pulled his second blackout during a re-airing of the special.
• Non Standard Prescription: When Dr. Kroger finds out Monk got a woman's number, he encourages him and then outright writes a prescription for him to call her. Monk claims not to be able to read Dr. Kroger's handwriting, which causes Dr. Kroger to comment that Monk was reading it upside down.
• Not What I Signed Up For: When Drake learned that the blackout resulted in the deaths of three people, he had an attack of conscience and told Brenner that he considered telling the police what he knew. This ended up being his fatal mistake.
• Oh, Crap!: Monk has this reaction when he realizes the lights are back on and Brenner can see him.
• Relationship-Salvaging Disaster: Downplayed. Only one thing saves Monk's date from being a total disaster: Michelle notices Monk's "Eureka!" Moment while she is on her cell phone and is treated to another glimpse of the great detective beneath the OCD. Though they agree another date would not be prudent, they part on good terms at the end of the episode.
• Revealing Cover-Up: Gene Edelson blacked out the city twice to keep the concert from airing on television, for fear someone would see the closeup on him and recognize him as Winston Brenner. However, Monk finally realizes the truth exactly because the blackouts hit during the same program twice, despite the concert being televised on different dates and at different times.
• Shout-Out: To the stalking scene from The Silence of the Lambs.
• Something Only They Would Say: The Calling Card on the blown-up power station lists a bunch of generic environmental motivations, but the phrase “unshackled by your barbarous laws” lets Monk ID Winston Brenner as the bomber. Trudy had written an article about Brenner bombing a recruitment station ten years prior, and he used that same phrase in the note he left back then.
• So Proud of You: Sharona and Stottlemeyer are both stunned and proud when Monk tells them he has a date for the first time since Trudy's death.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: After Michelle gives her statement to the press about the second blackout, Gene Edelson needles her about her date with the "crazy" detective. She retorts that Monk may not be normal, but he is on the verge of cracking the case. So naturally Edelson - in actuality Winston Brenner - goes to Monk's apartment to kill him.