Monk gets a visit from his father-in-law, Dwight Ellison, who suspects that a contestant on his game show may be cheating. Monk goes undercover to investigate.
This episode contains examples of the following tropes:
- 555: On the game show, Monk ask Val Birch for his home phone number. Birch tries to brush it off with "I don't think I'm at home." But then Dwight uses the P.A. system to give Monk the phone number: 555-0137.
- Artistic License – Law: It's very unlikely that Roddy Lankman's conspiring to feed the answers to Val Birch would succeed in real life because all game shows (like Jeopardy) have a standards and practice department on hand monitoring each taping session to make sure there are no irregularities. They would've discovered that Val was cheating right away since it's blatantly obvious (such as when he answers a visual clue without turning around to see the photo on the board). The federal government would've also gotten involved at that stage, because rigging a game show is illegal under U.S. federal law.
- Blackmail: Val managed to secure his winning streak this way. He was fishing near where Lizzie Talvo crashed her car after Roddy clipped her brakes. He took out his phone to call 911, but then Lizzie started saying that it was Roddy who killed her and why. Val realized he was sitting on a gold mine, and instead of calling for help, he called his own answering machine to record Lizzie's dying words.
- Book Dumb: Val apparently thinks the city of San Francisco has any control over the fog, thinks the Golden Gate Bridge is called the "Golden Bridge", and doesn't know how to pronounce Marie Antoinette's name. This is what makes Dwight suspicious about his winning streak. Val really does appear to be dumber than a post.
- Diabolus ex Machina: Kevin Dorfman is now back to being the annoying, boring neighbor that he was during his initial appearance. Halfway through the episode he reveals that he lost all his lottery winnings thanks to a combination of bad investments, a crooked accountant, too many trips to Las Vegas, and getting married to and divorced from a Gold Digger. Twice.note
- "Eureka!" Moment: Monk deduces Birch has a recording of Lizzie's last words incriminating Lankman after hearing a staff member leave a phone message for a loved one.
- Five-Aces Cheater: Val Birch certainly didn't do himself any favors by being so blatant about his cheating. He usually answered the questions before all possible answers had been revealed, and once answered a question correctly without turning around to look at the screen behind him which contained a vital clue (the question was "which US president lived in this mansion" and the monitors behind the contestants showed a picture of the mansion, which the other two contestants had to turn around to look at).
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: The pink and green "Girl Tuesday" poster that can be seen in Trudy's bedroom is the same one as the one in Adrian's childhood bedroom in Mr. Monk and the Three Pies.
- Gilligan Cut: Once Adrian has been to Val Birch's house and is certain he and Roddy are cheating:Adrian: I have to get closer.
Kevin: Closer? Yesterday, we were in the front row. You can't get much closer than that.
[Cuts to the Treasure Chest set as the contestants are being introduced]
Roddy: Please welcome to the show Adrian Monk! [Monk hesitantly steps on-stage and walks over to his podium] - Hoist by His Own Petard: Monk realizes (as a contestant) how Roddy Lankman is helping Val Birch cheat: Lankman holds the question cards by a specific corner depending on what letter is the correct answer. He realizes they might be guilty of more than cheating on the show, and is told by Dwight that he can make a phone call during the game, but only if he advances to the bonus round. So Monk does so by using Birch and Lankman's method against them. Birch gets flustered by Monk figuring out the hand signals, causing him to miss several of them.
- It's All My Fault: In the flashback, Dwight offers Adrian a job as a consultant on a new cop show he's producing, but Adrian and Trudy beg off, saying they love San Francisco and they're both Married to the Job. In the present, Adrian blames himself for not taking the job, reasoning that if he had, Trudy would still be alive. It's characteristic of Dwight that he honestly doesn't know what Adrian is apologizing for.
- Mistaken for Romance: After Monk says hello to Sharona on the air, Roddy asks how long they've been married.
- Never Win the Lottery: Kevin has lost all his lottery winnings to things like bad investments, fraudulent accountants, gambling, and two Gold Digger wives. Considering his style of living is the same as it was before he won and he's not drowning in debt, he got off extremely easy compared to most real life lottery winners.
- Obnoxious In-Laws: In spite of such a stereotype being so commonplace, Trudy's parents are revealed to be anything but. They are shown to treat Monk like he was their own son, recognize his quirks, and never blamed him once for Trudy's death. He's actually closer to them than to his own father.
- Opportunistic Bastard: Val Birch. He could have brought Roddy to justice for Lizzie's murder, if not save her life by calling 911. Instead, he recorded her dying words to a voicemail and dangled it over Roddy's head as blackmail.
- Outliving One's Offspring: It's part of the series premise that Monk's wife, Trudy, was killed before the beginning of the series; in this episode we learn that her parents are still alive.
- Public Secret Message: While introducing himself, Monk tells Roddy Lankman that it's his job to bring down criminals, even men in power who think the law doesn't apply to them.
- Status Quo Is God: Kevin Dorfman is back to being Monk's neighbor, after winning the lottery in "Mr. Monk and the Paperboy." It's explained that he lost all his winnings.
- Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Though Kevin Dorfman takes the role of Adrian's assistant from Sharona in this episode, he's more like Randy Disher, complete with bugging people about ideas and coming up with dumb explanations for the crime. Of course, he's still the same annoying dullard of a neighbor he's always been.
- Vehicular Sabotage: Roddy makes sure Lizzie doesn't tell anyone about the cheating scam he has going on by cutting her brakes, causing her to crash her car off a cliff.
- Written-In Absence: Sharona, Stottlemeyer and Disher are absent because the episode was produced in the midst of contract disputes between the show producers and Bitty Schram, Ted Levine, and Jason Gray-Stanford. As a result, of the regular cast, only Tony Shalhoub appears, and the assistant role in this episode is handled by Kevin Dorfman. Sharona is said to be back in New Jersey visiting her sick mother. Stottlemeyer and Disher wouldn't be involved in the case because it's set in LA and initially seems to be a simple gameshow fixing scam.
