Directed by Tawnia Mckiernan
Written by Hy Conrad and Joe Toplyn
A museum of oddities is robbed, and a security guard dies.
The next day, Monk meets Marge (Gena Rowlands), a widow. They quickly become friends. Marge seems to regard Monk as a substitute for her son, who died young. As a favor to Marge, Monk confronts Marge's neighbor, a musician, John Keyes (Marcus Giamatti), over his loud drum practice. John decides to take a break from practicing, and Marge is grateful.
Marge is such an influence on Monk that she seems to cure him of many of his compulsions. However, in a session with Dr. Bell, Monk begins to worry that his friendship with Marge is not genuine. Soon Monk gets to the point of accusing Marge of murder, and believing she befriended him only to throw him off the scent.
After a jewelry store robbery, Monk drags Marge to the police station and interrogates her strenuously. She doesn't yield, and, given the absence of evidence, she is released. Back in Marge's neighborhood, Monk notices an important clue: hydraulic fluid in John's driveway. John stole a robot from the museum and used it to play his drums at the same time John was out of the house committing a crime, so that Marge would call in a noise complaint.
So Marge was involved in the crime, but not as a conscious accomplice. Monk apologizes to her. Marge has decided to move in with her sister in Seattle, but she reassures Monk that it's not to get away from him.
This episode includes examples of the following tropes:
- Arc Words: "It's more fun to be a pirate."
- Bittersweet Ending: The case has been solved and all's well. Except, Marge has decided to move in with her sister in Seattle. But she assures Monk that it's not his harsh words that chased her away. They both part on good terms as surrogate mother and son.
- Call-Back: Monk mentions that every time someone acts as though they like him, they have an ulterior motive, which probably refers to "Mr. Monk Makes a Friend".
- Chekhov's Gun: At the beginning, Monk interrogates Natalie about what she wants when she compliments his haircut and says he should write a book, despite her protests that she meant the compliments and doesn't have an ulterior motive. It comes back tragically when Monk suspects Marge because of her own friendly behavior.
- Death of a Child: Marge's son died before he even turned 10.
- Eating Contest: One of the robbery suspects is a trophy-winning competitive eater who demonstrates he can eat several boiled eggs in a minute (he can probably eat them faster than his wife can remove the shells).
- Entertainingly Wrong: Randy walks in on the others being held at gunpoint by John. From his vantage point, he only sees the activated animatronic John set up to secure his alibi that he was busy practicing the drums, which makes him think the robot is sentient and the one making threats. Fortunately for everyone, him coming in guns blazing against the animatronic is a suitable distraction for Stottlemeyer to disarm John.
- Fake Alibi: John couldn't possibly have committed the robbery because he was at home practicing on his drums. It would be a flimsy alibi, except Marge called in a noise complaint. However, it turns out that he used a robot dressed up to look like him.
- False Friend: Monk begins to fear that Marge is being nice to him for some ulterior motive, like Hal in the aforementioned "Mr. Monk Makes a Friend." She isn't, mercifully.
- Heroic Self-Deprecation: Despite his amazing record as a consultant, Monk sees himself as so unworthy that he gradually suspects Marge has to have an ulterior motive for wanting to hang out with him so much.
- I Have No Son!: After Monk's false accusation towards her, he tries to approach Marge and apologize to her. Still stung by his earlier remarks, she responds "I have no son...Again!"
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: John fights with a security guard while stealing the egg eating robot, and ends up killing him like this. Ironically, the display the guard is impaled on is a display of a man getting impaled by a swordfish.
- Improperly Paranoid: Thanks to his long history of convoluted plots and personal betrayals, Monk accuses Marge of faking her son's death and collaborating with him, in his new identity as Keyes, to steal the robot. The police point out the lack of evidence, but Monk is unconvinced, until Keyes' real mother comes to pick him up.
- Kick the Dog: Suspecting that Marge is only hanging out with him because she's in cahoots with Keyes, Mr. Monk fiercely accuses her of wanting something from him and declares nobody could ever want to hang out with him. This greatly backfires when it turns out Marge has a solid alibi, meaning
he accused and alienated his mother figure for no good reason. - Nightmare Fetishist: The director of the museum tries to see if Stottlemeyer will let them keep the guard impaled on the exhibit. Leland naturally shuts him right down.
- Outliving One's Offspring: Double subverted. Marge's son died a long time before this episode. Monk gives a solution to the case suggesting that not only he's alive, but he's John Keys. However, it later turns out that Monk was wrong.
- Parental Substitute: In a session with Dr. Bell, Monk refers to Marge as his mother and he refers to his own mother as "my other mother."
- Product Placement: Natalie starts driving a Hyundai Genesis; it's her last car for the show. Also, when Marge is getting ready to move to Seattle, we clearly see she's hired the Mayflower moving company.
- Serious Business: Kasinsky and his family take him speed eating eggs very seriously. Not only are they bitter for losing out on the Guiness World Record, but they're willing to prove themselves to Stottlemeyer and Randy on the spot when doubted.
- Shout-Out: Marge's dead son is named Paulie, which both Tony Shalhoub and Gena Rowlands starred in.
- Through His Stomach: Marge Johnson wins Monk over by making cubic muffins.
- Working the Same Case: John Keyes kills the security guard of the Guinness museum and steals an egg-eating robot. A few nights later, he robs a jewelry store and shoots the manager when the manager recognizes him by voice. Monk investigates both deaths. Interestingly, the police connect Keyes to the jewelry store robbery before they connect him to the museum robberynote . Monk and Natalie are just walking past Keyes's house after apologizing to Marge for wrongly accusing her of complicity in the store robbery when Monk spots some spilled hydraulic fluid on Keyes' driveway, and remembers finding traces of the same substance at the museum, which at first had indicated the robot was dripping oil. Tracing the fluid into Keyes's garage leads to Monk, Natalie and Stottlemeyer discovering the egg eating robot. Keyes stole the robot and reprogrammed it to become his alibi for the robbery.
- Writers Cannot Do Math: Kasinsky and his wife claim that Malaysian eggs are smaller at "like 12 centimeters." That's 4.72 inches, considerably longer than an average "large"note American chicken egg.
