TV-Reviewed

I have to hand it to the writers for coming up with a better than average episode of Monk for the first time in a little while. When this series first began, I was always a little slow to figure out who did it and how. But seven seasons in, I’m able to figure out the story within the first 15-30 minutes. I wasn’t so quick on this one, however.

The opening scene showed quite a contrast in character with the lotto girl going from cheesy, happy-go-lucky TV presenter to stabbed-to-death corpse. There were a lot of those contrasting moments, really throughout the episode.

Randy Disher is a character who cracks me up sometimes, though it happens rather infrequently these days. He’s always been a silly background player for the most part, but he got his share of camera time this week. All of it centered around with a quip he came up with for the lotto girl’s death. He just needed to pick his time to say it and get others to laugh. It’s sort of sad when your day revolves around this sort of thing and then getting back at the guy who blurted it out first.

Traylor Howard as Natalie Teeger

Keeping with contrasting situations, Adrian and Natalie found themselves changing positions. Adrian’s never really been “hot stuff” as far as the media is concerned, but once in a while, he’ll sign an autograph. Things really got flipped when Natalie became the star after getting the job of lotto girl at the local television station.

I didn’t expect her to flip out on the sound engineer like that; I guess one can get full of one’s self pretty quickly. In her defense, the cords should have been taped down to prevent her from tripping and nearly falling. I’ve never been on a movie or TV set and even I know that’s a basic rule of safety.

I admit to not figuring out the story, but I did know who was involved. Judging by the chase scene which started the episode, I knew it was a blonde-haired person. The only one in the studio with blonde hair was the sound engineer who was fired thanks to Natalie’s complaining.

Why he killed the previous lotto girl wasn’t clear to me at first, but as we all found out, she caught him rigging the lottery machine. As far as crimes go, this could have worked very well if he hadn’t been fired like that. I can’t believe he would have thought he could get away with it after setting up Captain Stottlemeyer and Natalie, however. That’s just stupid.

This certainly won’t go down as my favorite episode of the series, but it’s the best one of this season. I’d like to see Adrian begin working on his wife’s case again. This is something I’ve been complaining about for a while. Since this is the last season, I suspect it’ll begin after or just before the midseason break. And I can’t wait for that case to finally come together, which will sadly bring the series to an end.

Rating: 7.5