"Mr. Monk and the Bully" cleverly uses the childhood trauma of Tony Shalhoub's obsessive compulsive character to briefly explore his more sinisterly giddy side without jeopardizing any moral integrity.
Breaking from TV writers' tendency to portray bullies as eventual career failures in life, Monk's childhood bully Roderick Brody (Noah Emmerich) is presented as having ended up becoming quite a financial success. If anything, his unapologetic self-confidence and bullying appears to have contributed to his high status.
Roderick's abrasive personality is exemplified by trying to shake Monk's hand when he clearly does not stop to wash his hands after using the restroom and in the strong tone of the conversation he has on his cell phone that clearly involves a business matter.
Aside from showing how the character has not changed since childhood, Roderick is shown to be an unsavory person so as to establish him as a possible suspect once a murder is committed for Monk to solve. Strangely enough, the introduction of a revolver pistol in his car's glove compartment serves to debunk, not back up, the likeliness of his involvement.
Usually only working on homicides, Monk only becomes interested in helping Roderick professionally when realizing the case he is being offered involves finding proof that this former childhood bully's wife might be having an extramarital affair. Possible revenge sweetens accepting what would normally be an unsuitable job.
Monk's apropos General Washington joke in the episode is a rare moment that shows the defective detective is both cheap and not as uptight as usual. Nicely contrasting to this scene in the bar is how Monk later temporarily abandons his frugal nature in order to buy a digital camera that will help him get revenge against Roderick, who has since paid him a fee.
Meant to be a comedy, these subtle deviations in Monk's true character also serve to make him so different that he instantly becomes recognizable again when snapping out of his childhood trauma-inspired revenge craze.
Such moments overall make Monk flawed and thus more interesting to watch when his conscience forces him to grow up.
Refreshing about the episode is that it does not start with a murder and continues to show Monk happier, albeit temporarily, than the writers have been prone to make him throughout the TV series.
Not to mention the continuing belief in karma held by Natalie Teeger (Traylor Howard) that might be foreshadowing to something great happening for her boss sometime soon.
News of "Monk" coming to an end next season should allow them to take more creative liberties in upcoming episodes.
As novel as Monk's joy might be, the elaborate murder case falls short in that the details are overshadowed by his transformation into a quasi sadist and are hastily revealed by the perpetrator later in the episode.
Once Monk stifles his enjoyment to try and solve the case, he figures out what happened with the use of two obsessive compulsive observations alone. Solving this crime comes too easy for him.
"Mr. Monk and the Bully" is a well-executed experiment in character exploration that causes everything else to take a seat way to the back of the story.
Popcorn rating:(4 out of 5 pieces)
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