Season synopsis
Contains spoilers for this season and earlier seasons.
Adrian Monk begins the series as a former San Francisco police detective whose work stopped after his wife Trudy was killed by a car bomb. Still coping with severe phobias, he earns money as a consultant, with nurse Sharona Fleming helping him manage daily life and get his observations in front of Captain Leland Stottlemeyer. A murder at a mayoral campaign brings Monk back into a police investigation: when a sniper kills the candidate’s bodyguard, the candidate asks for Monk, and Stottlemeyer has to accept his former detective’s help.
The cases keep Monk moving between public spectacle and private grief. He challenges a supposed psychic’s account of a murder, sees through the apparent impossibility of Dale Biederbeck committing a crime from his bed, and is drawn toward Monica Waters partly because she resembles Trudy. Sharona remains a working partner through those investigations, pushing Monk into situations he would otherwise avoid. In one case, he also refuses to accept the evidence against Willie Nelson after a blind witness names the singer as a killer, checking the details that undermine her identification.
At the end of the season, Sharona’s trip to New Jersey becomes a choice Monk has to face: fly with her or manage without her for a week. He gets on the plane despite his fear of flying, then suspects that a man across the aisle has murdered his wife and that the woman with him is an impostor. A flight attendant destroys evidence and the co-pilot dismisses Monk, but he calls Disher to explain that Stefan and his mistress killed Barbara, with the mistress posing as her, then hid the body beneath fresh concrete at the airport. After landing, Monk stalls their Paris connection until workers uncover the body and police arrest the pair.