User:DReifGalaxyM31/Mr. Monk Goes to Mexico

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Plot
While on spring break vacation in San Macros, Mexico, student Chip Rosatti wins a free skydiving jump. Watching from the ground, two of his friends gaze up in horror as Chip leaps from the plane, but his chute fails to open, and he plummets to Earth at freefall speed. He hits the ground and is killed instantly. However, when Chip's body is examined at the morgue, the local coroner, Dr. Madero, tells Captain Alameda and Lieutenant Plato of the local police that he has discovered some perplexing news: while the dead student sustained numerous injuries consistent with his fall, he didn't die from hitting the ground. He actually drowned in mid-air - as Dr. Madero has found water in the lungs.

Later, in San Francisco, Adrian Monk is trying to mail a letter, leaving Sharona exasperated. Captain Stottlemeyer and Lieutenant Disher stop by, and inform Monk about the Chip Rosatti case. The mayor would like Monk to look into the investigation, so he will have to leave for San Macros as soon as possible.

Prepared with 18 suitcases filled with everything from backup pillowcases to pre-packaged food and water, Monk and Sharona arrive in San Marcos. Sharona has to tell Monk to take off his sunglasses at customs since they will otherwise look like drug dealers. They meet Alameda and Plato, who insist that Chip Rosatti's death was drug related, but Monk isn't convinced.

They pay a visit to the medical examiner's office, where Dr. Madero mentions that a pint of water was found in each of Chip's lungs. He offers some mentholated cream to Sharona. Plato comments that this drowning death is even stranger than the incident that happened last year; a year before, a kid was mauled by a wild lion - of which there are none in Mexico (Dr. Madero mentions having done the autopsy on that death).

Monk questions the two friends who watched Chip's jump, and both swear he was alive when he leapt from the plane. Monk listens to their story, but has trouble concentrating on their testimony: just moments after his arrival, all of his suitcases are stolen from in front of the hotel - and along with them, Monk's entire food and water supply. A creature of habit, he can't bring himself to drink any other brand of bottled water than the one he had brought with him, and as a result, he begins to suffer from dehydration. Just to make matters even more complicated, he is nearly run down by a speeding truck in an alleyway.

Monk and Sharona talk next with the pilot of Chip Rossati's plane. He also claims Chip was alive when he jumped, and further explains that after the flight, he looked at the free jump certificate that Chip won, and it turned out to be a forgery. In addition, he reveals that Chip's parachute had been tampered with, and that it could have easily been accessed by anyone.

Digging deeper, Monk and Sharona track down a friend of Chip's at the resort where he was staying. Chip apparently handed the friend something, but no one knows what. After Sharona does a drinking game with the friend, he hands them a key to a bus station locker that Chip was renting. Monk decides to check the lead out. That night, as he makes his way to the bus station, the same mystery truck driver takes aim at a Monk from the back, and runs him down. The next day, Sharona stumbles into their room after spending the night at a frat party, and the Mexican detectives regretfully inform her that Monk is dead. They also telephone Stottlemeyer in San Francisco, who is devastated.

Alameda and Plato try to comfort Sharona by telling her about how after he was hit, Monk bravely dragged himself through the dirt and garbage looking for help. Then Sharona realizes that the body is not really Monk, as she knows that Monk would rather die where he was than crawl through garbage. As if on cue, Monk stumbles into the hotel, covered in dust and more dehydrated than ever, but very much alive. He has made it to the bus station and found a bag Chip was storing in his locker there. In a touch of poetic justice, the dead man is implied to be the suitcase thief, who was wearing some of Monk's clothes.

Meanwhile, Stottlemeyer is arranging Monk's funeral, demanding that he be buried with honors even though he wasn't on active duty. Just as the Captain admits to Disher that he loved Monk, he recieves a phone call that says he is alive. He then yells "I hate that man!" as he now must cancel all of the special arrangements that he just made.

Alameda suspects the owner of Chip Rosatti's hotel arranged the parachute accident to cover Chip's accidental drowning inside the resort. However, as the two detectives interrogate the owner, Monk and Sharona find a drug in Chip's bag that indicates that he was allergic to water.

That night, someone plants a bomb behind a painting in Monk and Sharona's hotel room, deliberately askew so that it will detonate when Monk adjusts it. But Monk notices that the painting was tilted the other way before, and notices the bomb. The Mexican detectives are convinced that someone is trying to kill Monk. When Plato mentions that the other dead student, the wild lion victim, was also a rich kid from San Francisco, Monk solves the case.

Here's What Happened
Monk rmembers having smelled mentholated cream on the curtains in his hotel room, of the same kind used by the seemingly innocent police coroner, Dr. Madero. He is so excited that he tells Sharona to pack their things immediately, and gives his summation as they are checking out:

He asks what the two cases have in common, and explains that they are both impossible: it may be possible to have one impossible murder, but impossible to have two impossible murders. Monk deduces that Madero is in fact a fugitive doctor named Luis Nivara; he lost his practice, and his wife to suicide, after Monk testified against him in an insurance scam case. Madero made his way to Mexico, then tried to think of a way to lure Monk to Mexico to kill him in revenge. He committed two murders, both with seemingly "impossible" causes, both of kids from San Francisco whose families were rich and well-connected.

Dr. Madero went to the resort where Chip Rosatti was staying, and realized that he was the perfect victim. He forged a coupon for a free skydiving jump and slipped it under Chip's door, then cut the ripcord on his parachute to make sure it wouldn't open. Chip died subsequently when he hit the ground. After the body was brought to the morgue, Dr. Madero poured water through a funnel into the victim's lungs to mimic a drowning death. He knew Monk would be brought in to investigate such a case. The only reason why the lion attack that Dr. Madero faked didn't draw Monk to Mexico was that, at the time, no one thought to call him.

Madero is brought to the hotel and confronted. He says there is no proof, but Alameda remembers that they found a fingerprint on Chip's parachute harness that they couldn't match, which Alameda bets is Madero's. Plato asks Sharona if she wants to come back and get more fiesta beads, and he explains that guys give them to girls at parties, before whispering why in her ear (namely for flashing their chests), causing her to throw them off in diguest. Exposed, Madero goes berserk and lunges at Monk, before he is restrained.

Alameda, now in open awe of Monk's abilities, marvels that he figured all this out just from the menthol cream on the curtains. Monk confides that his first real clue actually came days earlier: when they visited the morgue, Madero mentioned finding "a pint" of water in each of Rosatti's lungs. A pint is a unit only used by countries that utilize imperial measurements, like the United States (as opposed to a liter, which is a unit of metric measurements used in countries like Mexico), meaning Madero must have practiced in the United States. Alameda praises Monk, saying what an honor it was to work with him, while running alongside the car window, before they drive off.

Monk and Sharona return to San Francisco. In his apartment, Monk is pleased to find that 5,400 bottles of Sierra Springs that he ordered have been delivered (turning his apartment into a storage room for Sierra Springs). But when Sharona mentions she is thirsty, Monk is hesitant to share even one bottle with her. In his mail, Monk reads a letter confirming that Dr. Madero/Nivara has been extradited back to the U.S. to stand trial, and remarks how crazy it is that someone who he never met would want him dead. He waits for Sharona to agree, but she just stares daggers at him.

Reception
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