User:Kevinbrogers/Sandbox/Monk articles/Mr. Monk's Other Brother

"Mr. Monk's Other Brother" (sometimes known as "Mr. Monk and the Other Brother") is the 10th episode of the seventh season of Monk, and the 103rd episode overall. It guest stars Steve Zahn as Jack Monk, Jr., the titular "other brother."

Plot
At his apartment, Adrian Monk is making pancakes on his griddle (a process made more complicated by the fact that he then cuts them into squares) while listening to a news broadcast about a prison escape at the Bayside Correctional Facility. A prisoner named Joe Endicott apparently crawled through the sewers, killed a woman in the parking lot, and made his getaway.

Suddenly, someone breaks into Monk's apartment. Monk grabs his lockbox, but is unable to get it open, so he clubs the intruder over the head with the box and discovers it's Joe Endicott, the fugitive. But "Endicott" reveals that he is really Jack Monk, Jr., Adrian's half-brother.

After Jack gets Adrian to calm down, he explains his story. He was arrested (while using the name "Joe Endicott") for selling cars that weren't his. He was going to be spending several years behind bars, and he figured that maybe he should be busting out. He spent several months (and a lot of digging) to create a tunnel into the sewer. After lights out time in the joint, he made his way down the tunnel, and emerged above ground at the parking lot. Jack saw a parked car that he thought he could hot-wire. But when he got over there and opened the door, out tumbled the dead body of Lindsey Bishop, the prison's social worker. Jack grabbed her phone and made a 9-1-1 call, but then the guard in the tower opened fire on him and he ran off.

Lindsey Bishop, the victim, was a very respected figure. She helped prison inmates with their appeals. Everyone, both staff and inmates, loved her. Adrian doesn't believe Jack's story and prepares to call the police, but Jack asks him to talk to his mother, Darlene, first. Jack calls her and Darlene begs Adrian for help. She starts crying and Adrian can't bring himself to turn her down.

Adrian and Jack go to the crime scene, where they meet Natalie, Captain Stottlemeyer and Lieutenant Disher. To conceal Jack, Adrian introduces him to Natalie as his penpal Jack Gretzky from Canada (and who, despite his name, is unrelated to hockey player Wayne Gretzky). Adrian questions the warden, Tom Bennett, and Daniel Reese, the guard who saw Jack's escape and who raised the alarm. It seems that Lindsey was stabbed to death with a knife made from a piece of Sterling silverware - the handle still has the maker's mark on it. It must have been smuggled in, as it's not standard issue. When questioned, Reese says he didn't see the escapee kill Lindsey.

Just then, the search team arrives with their dogs, which have picked up Jack's scent. To avoid being caught, Adrian and Jack quickly escape to a diner. Adrian tells Jack that Lindsey's cell phone was where he said it would be, and it looks like he was write in that someone is framing him. The question then: who knew Jack was escaping? Jack says his cellmate, Norman "Shiv" Logan, knew. Adrian points out to Jack that he said before that he didn't have a cellmate. It becomes clear that he is a chronic liar.

Jack quickly recants, saying that Shiv had actually already carved the tunnel himself, and Jack just knocked out Shiv and "borrowed" his escape route. Monk says they need to talk to Shiv but Jack protests, saying if they do then Shiv will realize Jack is involved. Monk agrees, and instead asks Stottlemeyer to find and question Shiv. While they are at the diner, Jack briefly flirts with a Paraguayan waitress.

The next step for the two is to look for clues at Lindsey Bishop's house. Jack breaks out into fake tears, claiming to be Lindsey's relative, in order to convince the superintendent to let them in. Adrian searches for clues, but he notices Jack pocketing some of Lindsey's loose case, and tells him to stop. Jack notices that the photos of Lindsey on the wall are all out of focus, making it clear that Lindsey would never have hung them herself. Adrian deduces that someone else must have cleaned out the photos that were there, and put these distorted ones up in their place to hide an affair.

That night, Jack is watching The Incredible Shrinking Man while Adrian tries to sleep. Adrian finally goes out and the two brothers bond over the movie, one of their dad's favorites. Adrian notices that Jack is reading a book about Paraguay. After vacuuming the popcorn crumbs, they share a bowl of cinnamon-flavored popcorn and debate whether Jack, Sr. was a terrible father. Jack, Jr. puts in that, to be fair, their father was never the same after his mother died. Adrian realizes that he's caught Jack red-handed in yet another lie - the woman on the phone obviously couldn't have been Jack's mother, but rather, his girlfriend - and calls Stottlemeyer to his apartment.

Before Stottlemeyer arrives, Jack begs for another chance, calling Adrian his big brother. When Stottlemeyer arrives, Adrian can't bring himself to turn in Jack and pretends that Jack woke him up and Monk panicked and called the Captain, mistaking Jack for a prowler. As Stottlemeyer leaves, he tells them that with regards to Shiv, they'd better start knocking down another door, because he just turned up dead inside the prison, stabbed in the neck with a shiv. Apparently, he wasn't smart in choosing his nickname.

During his session with Dr. Bell the next day, Adrian admits to harboring Jack in his apartment. He also admits that his feelings toward Jack are ambivalent: on the one hand, Jack, Jr. has admitted to being a con man and a thief, but in their less tense moments, Adrian finds himself enjoying his company. Dr. Bell assures him that it is common for people to debate about what they owe their relatives. However, Adrian then mentions Jack's interest in Paraguay. Dr. Bell reluctantly notes that he has done a number of prison workshops. From what he has learned in those workshops, it seems that Paraguay is considered to be the promised land to fugitives because the country refuses to extradite anyone to the United States, except of course, for those indicted for murder. Furious, Adrian concludes that Jack lied about returning to prison, and his only interest in clearing his name is to make sure he can get away.

Adrian goes back to his apartment, just as Jack is conning Natalie out of a donation, supposedly to build an orphanage in Quebec. Adrian confronts Jack, telling Natalie the truth about his identity (Joe Endicott), and she snatches her check back. Jack begins his standard "hand to God" routine again, only to have Adrian notice that he also swiped Lindsey's watch from her house. Jack says that, technically, it's a man's watch, so it probably wasn't even hers... but under Adrian's glare, hands it over. He begins a tirade, calling Jack the most selfish person he's ever met in his life, but when he notices a set of initials engraved on the watch ("L.B., To D.R."), he solves the case.

Adrian, Natalie and Jack go to Daniel Reese's rustic country farm to question him again. When they arrive, he is drinking coffee on the porch. Jack stays by the car while Adrian and Natalie go up to Reese. Adrian points out the inscription, "L.B., To D.R.", on the watch, indicates that Reese (who is married), was having an affair with Lindsey Bishop. Reese denies it, claiming that he's been faithful to his wife, and there are at least three other people at the prison with his initials. Adrian apologizes and they start to walk away, but he whispers that Reese is "the guy" - the silver spoon in his coffee cup matches the set that the homemade shiv came from, and both were made from Sterling silver. He says that he's 80% sure, but when Reese starts firing a semi-automatic rifle at them from his rooftop, he amends himself to 95%, and they all scramble for cover behind a wood pile. Jack shoots back at Reese using Adrian's gun.

Here's What Happened
As Reese and Jack exchange fire in an extensive shootout, Adrian explains to Natalie what happened: Reese was having an affair with Lindsey Bishop. But she must have threatened to tell his wife about the affair. Whatever happened, Reese decided to kill her. He conceived a plan to kill his mistress and make it look like she was killed by an inmate during an escape. Reese went to Shiv, who was, according to Jack, one of the least intelligent inmates in the prison. Shiv took the bait. In Reese's escape plan, he told Shiv how to go, where to go, and when to go: Monday night at 3:00 AM.

The night of the murder, Reese walked Lindsey back to her car. Then he killed her. He then reported for duty, took up his position in the guard tower, and waited. He expected Shiv to be climbing out, but didn't know that Jack Monk, Jr. had other ideas, not that it mattered, as one patsy is as good as another. The only difference it made was that Reese had to silence Shiv, and hence kill him.

Suddenly, Jack runs out of ammo. He volunteers to run to the car to get Natalie's cell phone to call for help. But as soon as she throws him the keys, he runs over, hits the pedal, and speeds away. Reese comes down from the rooftop. With no way to defend themselves, Adrian and Natalie are out of luck. But just as Reese moves in for the kill, they hear a noise, and Jack, still in Natalie's car, runs Reese over. It seems that he was actually finding a different way to overpower Reese. Adrian is impressed, and even more impressed when Jack decides not to run, but to wait to be taken back into custody.

Adrian and Natalie visit the court house where Jack is being taken back to prison. While there, Stottlemeyer informs them that Reese just regained consciousness in the hospital and they have got him on both Lindsey Bishop and Shiv Logan.

Jack has been slapped with extra jail time for his escape, but he's been cleared of the murder charge. Adrian finally acknowledges that he 's proud to consider Jack a full brother, "rounding up" from half-brother. Jack prods Monk into giving him a hug. However, as Jack is taken away, Randy notices that his handcuff keys are missing...

Background information and notes

 * Jack Monk, Jr. was previously mentioned about in the season 5 episode "Mr. Monk Meets His Dad".