User:Kevinbrogers/Sandbox/Monk articles/Mr. Monk Is Underwater

"Mr. Monk Is Underwater" is the fifth episode of the seventh season of Monk, and the 98th episode overall.

Plot
Deep beneath the surface of the ocean, aboard the U.S.S. Seattle (a Los Angeles-class submarine), the crew is preparing for a drill. The ship's medical officer, Lt. Steven Albright (Casper Van Dien), appears on the bridge and reports to the ship's captain, Commander Nathan Whitaker (William Atherton), that the executive officer, Jason Pierce (David A Jansen), is nowhere to be found, and that his cabin door is locked. Whitaker is confused as to how the second-in-command could vanish when they're on a submarine. Whitaker and Albright go to the cabin, and Whitaker knocks on the door, and that's when they hear a gunshot from inside. Whitaker kicks open the door, and inside they see Pierce, lying dead on the floor, shot through the head and holding a gun. Albright stoops to examine him, but Whitaker gets there first, checks Pierce's pulse, and pronounces the man dead. While he's doing that, Albright notices an empty bottle of vodka on the shelf.

When the U.S.S. Seattle gets back to dry land, Albright looks up Natalie Teeger, who remembers him fondly as Mitch's oldest friend. Albright is equally delighted to see her again (if not more so), but admits that the person he really wants to see is Natalie's boss, Adrian Monk. He mentions that after they landed, NCIS investigated Pierce's death and ruled it a suicide. They said that Pierce had been drinking, and there was a bottle of vodka in his cabin and they found alcohol in his blood. But Steven is unsure if NCIS did a thorough investigation, and he doubts a few of the circumstances around the lieutenant commander's death. For one thing, Jason Pierce had been sober for several years before he died, and it's very unlikely that he could have had a relapse. Steven also mentions that as the ship's medical officer, he administered a blood test a few days before Jason was killed, and there was no alcohol in his blood. Lastly, the night before, Steven admits that he and Jason planned to go to a baseball game while they were in port, and he seemed fine.

At a loss to explain how someone could have shot and killed Pierce in a locked room, Steven asks Monk to look over the crime scene. Monk's terror of boats leaps to the front of his mind, but Natalie pleads with him to just spend a few minutes on board. To try and reassure Monk about the experience, she tells him to think of going on the boat as being like going to Hawaii.

When Monk, Natalie and Steven arrive at the docks, Monk is horrified to find that the Seattle is a submarine, and not a "boat" as Natalie and Albright have been referring to it as. Natalie and Steven help ease Monk down through the hatch into the upper deck. Monk takes a hurried look around Jason Pierce's cabin, while Steven confirms that the medical examiner found alcohol in his blood, and that the keys to Pierce's cabin (which were also the only set) were found in his pocket. Monk, anxious to get off the boat, is about to give up, and then he finds his first clue: a tiny sliver of some sticky material, that smells like gunpowder.

Before he can go further, an alarm klaxon sounds, and a passing sailor informs Steven that the captain has ordered an emergency drill, and the ship has just left port. Monk dashes back to the conning tower in a panic, but the hatch is already sealed, and the sub has begun to dive (he actually makes several tries to escape up through the hatch, but the officers have to hold him down).

Whitaker is extremely displeased at having civilians aboard the submarine, such so that he flatly refuses both Monk's and Natalie's demands to turn the boat around. He orders Steven to find them temporary berths, and, in the meantime, have them confined to the officers' wardroom.

In the wardroom, Monk hallucinates that Dr. Bell is beside him, having miraculously snuck on board when he heard where Adrian was. Steven and Natalie watch apprehensively as Monk conducts a conversation with an empty chair, and they are relieved when "Dr. Bell" encourages him to turn his attention back to the case. Albright tells Natalie that what Monk is using is a coping mechanism.

Monk is able to eventually patch through to call Lieutenant Disher on the mainland. Monk asks him to look into Jason Pierce's background. Monk then goes to Whitaker's cabin to question him further. Whitaker says the investigation has been closed, and Pierce definitely committed suicide. When Monk asks Whitaker about the fact that Jason was killed shortly before the second drill (which was unscheduled), he admits that it is quite unusual to have two drills in one day. But as they talk, Whitaker removes a cream soda bottle from his refrigerator and takes a drink, and Monk recognizes that the bottle is another clue.

Palming a discarded bottle from Whitaker's wastebasket, Monk takes it back to the wardroom, and confirms that the sticky piece found in Jason Pierce's cabin came from the label on an identical bottle. As an experiment, Monk tapes the bottle to the muzzle of Steven's pistol (which has been unloaded), and finds that if taped on tightly, it could easily improvise for a homemade silence. Albright confirms that the cream soda bottle is of a brand that only Whitaker drinks (the bottle itself comes from his private stash), Monk realizes that Whitaker is probably the killer. He knows how Whitaker committed the murder, but now needs to find out why Pierce was killed and how Whitaker subsequently was able to be outside the room when the gunshot went off.

While in the cafeteria with the other boatsmen, Monk asks around. When the submarine suddenly starts shaking, Monk panics but one of the crew reassures him that they have just hit a pocket of undersea turbulence. At this, another officer mentions to Monk that he should have been with them in January, when they hit a mountain. It wasn't their fault, as they were using outdated navigation charts and there was a bridge mixup. Later, when being shown to his bunk, Monk learns that one sailor, Jonesy, broke his neck in the accident. He died a week ago, on the same day Jason Pierce was killed.

In the sickbay, where Natalie's bunk is, Steven flirts a little, even going so far as to kiss her - but she pulls back, feeling some guilt over what feels like betraying Mitch.

When Monk checks back to the mainland, Disher has found more evidence: Pierce's family all swear positively that he would never commit suicide (for one thing, he was a devout Roman Catholic) and that, just before he died, Pierce made an appointment with a criminal attorney, implying that he was about to report something.

When Monk looks through some old navigational charts in the corner of the bridge, he finds a new, up-to-date one hidden in an old container. Armed with that, Monk confronts Whitaker in the torpedo room, where Whitaker is conversing with another officer telling him about the decoys being dropped at them during the upcoming week. The officer leaves, and Monk confronts Whitaker with the fact that he had motive to kill Jason Pierce: in January, they hit the mountain. It's hard to believe, but they managed to hit an undersea mountain. Whitaker had known that this was a career ending mistake. Unable to afford the risk, he conspired with Pierce to cover up the mishap so that he could easily tell investigators that it was not his fault and that he'd been given a chart that was out of date. To do this, they switched the updated chart for an older one. Unfortunately, one sailor, Jonesy, was seriously injured, and Pierce decided to come clean when Jonesy died.

Whitaker calls Monk delusional, and asks how he could have killed a man in a locked room. To Monk, Whitaker's statements are little more than practical confessions.

When Monk confers with Natalie in the sickbay, someone slips a note under their door - apparently someone is asking them to meet him in a remote corner of the submarine. When they get there, they are lured into a locked room and sealed in. On the bridge, claiming to be shaking things up, Whitaker orders a number of aggressive dives. Both Monk and Natalie realize that they are trapped inside the ballast tank. Monk starts to panic, and Natalie creates a snorkel out of her belt. She tries to convince Monk to use it (without success).

When Albright comes back to the sickbay, he quickly learns of Natalie's location from another officer. He runs back and finds the note that Monk dropped when "handing" it to the imaginary Dr. Bell. Realizing what is going on, he runs back to the bridge and orders Whitaker to make an emergency surface. Albright gains the upper hand here, warning Whitaker that if anything happens to Monk or Natalie, he will make sure the Navy knows who is responsible. Whitaker folds and orders the boat to surface.

In the wardroom, Whitaker pretends surprise and relief at finding Monk and Natalie there, alive and well. But Monk informs him that he's solved the case.

Here's What Happened
Monk presents ashes from a cigarette and the remains of a firecracker, found in a vent behind the door. He reveals that the events he is about to explain happened a few minutes before the second drill:

Whitaker forced Jason Pierce to drink a bottle of vodka at gunpoint, and then shot him with the silenced gun (using an improvised silencer made from his cream soda bottle). Then he proceded to place the gun in Pierce's hand. To simulate a gunshot, he attached a firecracker to a lit cigarette, using that as a fuse, and dropped it into a vent behind the door, figuring no one would ever look there. Whitaker then locked the door and took his place on the bridge. About five minutes later, he and Steven were outside the door when the firecracker went off. To complete the illusion that Pierce had locked himself in, Whitaker slipped the keys into his pocket when no one was looking..

Steven informs Whitaker that they have found the remains of the firecracker, and lifted a fingerprint from inside the vent. Summoning what remains of his dignity, Whitaker confesses, hands over command of the ship to Steven, and is confined to his quarters for the remainder of the voyage. Before leaving, he salutes Monk, saying that he only hopes the rest of the Navy will perform their jobs as well as Monk performs his.

Back in San Francisco, Randy greets Monk, as does Dr. Bell. Monk does a double-take, but Dr. Bell, anxious not to upset Monk's head, goes along with his belief that he was aboard the sub the whole time.

Natalie and Steven embrace fondly, and make a date to see each other the next time his ship comes in.

Additional facts

 * This is the only episode of season 7 in which Ted Levine does not appear at all, even though he is still credited in the opening credits.
 * When Natalie is coaxing Monk to get onto the submarine, she says "They're like islands. You've been on islands before, right? You like islands. It's like Hawaii. Think of it like that: We're going to Hawaii." Both Monk and Natalie did travel to the Hawaiian Islands once, during the novel Mr. Monk Goes to Hawaii.

Goofs

 * When Albright is talking to Monk at Natalie's house, at one point, Albright puts his right hand down in front of him (he grabs his left hand, which has been down the whole time holding his cap). In the very next shot, his right hand is by his side, way too quick for him to have moved it there.
 * While in the ballast tank, Monk tells Natalie that he doesn't know how to swim. Yet when he and Stottlemeyer fake Monk's death at the end of "Mr. Monk Is On The Run - Part I," Monk falls into the ocean when Stottlemeyer "shoots" him and, presumably, swims to shore. Also, Monk has been seen to swim in the episode "Mr. Monk Takes His Medicine".
 * There are a couple of problems with Monk and Natalie being trapped inside the ballast tank. For one thing, the ballast tanks are not accessible from the inside of a submarine. The other problem is that the ballast tanks are only used to take the sub above or below water; once below the water, the ballast tanks are full. Once underwater, in order to dive or ascend, the submarine moves devices called "dive planes" up or down.
 * When telling Disher that he is on a submarine, Monk says that they are "relative bearing two-five-niner". He means absolute bearing, heading, or course. The direction the sub is traveling is always relative bearing zero, by definition. Relative bearings are used to locate other items in relation to the sub.
 * Jason Pierce is referred to as a Lieutenant Commander. Yet his shoulder bars have only two stripes, indicating that he was a Lieutenant.
 * While the uniforms are accurate in most respects, only a couple of people are wearing "poopie suits" (coveralls), the normal underway uniform on a submarine: All officers are wearing summer whites, all chiefs are in khakis, and most other enlisted men are wearing utilities. Additionally, the commanding officer is not wearing his command pin, and the chief of the boat is not wearing his COB badge.
 * Whitaker mistakenly gives depth-change orders to the chief of the boat, rather than to the officer of the deck. Additionally, while depths of "one five zero" (150) and "two five zero" (250) feet are ordered correctly, he orders "three zero zero" feet rather than the correct "three hundred" feet.
 * Monk, Natalie and Albright board the submarine, which is at the pierside. Minutes later, the commander initiates a drill and orders a depth of 250 feet - despite the fact that no manoeuvring watch has been stationed, the mooring lines have not been cast off and the boat has not gotten under way. They're still attached to the pier.
 * While it was very nice of Julie to make her mother a belt out of rubber tubing just in time for Natalie to get trapped in the ballast tank, when Natalie tries to pass it to Monk, she fails to pinch off the end so the tube should have filled with water.
 * In the flashback, when Whitaker is shown fitting the cigarette onto the firecracker, he holds it flat. The proper way to use a cigarette as a fuse is to poke a hole near the butt and stand the cigarette upright. A cigarette laying flat goes out fairly quickly, even with good airflow.
 * The gun Albright supplies to Monk to see if it is possible for a cream soda bottle to be used as an improvised silencer is a Walther P38. In reality, Navy soldiers utilize Beretta 92 handguns.