User:Kevinbrogers/Sandbox/Monk articles/Mr. Monk and the Miracle

"Mr. Monk and the Miracle" is the ninth episode of the seventh season of Monk, and the 102nd episode overall. It is also the series' fourth and final Christmas special.

Plot
It's Christmas time in San Francisco. Everyone is celebrating the holiday, even the homeless population. In one alleyway, we see three friends, Ike, Reggie, and a man only known as The Professor, singing their own rendition of "The Twelve Days of Christmas". They find that their bottles are empty, and are waiting for their friend Willie T. to come back with bottles. All of a sudden, Willie T. comes running like the wind into the alley with the shopping cart. He is panicking, telling his friends to call the police because someone is chasing him. When he sees a car approach the end of the alley, he says that that's the person chasing him, and he takes off running again with his cart. His friends jokingly tell him to run, thinking Willie's got the willies.

Willie T. does not come back that night. The next morning, Ike, Reggie and The Professor go out to search for him. They find his shopping cart abandoned in a junkyard, and find a piece of clothing sticking out of a refrigerator box. When they open the door, he tumbles out, dead.

Meanwhile, across town, Adrian Monk and Natalie Teeger are preparing for the holiday in their own way. Monk puts up a cardboard cut-out of a Christmas tree (claiming to Julie that it is not a fuss), while Natalie prepares chicken soup for Captain Stottlemeyer, who has been laid down with crippling back pains for the past two weeks, and whom Monk is very worried about.

That's when Ike, Reggie, and The Professor arrive. The police have ruled Willie T.'s death an accident, like he crawled inside the fridge for warmth, accidentally locked himself in, and suffocated. However, his friends do remember how he said that someone was chasing him, and that he was probably being honest. They have scraped together everything they have ($14 in recyclable bottles and cans) to pay him. Monk can barely contain his horror at having three homeless men in his apartment, but Natalie shares her chicken soup and insists that Monk take the job, in the spirit of the season.

They go to the crime scene. Monk observes the scene from Natalie's car, viewing through a pair of opera glasses. He notices an interesting clue: a single handprint on the inside of the fridge. Willie T. wasn't clawing around or panicking inside the refrigerator at all. He was already dead when he went into the refrigerator.

Monk and Natalie go down to the police station. With the Captain out of action, Lieutenant Disher has stepped up to fill that position. He is preoccupied with rookie officers, but he takes Monk's word that the medical examiner rubber-stamped the Willie T. case. When Natalie asks Randy as to why Stottlemeyer hasn't been answering her phone calls, he tells them that the Captain is here, insisting on working despite his back pains.

Stottlemeyer has been reduced to interviewing petitioners at the front desk. An elderly couple, Mr. and Mrs. Parisi, say that they want to withdraw a complaint they filed two weeks earlier for vandalism. Someone painted a picture of a fountain on their door. Mrs. Parisi, it seems, had lung cancer, and couldn't breath. And then they heard on the news about the miracle fountain that is at the Franklin Park Monastery. They went to this fountain, she drank, and like a miracle, she's now able to eat, drink and sleep a lot easier.

Stottlemeyer comes upstairs to meet Monk, Natalie and Randy in his office. Stottlemeyer mentions that the five doctors he's gone to have no clue about his back problems, and have him on three different medications. He's been trying everything, even a health drink sent from his aunt that tastes like chalk (Monk reads the label, which says "chalk extract"). He is dismayed to see that all the open homicide cases for that week have been closed, without his help. Since he's not needed, he decides to go home. Concerned, Natalie asks him if everything is all right, and Leland says, just peachy - except for the facts that his back refuses to heal, he is broke and behind on his alimony, he hasn't had a date in two years, and his eldest son wouldn't pick up the phone when his father called him - "Merry Christmas," he concludes. When he gets home, though, he finds the same picture of the fountain with the word "DRINK" written underneath it on his door.

The next morning, he goes to the Franklin Park monastery, and he meets Katie Doyle, one of the first believers in the miracle fountain. She mentions that she was in a car accident a year ago, and busted her hip. Doctors said she wouldn't walk again. She drank from the fountain, and now she can walk. One of the monks, Brother Andrew, mentions to Stottlemeyer that the monastery is not charging admission, or making money in any other way off the fountain. In fact, the new sanctity of the site has canceled their plans to build a new set of classrooms in that spot. Feeling that he has nothing to lose, Stottlemeyer cups a handful of water from the fountain, and drinks it.

At the recycling center, Monk is furious when he learns that three of the bottles are Canadian and non-redeemable, and therefore the "bums" are short fifteen cents. Natalie, chuckling, says she has invited Ike, Reggie, and The Professor to Christmas dinner - at Monk's apartment.

Stottlemeyer goes to his pharmacist, Owen McCloskey, to have his prescription refilled. He mentions the hype about the fountain, and Owen says that he's not a particularly religious man. When Stottlemeyer points out a crucifix hanging over his window, Owen says that belonged to his partner, and it was put up when they opened the pharmacy. The partner went to church every week for years, McCloskey mentions, until the day he embezzled $18,000 from him and vanished. When the Captain wakes up the next morning, he reaches for his cane... only to realize that his back is completely healed. Later that day, he returns to the monastery, tosses his cane and his medicine bottles onto a growing pile of the same beside the fountain, then enters the monastery.

At Monk's house, the three homeless men are sitting down to dinner with Monk, Natalie and Julie. The Professor says grace, thanking the Lord for what little they do have, including their new friends, and the food they are about to eat. They appear not to notice or else care about the fact that their chairs have been coated in plastic wrap, and Monk is fanning an air freshener towards them. Conversation over dinner is awkward at first (for instance, it is revealed that The Professor got his nickname because he eats books), until conversation turns back to the case. Monk says the medical examiner looked closer at Willie T's body and determined that he was suffocated before he was put into the fridge, probably with a plastic bag. The three men say that Monk's services are the best $14 they've ever spent, and Monk - ignoring Natalie's frantic shushing - decides to raise the issue of the three Canadian bottles. But, mid-complaint, Monk notices a clue on one of them.

Back at the station, Monk and Natalie ask Randy where the Captain is. They explain that one of the Canadian bottles was of the same chalk-based health drink that Stottlemeyer was trying for his bad back. The bottles came from Willie T's cart, meaning that at some point that night, he was in the Captain's yard. There is a chance that Stottlemeyer might have seen something. Randy - who is now sporting a mustache, which he says "goes with the territory" - tells them they are too late, the Captain has gone.

At the monastery, Monk and Natalie ask for Stottlemeyer, and are stunned to be told that he is now Brother Leland, having joined the order. Brother Andrew lets Monk, but not Natalie, enter the precinct. He finds Stottlemeyer in the library. Brother Leland has taken a vow of silence, and Monk cannot speak up, even while being "shushed" by another monk. He resorts to charades to talk to Stottlemeyer. After a few seconds, Stottlemeyer gives up and hands Monk an envelope, and sends him on his way.

That night, at Natalie's house, Julie opens the envelope and finds Stottlemeyer's badge, and a letter explaining that the fountain has healed him, both physically and spiritually. He is resigining from the police and going away to a monastic retreat for two years. Monk can't bear the thought of his friend being gone, but Natalie mentions they should be happy for him. In fact, she reasons, what would Monk have to lose by taking a drink from it himself? She drags him out of the house.

Elsewhere, Owen McCloskey finds Katie Doyle, who happens to be his fiancee, in his shop, packing a suitcase. She tells him she can't go on with the "scam" about the fountain anymore, because some genuinely sick people are coming to it now, who she knows won't be healed completely. McCloskey grabs hold of Katie, warning her that she can't back out now, and then kisses her.

At the fountain, Natalie tries to coax Monk into taking a drink from the fountain. He resists, and then he notices something odd: of all the medicine bottles in the pile of discards, more than half are from Owen McCloskey's pharmacy. Monk realizes aloud that there must be some kind of fraud going on, and Katie Doyle, who is hovering nearby, seizes on his remark, telling him that McCloskey was her fiance, and confesses what is really going on. Armed with the truth, Monk and Natalie disguise themselves as nuns and slip into the chapel, where Stottlemeyer is chanting along with the choir. Sitting behind him, they are forced to harmonize the summation to hide it in the sounds of chanting.

Here's What Happened
Nine years ago, Owen McCloskey caught his partner embezzling money and killed him. He buried the body at the monastery. Recently, he saw a newspaper article mentioning that the monastery was planning to renovate and build a set of classrooms there. He feared that the body was going to be discovered. However, he couldn't dig up the body, because a fountain had been built there. McCloskey thought of a brilliant hoax that would prevent the monastery from ever digging there.

The scam worked like this: McCloskey would change his patients' prescriptions, so they wouldn't get better. They were actually receiving placebos that either failed to relieve their conditions or made the conditions even worse. After a while, he would go to their houses, and paint the "DRINK" message on their door. The patient would see the sign, and would go to the fountain at the monastery. They would then drink from the fountain. Afterwards, McCloskey would change their prescriptions back (giving them the real medication) so that they would get better, and the fountain would appear to be sacred, and miraculous, such so that no one would consider destroying it.

On the night Willie T. was killed, he was in Stottlemeyer's yard. He must have looked up, and seen McCloskey painting the "DRINK" message on the Captain's door. Fearing that he was about to be caught, McCloskey drew out a gun and came at Willie. Willie took off running. McCloskey panicked, and killed Willie in order to protect the secret truth about the fountain.

Disappointed, Stottlemeyer leaves the cloister with Monk and Natalie. "So much for miracles," he says. McCloskey is arrested for the murders early the next morning. Randy mentions that McCloskey is already talking, and they'll be digging up the fountain first thing the following morning. The Professor, Ike, and Reggie watch with satisfaction. As a special thank-you to Monk, they present him with a jar of their "homemade" gravy. Monk recoils, but Natalie tactfully accepts on his behalf. Stottlemeyer also watches the arrest. To Randy's surprise, the Captain says that, even though the fountain turned out to be a hoax, he still felt "something" happen when he drank the water, and he truly feels healed. As if to prove his point, his cell phone rings, and Stottlemeyer delightedly takes a call from Jared, his eldest son, and offers to pick him up at the airport so they can spend the weekend together. It seems his life has turned around at last. As he talks, he hands Randy a safety razor (an implied order for Randy to get rid of the mustache).

Later that night, Monk goes alone to the monastery. He fills a glass from the fountain, but hesitates. It is unknown whether he ultimately drinks from it or not, in a small holiday leap of faith.

Additional information

 * This episode was the fourth and final Monk Christmas special.
 * In the first half of season 7, Natalie drove an Audi A3. Starting in this episode, she drives a 2008 Nissan Sentra.
 * Randy mentioned having a mustache before in "Mr. Monk and the Earthquake," and a picture of him with one was seen briefly in "Mr. Monk Goes to a Wedding."
 * Monk makes reference to Natalie dating a leper in the episode "Mr. Monk and the Leper".
 * When Julie is talking with Monk about his cardboard tree, her arms change position (from the side to crossed) depending on the camera angle.
 * Look closely at the pill bottles when Monk picks them up: they obviously contain Sweet Tart like candies of different colors.
 * When Monk is first approaching Stottlemeyer in the monastery, the hood of Stottlemeyer's robe changes position between camera angles.