Monk and Natalie investigate the murder of a security guard at a Guiness museum, which includes the theft of a robot that simulates the eating of boiled eggs. Don't ask. Along the way, Monk meets a sweet old lady (Rowlands) who treats him like her son, and she indeed did have a son, who died at age 3. She lives next door to the guard's killer and asks Monk for help in keeping the guy quiet (he constantly bangs away on drums). A friendship flourishes between Monk and the old broad, until Monk begins to suspect the old lady of being in cahoots with the neighbor, who also robs a jewelry store and kills the proprietor in the process. Rowlands always livens up anything she does, and is wonderful here as a lonely senior. Monk is feeling loved for the first time in a long time, and unfortunately begins to back away from Natalie as he grows closer to the old lady.,
7 Reviews
Good Mystery and a Bit of Happiness for Monk
Hitchcoc16 April 2020
Gena Rowlands plays Marge, a pain in the butt for the police department. She and Monk meet on a street corner when he is afraid to cross. She begins to care about him in a motherly way and Monk is able to put aside his weirdness for a while. But there is jewelry store robbery and things get confused. I liked this because it didn't depend on Monk acting out of his mind through the whole thing. There are some very touching scenes.
Season 7 at its sweetest
TheLittleSongbird20 September 2017
'Monk' has always been one of my most watched shows when needing comfort, to relax after a hard day, a good laugh or a way to spend a lazy weekend.
As said a few times, Season 7 was a very mixed bag up to this point, "Mr Monk and the Genius" being one of its best while also having major disappointments like "Mr Monk Falls in Love" and especially "Mr Monk Takes a Punch". To me, "Mr Monk and the Lady Next Door" is the best Season 7 'Monk' episode since "Mr Monk and the Genius", and in the way that "Mr Monk on Wheels" was one of the season's funniest this episode is Season 7 at its sweetest and most touching. There is really very little, if anything, wrong with it, it just lacks the extra something of the classic episodes but very nearly gets there.
It's the friendship chemistry between Monk and the old lady Marge that makes the episode and is the most memorable asset about it, it is so sweet and charming and gives the story a genuine poignancy that the rest of the season didn't have. Anybody who had a very close friend or mother figure who you lived up to, tell them anything without judgement and helping each other through good or tough times will really relate to it like it did ne. She is wonderfully played by Gena Rowlands in one of the best guest supporting turns of Season 7 and of the latter seasons.
When it comes to the mystery "Mr Monk and the Lady Next Door" engages and is clever without being simplistic, obvious or too confusing, if not as memorable as the central friendship while thankfully not being side-lined. Disher and Stottlemeyer are very funny here. The only real faults are not quite enough Natalie (this is such a minor nit-pick though and it's hard not to love her loyal support) and not quite enough of Monk's quirks and phobias.
One of the best things about 'Monk' has always been the acting of Tony Shalhoub in the title role. It was essential for him to work and be the glue of the show, and Shalhoub not only is that but also at his very best he IS the show. Have always loved the balance of the humour, which is often hilarious, and pathos, which is sincere and touching, while other episodes have done that much better when Monk was in character Shalhoub still does wonderfully with what he's given.
Traylor Howard gets to show more range and has the sassiness down pat as well as the charm, she is not dull or annoying here, coming from someone who likes Natalie better than most but prefers Sharona's stronger personality. Jason Gray-Stanford makes the most of his material and Ted Levine shows adept comedic chops.
Visually, the episode is slick and stylish as ever. The music is both understated and quirky. While there is a preference for the theme music for Season 1, Randy Newman's "It's a Jungle Out There" has grown on me overtime, found it annoying at first but appreciate its meaning and what it's trying to say much more now.
In summary, one of the best Season 7 episodes. 9/10 Bethany Cox
As said a few times, Season 7 was a very mixed bag up to this point, "Mr Monk and the Genius" being one of its best while also having major disappointments like "Mr Monk Falls in Love" and especially "Mr Monk Takes a Punch". To me, "Mr Monk and the Lady Next Door" is the best Season 7 'Monk' episode since "Mr Monk and the Genius", and in the way that "Mr Monk on Wheels" was one of the season's funniest this episode is Season 7 at its sweetest and most touching. There is really very little, if anything, wrong with it, it just lacks the extra something of the classic episodes but very nearly gets there.
It's the friendship chemistry between Monk and the old lady Marge that makes the episode and is the most memorable asset about it, it is so sweet and charming and gives the story a genuine poignancy that the rest of the season didn't have. Anybody who had a very close friend or mother figure who you lived up to, tell them anything without judgement and helping each other through good or tough times will really relate to it like it did ne. She is wonderfully played by Gena Rowlands in one of the best guest supporting turns of Season 7 and of the latter seasons.
When it comes to the mystery "Mr Monk and the Lady Next Door" engages and is clever without being simplistic, obvious or too confusing, if not as memorable as the central friendship while thankfully not being side-lined. Disher and Stottlemeyer are very funny here. The only real faults are not quite enough Natalie (this is such a minor nit-pick though and it's hard not to love her loyal support) and not quite enough of Monk's quirks and phobias.
One of the best things about 'Monk' has always been the acting of Tony Shalhoub in the title role. It was essential for him to work and be the glue of the show, and Shalhoub not only is that but also at his very best he IS the show. Have always loved the balance of the humour, which is often hilarious, and pathos, which is sincere and touching, while other episodes have done that much better when Monk was in character Shalhoub still does wonderfully with what he's given.
Traylor Howard gets to show more range and has the sassiness down pat as well as the charm, she is not dull or annoying here, coming from someone who likes Natalie better than most but prefers Sharona's stronger personality. Jason Gray-Stanford makes the most of his material and Ted Levine shows adept comedic chops.
Visually, the episode is slick and stylish as ever. The music is both understated and quirky. While there is a preference for the theme music for Season 1, Randy Newman's "It's a Jungle Out There" has grown on me overtime, found it annoying at first but appreciate its meaning and what it's trying to say much more now.
In summary, one of the best Season 7 episodes. 9/10 Bethany Cox
The ever charming Gena Rowlands and Monk
Somesweetkid31 December 2022
This episode more than made up for the previous one in which Monk was at his most whiney and insensitive after being injured and blaming Natalie.
Most notably, I found his friendship with Gena's "Marge" to be one of the most touching and memorable in the series up to this point. Even her home and furnishings gave the impression that her character legitimately lived there, right down to the decorative plate collection on her wall. As another trivia contributor noted, one of the photos displayed was actually of Gena and her then (and as of this date current) husband, not John Cassavetes. Makes you wonder whether the home portrayed was in fact her own.
Interesting to also note is that Gena's real life mother's name was Lady and in this episode Gena plays the "lady" next door of course.
Most notably, I found his friendship with Gena's "Marge" to be one of the most touching and memorable in the series up to this point. Even her home and furnishings gave the impression that her character legitimately lived there, right down to the decorative plate collection on her wall. As another trivia contributor noted, one of the photos displayed was actually of Gena and her then (and as of this date current) husband, not John Cassavetes. Makes you wonder whether the home portrayed was in fact her own.
Interesting to also note is that Gena's real life mother's name was Lady and in this episode Gena plays the "lady" next door of course.
Gena Rowlands is special guest star
safenoe8 June 2020
Warning: Spoilers
Mr Monk gives the wrong summation because he suspects ill-motives from a motherly character Marge Johnson played by legendary Gena Rowlands. Monk throws everything (including a scarf) but not the kitchen sink when he accused Marge of being part of a grand conspiracy to cause murder and mayhem at the Guiness World Records museum. A thought provoking episode in which Monk questions whether he can really experience true friendship.
A Mother's Touch
merylchen18 January 2024
Among the most heartfelt episodes in the series is the one focusing on Monk's childhood. Truly, whenever Monk's upbringing comes up, it provides the most interesting perspective of the show. Here, we see the missing touch that Monk has always longed for from his mother-simply, to be loved. In this episode, the ever-dashing Gena Rowlands makes that dream come true. However, Monk wonders if it's too good to be true. Throughout his entire existence, he believes that there is always a catch in everything that has shown love or care to him. Countless betrayals have made it hard for him to believe that someone could love him. That's All.
Monk's brutal treatment of a nice lady makes this episode a bomb
FlushingCaps28 July 2020
Warning: Spoilers
Be warned--this review is full of spoilers. Two aspects of this episode make it about the worst Monk ever. With all due respect to the earlier reviewers who loved this one, I simply cannot ignore the elements that you folks didn't seem to mind.
The story: A Guinness World Record Museum is broken into and a security guard is killed. It is learned that the only thing missing the next day is an egg-eating robot-a mechanical man who simulates the rapid eating of hard-boiled eggs.
Monk and Natalie are for some reason walking to the police station instead of driving, but stuck at a corner because the stoplight is broken and Monk has the patience of Job. After 10 minutes, Natalie goes on, while Monk wants to wait another half hour. An older woman named Marge comes along and does the reversal of the traditional boy-scout duty by taking Monk by the arm and leading him across the intersection and to the police station, where she is again reporting her neighbor for playing his noisy drums all day.
Marge gets Monk to talk to the noisy neighbor. She befriends Monk who enjoys her so much that in a short while in a session with his psychiatrist he mentions his actual mother as his "other mother," in relation to Marge. Suddenly, he starts worrying that she is up to something because it seems like everyone else whoever befriended him was just after something.
Along the way, we see another holdup, this time at a jewelry store where the stupid owner on recognizing the hooded bandit reveals that he knows who it is, which pretty-much forces the robber to kill him-after the viewer sees that it is Marge's noisy neighbor.
Captain Stottlemeyer and Randy come to Monk's to talk to Marge because they are suspecting that neighbor, John Keyes, of being the killer/robber because he used to work at the store. During the time of the killing, she had phoned the police again about the noisy drummer next door, and they want to make sure of what she saw and heard. She reports seeing him through the window while hearing the noisy drums, positively.
Monk happens to notice a photo of Marge's son Paulie, who she had told him died at an early age, and suddenly concludes that the birthmark on Paulie matches the drummer, meaning her son didn't die. He rashly accuses her of planning the whole thing with her son so that they could share in the jewelry store heist with Marge's giving John the alibi being trusted because Monk would vouch for Marge. He literally yells at her about being a liar and being involved in the robbery and killing.
But we soon learn that her son did indeed die and that John was bailed out of jail by his mother. Monk tries to apologize to Marge, but she coldly says, "I lost my son...again." She treats Monk coldly but politely afterwards, but has no desire to go back to the fine relationship they had started, due to Monk's wild accusations against her.
What we learn at the end is that John broke into the museum to steal the robot so that he could get this mechanical man to actually play the drums in his house while he was robbing the jewelry store. He was counting on Marge to report the noise to the police, as she had done before.
Why did I dislike this episode so much? Two sets of reasons. First, the crime plots make no sense at all. Why on earth did John need to break into a guarded museum to steal a robot, when he could have just closed his curtains and played a recording of his own drum playing, instead of hoping Marge would look through his window and believe she saw him playing? How did he know no other neighbor, or Monk, would come over to complain, and from a close distance, perhaps look into his living room and see that the drummer was a robot-thus spoiling his alibi?
But what really troubled me was Monk going ballistic against his newest and dearest friend, Marge, based only on a birthmark on a man that looked like one in a photograph of a baby. He already knew the name she had provided for her dead son. He could have easily said nothing and checked out if indeed Paulie had died as Marge said.
Beyond that, the thought that he was supposed to be a character witness for Marge makes no sense. Her honesty wasn't going to be questioned, only her eyesight, if anything. If John was charged with the murder and robbery, the D.A. would only challenge Marge's ability to clearly see her neighbor from her own home. Even then, all Monk could testify to is that he had known her a short while and she seemed like a really nice lady. Does it really make sense that she would be spending hours and hours being nice to Monk just so he could testify that she's a nice person? Of course not!
If somehow she was doing what Monk thought, there's another reason her actions made no sense. He learned about her son on visiting her and seeing that she had tons of pictures of her late husband and only one of a baby boy. If she had a son who grew up and was now a criminal she was helping, she would surely have gotten rid of all the pictures of him, not leaving one in plain view for Monk to see so she'd have to lie. If her son was alive and still had that birthmark, she would surely have made sure Monk never saw a picture of him, and wouldn't want him to ever know she had a son.
Then there's the matter of the pair-under Monk's theory that Marge conspired with her son in this holdup/killing-actually wanting to involve this famous detective in their big crime, making sure he was around, knowing that this would GREATLY increase the chances of their being caught. Purposely involving Monk by the criminal(s) makes as much sense as some out-of-town district attorney in the 1960s trying to arrange for a defendant to be defended by Perry Mason, instead of a local attorney.
Monk jumping to a conclusion based on one minor non-conclusive bit of evidence and totally destroying his relationship with Marge before anyone had time to check for facts, was quite unlike him, and was extremely uncomfortable to watch. If he had stopped to think-something he normally does-he would have quickly realized that it wouldn't have made sense for them to get him involved in their crime. I understand the producers and writers were trying to show how Monk's history made him skeptical of anyone who was nice to him. But his brutal behavior toward this lady who was so nice to him BEFORE he had any real evidence against her made him a truly unlikeable person in this episode.
I felt bad for Monk when his "best friend" a few episodes ago turned out to be after something. In this episode, I felt Monk got what he deserved because of the horrible way he treated her.
Since the plot had Grand Canyon-wide holes in its logic in multiple ways, and Monk's behavior was truly offensive, I have to give this episode a one out of ten. The touching scenes between Monk and Marge were nice to see, but that just made it more disturbing to see Monk foolishly throw it away by jumping to a conclusion instead of doing what he normally does well-investigate. I am so glad it wasn't the first episode I ever saw because I probably wouldn't have watched another and would have missed out on a truly excellent series overall.
The story: A Guinness World Record Museum is broken into and a security guard is killed. It is learned that the only thing missing the next day is an egg-eating robot-a mechanical man who simulates the rapid eating of hard-boiled eggs.
Monk and Natalie are for some reason walking to the police station instead of driving, but stuck at a corner because the stoplight is broken and Monk has the patience of Job. After 10 minutes, Natalie goes on, while Monk wants to wait another half hour. An older woman named Marge comes along and does the reversal of the traditional boy-scout duty by taking Monk by the arm and leading him across the intersection and to the police station, where she is again reporting her neighbor for playing his noisy drums all day.
Marge gets Monk to talk to the noisy neighbor. She befriends Monk who enjoys her so much that in a short while in a session with his psychiatrist he mentions his actual mother as his "other mother," in relation to Marge. Suddenly, he starts worrying that she is up to something because it seems like everyone else whoever befriended him was just after something.
Along the way, we see another holdup, this time at a jewelry store where the stupid owner on recognizing the hooded bandit reveals that he knows who it is, which pretty-much forces the robber to kill him-after the viewer sees that it is Marge's noisy neighbor.
Captain Stottlemeyer and Randy come to Monk's to talk to Marge because they are suspecting that neighbor, John Keyes, of being the killer/robber because he used to work at the store. During the time of the killing, she had phoned the police again about the noisy drummer next door, and they want to make sure of what she saw and heard. She reports seeing him through the window while hearing the noisy drums, positively.
Monk happens to notice a photo of Marge's son Paulie, who she had told him died at an early age, and suddenly concludes that the birthmark on Paulie matches the drummer, meaning her son didn't die. He rashly accuses her of planning the whole thing with her son so that they could share in the jewelry store heist with Marge's giving John the alibi being trusted because Monk would vouch for Marge. He literally yells at her about being a liar and being involved in the robbery and killing.
But we soon learn that her son did indeed die and that John was bailed out of jail by his mother. Monk tries to apologize to Marge, but she coldly says, "I lost my son...again." She treats Monk coldly but politely afterwards, but has no desire to go back to the fine relationship they had started, due to Monk's wild accusations against her.
What we learn at the end is that John broke into the museum to steal the robot so that he could get this mechanical man to actually play the drums in his house while he was robbing the jewelry store. He was counting on Marge to report the noise to the police, as she had done before.
Why did I dislike this episode so much? Two sets of reasons. First, the crime plots make no sense at all. Why on earth did John need to break into a guarded museum to steal a robot, when he could have just closed his curtains and played a recording of his own drum playing, instead of hoping Marge would look through his window and believe she saw him playing? How did he know no other neighbor, or Monk, would come over to complain, and from a close distance, perhaps look into his living room and see that the drummer was a robot-thus spoiling his alibi?
But what really troubled me was Monk going ballistic against his newest and dearest friend, Marge, based only on a birthmark on a man that looked like one in a photograph of a baby. He already knew the name she had provided for her dead son. He could have easily said nothing and checked out if indeed Paulie had died as Marge said.
Beyond that, the thought that he was supposed to be a character witness for Marge makes no sense. Her honesty wasn't going to be questioned, only her eyesight, if anything. If John was charged with the murder and robbery, the D.A. would only challenge Marge's ability to clearly see her neighbor from her own home. Even then, all Monk could testify to is that he had known her a short while and she seemed like a really nice lady. Does it really make sense that she would be spending hours and hours being nice to Monk just so he could testify that she's a nice person? Of course not!
If somehow she was doing what Monk thought, there's another reason her actions made no sense. He learned about her son on visiting her and seeing that she had tons of pictures of her late husband and only one of a baby boy. If she had a son who grew up and was now a criminal she was helping, she would surely have gotten rid of all the pictures of him, not leaving one in plain view for Monk to see so she'd have to lie. If her son was alive and still had that birthmark, she would surely have made sure Monk never saw a picture of him, and wouldn't want him to ever know she had a son.
Then there's the matter of the pair-under Monk's theory that Marge conspired with her son in this holdup/killing-actually wanting to involve this famous detective in their big crime, making sure he was around, knowing that this would GREATLY increase the chances of their being caught. Purposely involving Monk by the criminal(s) makes as much sense as some out-of-town district attorney in the 1960s trying to arrange for a defendant to be defended by Perry Mason, instead of a local attorney.
Monk jumping to a conclusion based on one minor non-conclusive bit of evidence and totally destroying his relationship with Marge before anyone had time to check for facts, was quite unlike him, and was extremely uncomfortable to watch. If he had stopped to think-something he normally does-he would have quickly realized that it wouldn't have made sense for them to get him involved in their crime. I understand the producers and writers were trying to show how Monk's history made him skeptical of anyone who was nice to him. But his brutal behavior toward this lady who was so nice to him BEFORE he had any real evidence against her made him a truly unlikeable person in this episode.
I felt bad for Monk when his "best friend" a few episodes ago turned out to be after something. In this episode, I felt Monk got what he deserved because of the horrible way he treated her.
Since the plot had Grand Canyon-wide holes in its logic in multiple ways, and Monk's behavior was truly offensive, I have to give this episode a one out of ten. The touching scenes between Monk and Marge were nice to see, but that just made it more disturbing to see Monk foolishly throw it away by jumping to a conclusion instead of doing what he normally does well-investigate. I am so glad it wasn't the first episode I ever saw because I probably wouldn't have watched another and would have missed out on a truly excellent series overall.
See also
Awards | FAQ | User Ratings | External Reviews | Metacritic Reviews
