Mr. Monk Goes to the Asylum
| "Mr. Monk Goes to the Asylum" |
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"Mr. Monk Goes to the Asylum" was an episode of the TV series Monk.
Plot
In an odd lapse of judgment, Monk finds himself in the wrong apartment, trying to make dinner for his late wife Trudy as it is the anniversary of the day they met. The authorities, rather than pressing charges, place Monk in a psychiatric asylum for observation and evaluation under a psychiatrist named Dr. Lancaster (Dennis Boutsikaris).
While in the asylum, Monk is initially relieved to be receiving such intensive treatment, which he believes is doing him a great deal of good. However, things get a bit sticky when Monk's roommate John (Kevin Nealon) tells him about a murder that was committed on the asylum's grounds several years earlier. Supposedly, the ex-patient Bill LaFrankie killed a former director, Dr. Gould, in order to steal some demerol.
Lancaster insists that Monk not "play detective" while in his care, but Monk's investigative impulses are irresistible. He begins to suspect that the murderer is Lancaster himself. With the help of Manny (Ken Cheeseman), a patient obsessed with Santa Claus, Monk tries to investigate the case without inviting the staff's wrath. Lancaster, realizing Monk is onto him, grows nervous and upset.
When Sharona arrives to check on her boss, Lancaster informs her that Monk's condition has been deteriorating. Monk suggests his suspicions to Sharona, who does some sleuthing of her own and discovers that Dr. Lancaster indeed had a strong motive to commit the crime: He was intensely jealous that Dr. Gould had been promoted ahead of him. With the help of some glow-in-the-dark paint and a photo of Trudy, Sharona passes the information on to Monk.
Lancaster makes a last-ditch effort to dispatch Monk and destroy the evidence of his crime. Locked in a padded room in a straitjacket, Monk has only a few minutes to pull a Houdini-like escape and call Sharona to alert the police. Just as Monk predicts, Lancaster has stepped out onto the roof, clad in a Santa suit, to find and destroy the gun he used to kill Gould years earlier. The boys in blue, along with Sharona, arrive just in time to save Monk and detain Lancaster.