Monk Episode Guide

Monk Episodes

The Mafia and the FBI both pressure Monk into taking on the case of five mobsters gunned down in a barbershop.

When five members of the West Coast Mafia are shot down in a barbershop, Monk is pressured by mob godfather Salvatore Lucarelli and his nephew "Fat Tony" to solve the case. But the FBI in the person of Agent Colmes is pressuring him, too. Despite Captain Stottlemeyer’s insistence that Colmes is not to be trusted, Monk accepts his offer of reinstatement on the police force if he can bring down the whole gang. The only clues are a partially completed crossword puzzle and a gumball machine that was apparently used to break a back window so the killer could escape. With a Mafia bodyguard named Vince as their "babysitter," Monk and Sharona interview the sole witness, Phil Bedard, a young U.S. mint employee who tells them that he saw three men running from the scene, one of them wearing a jacket with a strange-looking number 15 on the back. Bedard also explains the heightened security at the mint: someone has stolen five double-headed pennies. Associating the numbers on the jackets with a Chinese gang, Monk interrogates gang leader Jimmy Lu, who appears to have nothing to do with the killing, then reluctantly agrees to wear a "bug" in his tie to attend a funeral for the dead Mafia members, with not only Colmes but Stottlemeyer and Lt. Disher listening in. But before Monk ties together the crossword puzzle, the gum machine, and the perpetrator to solve the case, he spills sauce on his tie and ruins the bug by washing and ironing the tie. Fortunately the mob comes to the rescue and the terrified perp turns himself in. Unfortunately, Colmes retracts the offer to get Monk reinstated since he solved the case but did not bring down the gang.