Monk season 5

Not the best series, no. It has a few moments, but it's nothing special.

The episodes:

1-Mr Monk and the actor
Monk is looking forward to a vacation and his doctor says that's "tangible progress" and he should cancel the Wednesday's appointments and only come on Mondays and Fridays, because now he's on step 2, and Monk is happy and starts asking how many times Harold comes and what step is he in... :p
Big news, they're making a movie on last year's astronaut case, and a famous actor, Dave Roscon, is to play Monk, and he's excited because he saw him in a movie together with Trudy and she thought he was handsome - Stanley Tucci is handsome :)
The actor wants to follow him around to study him and better 'become' him.. :p Monk is all nervous, shaking his hand and trying to be normal :p and looking very weird :p
A guy was having an affair, but when he realised his lover was taping him he killed her, sort of accidentally, the same way he 'accidentally' killed a shop owner who caught him stealing, while fighting him off.
Natalie is worried because that actor has a history of getting 'too involved', 'too connected', to the people he studies, and sure enough she catches him acting like Monk even when nobody's around to see him. The captain and Randy are rather surprised when they watch the shooting of the show and Randy is played by a girl :p making out with the captain :p The captain said "that never happened", and Randy "not even once" :p Then Dave stops acting because he can't work with the place and crew so mixed up :p too much like Monk. Dave then shows up at Monk's place at night, asking him to help him, asking him why he keeps doing it, what makes him go on, and wants (has to) feel what he's feeling, and asks about Trudy "I didn't deserve her, the world didn't deserve her" and makes him talk of Trudy's death, poor Monk, and says "that's why you do this, you can't find Trudy's killer so you do the next best thing, you track down and you capture other criminals" - Monk:"it's not enough" - Dave: "it'll never be enough" :-( then Monk goes to Natalie in the middle of the night saying that Dave is so selfish and immature barging in his house because he wanted to talk.... :p
Dave kind of loses himself, believing he's really Monk and going to the garage to investigate Trudy's murder, and when they find this case's killer, he goes there with Monk's gun thinking he killed Trudy.
Monk and Dave fight; the guy confesses to killing the girl Michelle and the old man, but of course not Trudy. Dave and Monk cry together talking of the day Trudy died (doesn't look good with Monk's hair - argh - ).
The movie is cancelled and the whole thing was a traumatic experience for him, so he cancels his weekend and wants to see his doctor seven days a week. The doctor tries to tell him that he has a family and wants his weekend free, but it's Monk so I guess he'll be seeing him on weekends too, for a while at least...
2-Mr Monk and the garbage strike
A long garbage-workers-strike is driving Monk crazy; Monk says that he wishes the Union-boss dead, and then he is really found dead. Monk mails his garbage to his doctor.... who is very upset, it is upsetting his wife and children, and he wants Monk to stop mailing him his garbage.
Monk goes to a meeting to tell them to go back to work, and they hire him to look into the boss' death, saying that they'll go back to negotiations if he says that it was suicide... so he's troubled, he wants it to be suicide and he says suicide, but Natalie forces him to "really" look around and so he sees that it's murder, but still says to the press that it was suicide, to get them back to work. Natalie is very disappointed in him - Monk says: "what took you so long?" ... I don't know if I should laugh or cry...
He says it was "for the greater good", and that the truth is buried under mountains of garbage. She forces him to say that it's murder to the captain. Monk goes to the Mayor saying the city is ruined forever but he has a plan: evacuate everybody, burn the city down and then build San Francisco back from scratch...
Monk becomes sure that the mayor is involved, it ends up in the press and it's a big mess. Monk keeps accusing the mayor, but it wasn't him. He was wrong! Monk starts collecting the garbage personally! He's totally lost it, he accuses Alice Cooper next! The captain brings him to a "fabrication room", a place with no smell, 100% germs free, the cleanest room in the world, so he can finally think straight again and accuse the union accountant. Case closed, the strike's over! Monk throws confetti to celebrate but then wants the mean to clean the street :p patience guys...
(and I learned that confetti doesn't mean confetti but coriandoli... how strange, I didn't know that)
3-Mr Monk and the big game
Julie plays basketball but her coach is killed. Along with two friends, Emily C and Emily J, they hire Monk. They only have 57dollars but Julie says "we know it's not what you usually get but it can count for me as my birthday present" and Monk "here's the thing, I wasn't planning to buy you a birthday present" .... I mean, really? but then he accepts of course.
Everybody thought it was an accident; she got electrocuted. All the girls loved coach Hayden.
Monk is envious of all the trophies at school :p  Monk used to report troublemaker kids to the principal.
Meeting the principal: "we met last here at the career day, how have you been?" - Monk "the same" Principal Franking:"I'm sorry to hear that" ...
The team would have to forfeit the next game but Natalie volunteers as their coach for one match, and Monk is her assistant. He's excited to learn they all will have trophies with their name on it :p He even carries around a whistle (and uses it a lot...) during the investigation. Natalie thought she'd put a stop to it by blowing into it, but Monk had a spare one...
Coach Hayden had caused a fire two weeks earlier and she wanted to confess, but if she were arrested they would have her dna, so similar to her brother who killed a girl but was never found.
The captain goes to see the match and a woman asks: "which one is yours?" and he says "the big one with the whistle" :p
Natalie is sent out, expelled,  because she replied to the ref, so Monk's on his own. The girls were winning but then they lost the last two seconds. At the end, they buy a little trophy for every murder he solved so that Monk can put them on his mantle if he wants. :)
4-Mr Monk can't see a thing
Monk has 30 smoke alarms for five rooms and brings them to the firefighters to be checked. The men have to go for a call, and Monk is left alone with one of them. They are attacked by a man. He throws something acid on Monk's face and he can't see anything anymore. Rusty is killed :(
Monk's even lower than usual now but he goes along trying to help find the man who killed him. Randy is even more annoying than usual "Randy speaking, I'm reaching for my pocket..." and that kind of things :-/ Later on, Monk finds the good side of his situation, of this 'out-of-sight' thing: he can't see the dirt, the rats, all the bad things that disgusted him before, so he's not bothered by them now. He can figure it out by touching things.
A man killed a woman and started a fire, when all the firefighters had to leave. The murderer forgot something in the house and needed a firefighter coat to enter the place unnoticed. Monk follows his suspect not realising that he's alone. The guy tries to kill him but he hits him with his stick then wanders around trying to reach the captain! Finally they find Monk and save him, but his suspect falls to his death. Monk realises his boss payed him to kill her and goes with the captain to the morgue to find proof. When the captain's attacked Monk can shoot the guy because he's regaining his eyesight as the doctor said. End: he can again see Trudy's pictures :)
5-Mr Monk, private eye
A woman wants to leave her lover and go back to her husband but the lover kills her.
The captain has a profile on MakeaDate.net and has been chatting with Randy's cousin.
Natalie wants Monk to start his own private business. She rents a place for him. For two days nobody shows up then Monk and Natalie have a client: Linda is in real estate and someone scratched her car, and she wants him to find who did it. The captain meets Linda and they go out together. Monk goes crazy anytime Natalie hands out his business cards :p
The murderer also kill a man who knew something and wants to go after Monk now. Monk and Natalie talk to him, this Dr Bennett, but only know that he damaged Linda's car and are all 'it's no big deal, it was an accident...' and when they clear things up he smiles but still denies it.
Natalie finds the man's body; Monk goes checking a boat when Bennett starts it with him on board. Natalie calls the captain and they go after him with Linda's boat. Monk can't swim, but he took a correspondence course to know what to do in the event of a tsunami :p
Bennett wants to shoot him so Monk jumps in the water :p
the captain moves into a new apartment that Linda found for him, across her own apartment building :p
6-Mr Monk and the class reunion
A man kills a woman pushing her down the stairs , to make it look like an accident, but the captain is not fooled (for once :D)
Monk has a class reunion, class of '81. He tells Natalie to go, that he's fine and excited, but of course he looks lost once he's in there. He says hello to a group of people and they have no idea who he is (although they remember Trudy well - honestly, how could someone not remember someone as peculiar as Monk??) . Natalie hears a man in the parking lot say that they called him captain cool because he cleaned his fridge every weekend, so she goes back to stay with him.
The killer lost a pin like the one Monk has, meaning he's at the reunion too; the victim was a nurse there.
Monk shows her the library where he met Trudy (we see their first encounter, very sweet until another guy came to take her away... still, later she chose him!!). Diane remembers him because Trudy was her roommate, but her husband acts very weirdly, long before we hear him talk about "she'll be dead".
 - Monk keeps cleaning around... -
Twenty-five years ago Diane tried to kill herself and wrote a suicide note, but the nurse found her and read it, so the husband killed the only person who read it and then tried to kill her passing it on as a suicide, using that note. They save her :)
 - We see that back then Monk took Trudy's hand no problem... :crying: -
7-Mr Monk gets a new shrink
Monk and Harold are fighting in Dr Kroger's office, and when he comes in they see the cleaning lady murdered. Monk tries to read Harold's file first and then his own and the captain sends him out :p
Monk reads the words "no hope" on his file. The doctor tells him that he's retiring, and Monk goes through denial and anger and bargaining and depression and acceptance very very quickly, and on a loop. He doesn't know what he's gonna do without doctor Kroger, and on Monday morning he has Natalie sit in the doctor's chair and he talks to her, but doesn't want her to talk back, because "nobody cares about your problems"... I understand the obsessions but this lack of empathy (or basic politeness) is not nice at all.
Monk shows up at the doctor's home but he doesn't let him in. Good.
At night Monk spies on him through his window :-/ Harold too, from the opposite window, and they gestures just like Donna Noble and the Tenth Doctor.
Someone throws a rock with a threatening note into his house. Kroger's son Troi is a punk who hates his parents and calls them by name (Charles and Madeleine). Kroger refers Monk to another doctor. The next day he goes to meet doctor Sorensen, but he's put off by the fact that he's missing his right arm, is not symmetrical, and also the new studio... then he thinks of the case and leaves. That rock comes from outside Kroger's office. He talks to Kroger in his office while he's packing up of his suspects on the neighbour when he comes in with a gun. He takes Monk and Kroger prisoners. The man was dealing drugs. Nobody knows where they are but Harold, who's following them, and he calls the captain. Usual story, he killed the lady right away but brought Monk and the doctor to the warehouse where he and his accomplice keep the drugs... why?...
Harold comes to help but is distracted by all the things out of place. When the bad guy shoots the doctor, Harold takes a bullet for him.
Monk asks doctor Kroger about the "no hope" note, and leans that it was actually N.Hope in Pennsylvania, where his father was born.
So what, the doctor is not retiring anymore??
8-Mr Monk goes to a rock concert
The captain's son has skipped school to go to a rock event: Natalie and Monk go with him to find him, although Monk only goes because he thought they were talking of actual rocks.. :p
Randy is at the concert too, after he called in sick :p
The captain has problems with his son but finds a connection eventually :-)
A dead body is found in a portable john. The case was very quickly solved, and all the time was spent moving around the crowd... rather boring, yes.
9-Mr Monk meets his dad
Monk's father is downtown, in jail!! Adrian hasn't seen him since he was eight years old. Adrian thought he wrote school books, but he's a truck driver, in Texas. (after 39 years... so he's 47 now?)
He asks Adrien to get him out of there, then tells him he can't stop there for Christmas but asks him to go with him: back in three days. Jack has another son, Jack jr, now a 31 year-old surgeon in Baltimore, and Jack left his mother too. After only a few hours Adrian calls Natalie asking her to go pick him up but they can't, still he spoiled the Christmas atmosphere...
Adrian feels there's something wrong, and Jack gets angry, accuses him of sabotaging him, and leaves him again. Hearing that his boss Kenneth has been found dead and that the other boss has been lying to him, Jack goes back to get Adrian. They continue their journey together until Adrian figures it out. The boss sent Jack on a nonsense route to make him drive enough miles to erase from the truck's gps where he had gone with it.
Jack reveals that Jack Jr is not really a successful surgeon but a junkie who lives in his basement.
Adrian has the murderer arrested, then Jack buys him a bicycle and teaches him how to ride it :)
10-Mr Monk and the leper
Monk meets with a mysterious man who wants to hire him: they shake hands then the man tells him that he's a leper. He runs home and cleans his hand for hours then tries to set it on fire! Natalie has a doctor tell Monk how that condition is not contagious, but still has a hard time convincing him to help the guy (for 25.000 dollars).
He said he had one affair, and in a week he'll be declared dead and proof will be found and his wife will suffer. Monk takes the job and he breaks into his house with Natalie to retrieve the letters. Monk keeps referring to him as "the leper". The wife busts them and goes to meet her husband. They want Monk to testify that he's alive so the wife can keep the money that would otherwise go to his family. Only later Monk will realise the truth: the wife Mandy killed her husband Derek Bronson seven years ago; someone has been impersonating him to get her the inheritance and then she shot him. At the confrontation, Monk and Natalie escape on a hot-air balloon, but she manages to shoot at it before Randy arrests her - during the balloon-crashing scene, that man was so obviously not Monk :p the woman was very convincing, but he was so very different :p
At the end, Monk is saved by accepting the hand of the doctor, literally, before he falls to his death. Natalie decides to go out again with him, winning her prejudices against his past condition, but when he picks her up he meets Julie and I guess he didn't know about any daughter, so I guess we won't see more of him...
11-Mr Monk makes a friend
Monk crashes into a guy outside the supermarket (I hate the fact that Monk always throws away food, I understand that he has a 'condition', but food should not be thrown away like that :-p I mean, it can happen to everyone from time to time, but he always does it :/ )
The guy Hal calls him later to ask him to go together at a hockey game and he's all excited, and freaking out too and driving Natalie and Julie crazy too.
"Excuse the mess" Monk says, because he left five crumbs on purpose... Hal seems such a nice guy, Natalie wonders what he might be up to... they keep seeing each other, going to games together...
A woman is killed, her ex boyfriend was played by an actor I know but couldn't really place him...
The captain and Natalie are worried Hal might be a con-artist, but of course he's more than that, he's the murderer. Monk keeps talking about him to everyone, also to doctor Kroger. He always wanted a best friend, and wants to "ask" him to be his best friend...
Monk doesn't even notice that he's always picking up his mail... and after he finds the letter he was waiting for from the now-dead girl, he disappears. Monk is so sad, like a child... eventually he goes to him, acting like a crazy-jealous lover, and gets in trouble. Hal wants to shoot him. "So you never really liked me?" - "Are you kidding? Spending a day with you is like pulling teeth, I'm surprised your own shadow keeps you company". The captain figures it out and arrive in time to save him. Monk now has tickets to give out - the captain takes the tickets for the women-volleyball-game, and Natalie asks him to go with her at the ice-skating event.
12-Mr Monk is at your service
Sean Astin is this episode's murderer Paul. Monk is depressed because there's a "hiring freeze" at the police department.
Monk and Natalie have lunch at her parents'. Paul's parents died, and Natalie has Monk investigate their deaths. Her parents know Paul, but she can't stand him. Paul is very rich and thinks he can get away with anything. As an excuse to be there, Monk is interviewed for the butler position in the house (after Paul shot his old butler). He's hired and he drives the other servants crazy. He starts to like his position and his new career and he's very stubborn, even when the guests drive 'him' crazy (wanting to choose their own dishes instead of just eating what he gives them...) , finally Monk realises what he'd done. Paul's dad died of a heart attack, but Paul killed his stepmother and made it look like he died later to inherit everything and cut off his stepsisters.
The captain threatened to quit and got a deal: Monk is off the "hiring freeze" so when he'll be ready to go back to work they will hire him again..
13-Mr Monk is on the air
Radio star Max kills his wife. Her sister Linda hires Monk. He thinks the same and talks to him while he's like on air with his show with two men, and they make fun of him and verbally harass Natalie. Randy likes the guy :-/
 - There's neighbour Kevin again :lol:
Kevin brings Monk his comedian uncle's professional jokes to give him the courage to go back on air with the jerk... and he brings them in his sleeve :/ with his memory, couldn't he just memorise it? That was stupid, I couldn't watch it... until he talked about Trudy and the jerk made fun of her death and Monk attacked him. Unfortunately a security guy stopped him.
Still, he found a better revenge: he found out how he did it. He trained the neighbour's dog.
The end: he watches the video of his wedding. It's not entirely true that he never laughed, he laughed with Trudy. He was eating the wedding cake from her hand, getting his face dirty, and laughing!!!!
14-Mr Monk visits a farm
Randy's uncle Harvey died, believed suicide, and Randy decides to go and live in his farm and resigns from the police after he busted into the wrong place. Randy starts thinking he was murdered and asks Monk to take a bus and go there. A bus to a farm... a lot of dirt, to him.
He starts investigating, he even goes to the monthly dance, and dances with the sheriff. Randy is so down that he even goes to the suspect's house to get hired to work there, and speaks a few words in Spanish. He kinda understands Spanish, more or less, only what he learned in high school, and is soon found out by the owner.
 - there's the actor who played Gabrielle's husband in Desperate Housewives
Monk figures out who did it and whispers it in Randy's ear at night, so that he would believe that he solved it himself and get confidence again and go back to being a cop. So this time it's Randy doing the "here's what happened" thing. Well, Monk told him the whole story, but Randy found the evidence himself. He's back to work, the captain never files his resignation paper and now Randy is his old idiot-self again, thinking he just needs to go to sleep and he can solve any case * rollingeyes *
15-Mr Monk and the really, really dead guy
A street musician is killed:  1-blow to the head 2-suffocated 3-poison 4-stabbed 5-shot 6-run over ....
The captain and Monk were on another case but are called on this one, lead by the FBI, (and here it's not Monk the weird one, how can he know if the guy is talking to him or to someone on the earphone, if that guy keeps looking straight at him?? Why doesn't he look anywhere else? He seems a jerk already). Natalie: "he's just never seen an earpiece phone before" - guy:"where has he been, in a coma?" - Monk:"in a coma? No, I wish" ...
The to the captain, "let me tell you my definition of (working in) tandem: I say something, you do it" - yep, jerk alright.
The FBI is here because the murderer left a note saying he'll kill again in 36 hours. They're so arrogant, they send away Monk saying he doesn't belong there, that he's not a man, making Monk feel bad and antique (he tried to have Julie teach him computer, the result was that he sent the swat team to her slumber party terrorising her friends). At the end, Monk solves the case, it had been a diversion to keep everyone so busy they wouldn't think of any other case. The whole point was to have them wait at least 36 hours before they came back to the woman who was murdered just before the musician. The stomach contents can't be retrieved after 36 hours (but Natalie could recognise what it was just by looking at it after it was retrieved 35 hours and 50 minutes later (if not more; right as she saw it, it was 36 hours exact..)
16-Mr Monk goes to the hospital
Monk goes to the hospital saying his nose is bleeding. While he wanders around looking for a better doctor, he finds him dead, killed. Another doctor killed because he would have testified against him for malpractice. The murderer tries to kill Monk too. Meanwhile Natalie went on a date but left the restaurant to hurry back to him, knowing he needs her (because he always does). Of course he didn't die, but he's injured and admitted under Doctor Scott's care... :-/ Natalie arrives in time to save him before he was killed.
A boring, annoying episode, with him walking the whole time with his head up complaining of his nosebleed  :-/