Mr. Monk and the End

On the morning of December 14, 1997, Trudy Monk is discussing with Adrian how hard it is to keep secrets from him. She asks him about his latest investigation, the disappearance of a midwife named Wendy Stroud. Monk notices a present under their Christmas tree, but Trudy instructs him not to open it until Christmas Day. Monk notes she appears nervous. Later that day, Trudy goes to a meeting with someone at a multi-story parking garage, but panics when a six fingered man who had been watching her emerges from the shadows. Trudy returns to her car, which explodes when she turns the key.

Monk and Captain Stottlemeyer question Dr. Malcolm Nash (Ed Begley Jr.), director of the Palgrove Birthing Center where Stroud worked. Stottlemeyer receives a phone call and informs Monk that Trudy has been killed.

In the present day, 2009, Monk awakes and sees a vision of Trudy before him, telling him it is time for him to say goodbye to her and to sleep in the middle of the bed, and that "it won't be much longer". When Monk discusses this later that day with his assistant Natalie Teeger, he finds that their latest case is taking them back to the same birthing clinic he had been at 12 years ago. Although Stottlemeyer offers Monk the chance to sit the case out, he insists he is okay. The pair learn that Dr. Nash had been shot dead while he had been digitizing patient records. Monk concludes that the murder was committed by a professional hitman, and the police soon find a partial fingerprint that identifies the suspect as Joey Kazarinski (John Edward Lee). Seeking a warrant for his arrest from Judge Ethan Rickover (Craig T. Nelson), the group overhear Rickover telling his wife that he will never move out of his house, learning that he has been nominated for the State Supreme Court.

That night, Kazarinski receives a phone call from his employer, who instructs him to kill Monk; when he questions why he must do so, his employer declares that they had killed Trudy. When attending a dinner the following day at Natalie's house, Monk becomes sick. At the hospital, haemotologist Dr. Matthew Shuler (D.B. Woodside) discovers that Monk has been poisoned with a powerful synthetic toxin based on ricin. As no one else got sick, all of the food and other consumables in Natalie's house has to be tested. Shuler states that they cannot create the antidote without knowing which form of the poison was used. Monk will die within 2–3 days if not treated.

After Natalie admits she unknowingly encountered Kazarinski at a supermarket hours before Monk was poisoned, Stottlemeyer forms an unofficial task force within the San Francisco Police Department - Disher leads one half to find out who hired the hitman to kill Dr. Nash, while Stottlemeyer leads the other half to find the hitman in order to find out what poison he used on Monk. The group track down Kazarinski to a train station, only for him to spot an undercover police officer and make a run for it. Kazarinski is hit by a freight train and killed.

Monk visits Dr. Neven Bell (Héctor Elizondo) to talk about all that has happened in the past few days, then leaves to settle his affairs before his death. Monk returns home and finally decides to open his wife's present, a videotape recording made by Trudy, who reveals that she managed to keep a secret from him, a terrible one from years before they met.

Monk learns that Trudy had had an affair with Rickover when he had been a law professor at Berkeley. She became pregnant and gave birth to a baby girl who died within minutes. She then reveals that ten years after the affair, Rickover, at the time nominated for the appellate court, called her out of the blue to arrange a meeting with her at a parking garage, but that she became nervous due to the sinister tone in his voice, and the fact that Stroud, the woman who had disappeared at the time the call was made, had been involved in delivering the child. Trudy suspected that Rickover might be silencing everyone who knew about the affair, so she made the video just in case.

Despite Natalie's efforts to dissuade him, Monk confronts Rickover during his confirmation hearing for the office of state supreme court justice. When he does not confess and begins to insult both Monk's and Trudy's mental stability, Monk attacks him and has to be escorted away by guards. Brought back to the hospital, Monk is visited by Stottlemeyer and Randy, who tell him that phone records show several calls between him and Dr. Nash. Monk then remembers the conversation between Rickover and his wife about his house, and deduces that a crucial clue is connected to it. At Monk's apartment, while putting his things into clear plastic bags, Natalie has the same symptoms as Monk. She realizes that the poison was planted in Monk's hand wipes; the hospital is given this information to make an antidote. However, Monk sedates the guard protecting him, steals his gun, and leaves.

At Rickover's house, the group see Monk forcing Rickover at gunpoint to dig at a spot before his sundial. Monk states that the remains of the missing midwife are buried there. Monk asserts that Rickover committed the murders in order to ensure that he would get the position of appellate judge. Twelve years ago, Wendy Stroud had found religion and told Rickover she intended to tell the press about his affair with Trudy and their child, forcing him to kill her and bury her in his front yard, which explains why he refused to move. Rickover was also forced to kill Trudy, as she was the only person who could connect Stroud's disappearance to him. Twelve years later, Dr. Nash came across references to the child when digitizing the birthing clinic's patient records, and thus suspected what had happened to Stroud. He then tried to blackmail Rickover, causing Rickover to hire Kazarinski to kill him. After Disher digs up the remains, Rickover steals Monk's gun and commits suicide.

A few days later, Monk, having recovered, ponders what he will now do with himself now. While packing up Trudy's things, Monk finds an old newspaper article concerning Stroud's disappearance, and discovers that Trudy's child did not die; Stroud had secretly taken the child away at Rickover's request and put her up for adoption. Stottlemeyer tracks her down. Monk meets Trudy's daughter, Molly Evans (Alona Tal), who bears a striking resemblance to Trudy and, much like her mother, is a writer, working as a film critic for a local paper. The pair are happy to meet and get acquainted. Meanwhile, Stottlemeyer finds out that Disher has been offered the job of chief of police of Summit, New Jersey, and that he has been dating Monk's former nurse and assistant, Sharona Fleming.

When Molly asks Monk what he will do now that Trudy's murder is solved, he replies that he wants to retire and follow Molly around and document her life. Molly advises him to use the gift he has to "help all the Trudys in the world”; Monk agrees. As Monk prepares for another day, with his actions, speech and style of clothing implying that his various phobias and obsessions are now under control, he informs Natalie that he will be going to the movies with Molly before the pair leave to take on another case, though Monk returns to check that the stove is off. There follows a montage of clips from the course of the show's eight seasons: Disher comfortably settles into his new job as police chief; Stottlemeyer is now happily married to T. K. (Virginia Madsen); and Monk and Natalie arrive at a crime scene to tackle their next case for Stottlemeyer.

"Mr. Monk and the End" has received generally positive reviews. Allison Waldman of TvSquad called the cliffhanger at the end of "Part 1" great and said that she was "dying to know how [it would be] resolved". She also praised Tony Shalhoub's acting in the bed scene in which he talks to Trudy.[2] Waldman called the drama "tense" in "Part 2", and praised Shalhoub and Craig T. Nelson's acting.[3] Jonah Krakow of IGN had mixed feelings about the finale, saying that Molly's introduction was a nice way to send the show off, although he felt cheated that the show's biggest mystery was literally handed to Monk in a box. Like Waldman, he praised Shalhoub's and Nelson's acting, and the tension of their scene in which Nelson digs up the midwife's body. Overall he gave it an 8 out of 10.[4] The A.V. Club's Emily VanDerWerff called it "a surprisingly sweet ending to a show that I haven't watched regularly in a few years", and gave it a "B+".[5]

"Part 1" gained 5.8 million viewers.[6] "Part 2" set various records in television history, with 9.4 million viewers. It was the series high (previously set by the prior season's finale "Mr. Monk Fights City Hall"), USA Network's most-watched scripted television show (previously set by Burn Notice), and basic cable's most-watched hour-long drama (previously set by The Closer with 9.2 million viewers).

Tony Shalhoub was nominated for the 2010 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series for this episode. Additionally, Randy Newman won the 2010 Primetime Emmy Award for Original Outstanding Music and Lyrics for the song "When I'm Gone".