Mr. Monk Gets Jury Duty

"Mr. Monk Gets Jury Duty"
Monk episode
Episode no.	Season 4 Episode 16
Directed by	Andrei Belgrader[1]
Written by	Peter Wolk[1]
Production code	T-2365[1]
Original air date	March 17, 2006
Guest stars
Carlos Gómez as Miguel Escobar Michael Weaver as Agent Lapides Clyde Kusatsu as Judge Rienzo Blake Silver as Karl Pillemer (the victim) Edo Walker as Robert Perry (the defendant) Jurors Bonita Friedericy as the Housewife David Ackert as Patel Carlease Burke as the Teacher Wings Hauser as Mr. Cobb Bryan Coffee as the Sneezing Man Kimi Reichenberg as the Pierced Girl Benito Martinez as the Ex-Marine (Foreman) Unknown Van Epperson as the Postal Worker Kevin Bernsten as the Sports Fan Tony Shalhoub as Adrian Monk Emmanuelle Vaugier as Pat
Season 4 episodes
July 2005 – March 2006 "Mr. Monk and the Other Detective" "Mr. Monk Goes Home Again" "Mr. Monk Stays in Bed" "Mr. Monk Goes to the Office" "Mr. Monk Gets Drunk" "Mr. Monk and Mrs. Monk" "Mr. Monk Goes to a Wedding" "Mr. Monk and Little Monk" "Mr. Monk and the Secret Santa" "Mr. Monk Goes to a Fashion Show" "Mr. Monk Bumps His Head" "Mr. Monk and the Captain's Marriage" "Mr. Monk and the Big Reward" "Mr. Monk and the Astronaut" "Mr. Monk Goes to the Dentist" "Mr. Monk Gets Jury Duty"
Episode chronology
← Previous "Mr. Monk Goes to the Dentist" Next → "Mr. Monk and the Actor"
Monk (season 4) List of Monk episodes

"Mr. Monk Gets Jury Duty" is the sixteenth and final episode of the fourth season of Monk, and is the 61st episode overall.

Plot synopsis

After a long and dangerous chase through the streets of San Francisco, Captain Stottlemeyer and Lieutenant Disher finally capture Miguel Escobar (Carlos Gómez), a drug lord who is the most wanted man in the United States. The arrest gains plenty of publicity for Stottlemeyer and Disher. However, they are soon encountered by FBI Special Agent Lapides (Michael Weaver), who has a letter for them from the United States Attorney General. He needs them to transfer Escobar over to the federal government. Stottlemeyer is reluctant, mentioning to Lapides that they managed to nail him on a local homicide, but Lapides points out that Escobar was also trafficking drugs into seven states. The federal appeal has been filed, so the feds will get to try him first. Stottlemeyer and Disher are to babysit Escobar until the extradition hearing, and drop him off at the local courthouse.

Elsewhere, Monk receives the news that he has been selected for jury duty. Although Monk protests that he works alone, Natalie thinks it will be good for him to work as a team. After an unsympathetic judge (Clyde Kusatsu) dismisses Monk's plea that he couldn't share a toilet with eleven other people, Monk finds himself sitting in on the case of a young man named Robert Perry, (Edo Walker) accused of stabbing a guy named Karl Pillemer (Blake Silver) in the thigh, and then stealing the money he is carrying.

The other jurors are convinced of the accused's guilt, and all vote guilty, but Monk is the lone holdout. He's observed that the stab wound and the hole in the victim's jeans show that Pillemer was sitting, not standing (as he had claimed), when attacked. The wound, Monk figures, was self-inflicted and the knife placed in Perry's hand while he was sleeping so he could pocket the money himself. Several of the jury members change their vote, but Monk is distracted by a dog sniffing around a dumpster outside the window. Monk manages to call to Natalie, who is bringing him his lunch, to call Stottlemeyer and tell him there's a body in the dumpster. Disher finds the body of a woman with no I.D. but wearing orthopedic shoes, and Monk remembers her as a woman sitting in the assembly room when the jurors were being selected.

The following day, Monk shows the jurors the towel that Pillemer used to stem the bleeding from his thigh wound. The blood pattern is consistent with the towel having been neatly folded, even though he claimed to have picked it up off the floor. The other jurors are convinced, except for Juror No. 12, Pat (Emmanuelle Vaugier), who changes her vote to guilty before leaving for the bathroom. Monk finds traces of lime on Juror No. 12's jacket, just as was used on the dumpster to hide the body.

Here's What Happened

Monk figures that Juror No. 12 killed the old woman so as to get on a jury with the victim's identity. She's changed her vote because she wanted to delay the verdict and stay in the jury room.

However, none of the jurors, not even Monk, know that #12 is actually Miguel Escobar's girlfriend, and today is the day that Stottlemeyer and Disher will be transferring Escobar to the feds at the courthouse lobby.

Monk asks the other juror's to help him catch her out. When she returns, they all switch their votes to guilty, even Monk, to see her reaction. She reacts by producing a gun, knocking the bailiff unconscious and leaving the jurors bound and gagged to their chairs. She draws the blind down, but leaves it uneven, which disturbs Monk.

Meanwhile, Escobar has been transferred over to the feds and as he is about to get on the courthouse elevator, his girlfriend comes over and quickly shoots the guards (to no effect, as they are wearing bulletproof vests). They then make their way up the elevator to the garbage chute.

Natalie, passing outside, sees the uneven blind at the jury room window and knows something must be wrong. She frees Monk and they phone Stottlemeyer. When Escobar and his lover come down the chute, they land in the garbage dumpster, and open the side door, only to run into Stottlemeyer and Disher and an assortment of waiting cops, who quickly take them back into custody.

Later, we see Monk introducing Natalie to the rest of his jurors.

Production

The episode contains one of the largest guest casts in the show's history; this is in part due to the casting of an entire jury. Carlos Gómez was cast in the role of Miguel Escobar, a wanted fugitive who was caught early in the episode. The jury included, in order of juror number, Bonita Friedericy, David Ackert, Carlease Burke, Wings Hauser, Bryan Coffee, Kimi Reichenberg, Benito Martinez, unknown, Van Epperson, Kevin Bernsten, Tony Shalhoub, and Emmanuelle Vaugier. Many of these guests would later go on to have larger roles in other shows, including Friedericy on Chuck and Vaugier on Covert Affairs.

This is writer Peter Wolk's second episode, after writing season three's "Mr. Monk Gets Fired" (3.04). Wolk, who previously worked as a criminal defense attorney, had also written courtroom episodes for the shows The Defenders and Fighting the Odds.^[2] The story was written by Wolk, along with Andy Breckman, Tom Scharpling, David Breckman, Joe Toplyn, Dan Dratch, and Hy Conrad over a week in 2005 in Summit, New Jersey.^[2] It is director Andrei Belgrader's fourth, after directing "Mr. Monk Gets Fired" (3.04), "Mr. Monk and the Kid" (3.16), and "Mr. Monk Gets Drunk" (4.05). The episode was filmed in Los Angeles, apart from the opening Chinatown chase scene, as Stottlemeyer and Disher chase Escobar up Jackson Street, which was shot on-location in November 2005 in San Francisco.^[2] Because of the opportunity to film on-location, the opening scene was re-written.^[2]

The jury subplot heavily parodies the classic film 12 Angry Men. These include a single initial "not guilty" vote and the same type of blade used to commit both crimes. Many jurors are parallels of those in 12 Angry Men, including Patel (David Ackert) and Juror #11 (George Voskovec), who are immigrants proud to be in America; Mr. Cobb (Wings Hauser) and Juror #3 (Lee J. Cobb), who are each antagonists and the last to vote "not guilty" (interestingly, both the Monk character and the 12 Angry Men actor are both named Mr. Cobb); the sports fan juror (Kevin Bernsten) and Juror #7 (Jack Warden), who both make various baseball references; and Monk analogues Juror #8 (Henry Fonda), the lone initial "not guilty" votes. Additionally, the panning shot of the jury room was inspired by an identical shot toward the end of 12 Angry Men.^[2] Wolk wrote that the writing team watched the films 12 Angry Men and Jury Duty over the course of production.^[2]

Reception

Adam Finley of TVsquad.com called the episode "decent," but later went on to say "[Monk's] interaction between the rest of the jurors was hysterical."^[3]

References

1. ^ ^{a b c} "Mr. Monk Gets Jury Duty". USA Network. http://www.usanetwork.com/series/monk/theshow/episodeguide/episodes/s4_juryduty/credit.html. Retrieved March 24, 2011. 
2. ^ ^{a b c d e f} Wolk, Peter (March 17, 2006). "Production Blog: Mr. Monk Gets Jury Duty". USA Network. http://www.usanetwork.com/series/monk/webexclusives/blogs/ep_juryduty.html. Retrieved March 24, 2011. 
3. ^ Finley, Adam (March 18, 2006). "Monk: "Mr. Monk Gets Jury Duty"". TVsquad.com. http://www.tvsquad.com/2006/03/18/monk-mr-monk-gets-jury-duty/. Retrieved March 24, 2011. 

External links

• Mr. Monk Gets Jury Duty on the official USA Network website
• "Mr. Monk Gets Jury Duty" at the Internet Movie Database