Charlie Goose

Feh. Two episodes into the season, and two cases of stunt casting taking away from the core formula. I can't wait to see who will play Monk's father in a future episode.

Not a great one, and it looks like Monk has reached its peak.

Second Guest

I'd have to disagree. The product placement in the opening scene was a little jarring (Ambrose's grocery order showing a close-up of Glad ForceFlex trash bags as the clerk announced them and pointed to the box, followed by a commercial in the first block for those exact bags), but other than that I thought it was a good episode. Having John Turturro reprise his role as Ambrose was not as distracting for me as last week's complete domination of the episode by Jason Alexander. Ambrose and Adrian work well together and they're so much alike that I don't feel as though I was cheated out of a complete Monk experience as I was last week. It would be nice to have an episode without guest stars, though. It looks like that might happen next week.

I'm just glad that the writing seems to have gotten back to its first-season quality. The first half of season three had Monk behaving like a cartoon, in my opinion, as though he were doing a bad parody of himself. Since the first episode with Natalie, Monk seems to be back to his old self. Maybe it's true that the show has reached its peak (or re-reached it), but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Monk, as it is now, is far better than most other shows currently on the air.

kvrdave

I thought this episode was good. I don't ever mind John Turturro showing up, and I don't see it as throwing a star in for no reason. The "mystery" was a little obvious by the end, but it was better than most of last season. Last season the big problem was crap writing. It's seems to be getting better, and I plan to stick with it.

coladar

Likewise, thought this was an excellent episode writing and character wise. John Turturro didn't do anything but add to the character of Monk as far as I was concerned. After the horrid start to last year, I'd really grown tired of this show. After that godawful episode with Monk and the kid to end the last season, I'd nearly written off giving S4 a try. Now after just two episodes into this season, and I'm already back to absolutely loving this show.

My only problem with this episode was I got visions of that episode with the pies... Err, wow. I went back to get the episode name and I see that was the first episode Ambrose appeared in. I had forgotten that he was in that episode. Kind of strange the two episodes/mysteries were so similar, guys wanting to kill their wives, murders of which involved tracking down food products, and then down to the appearance of Ambrose, but whatever. It was still enjoyable.

MrX

I thought it was good.

I liked the Disher and Stottlemeyer moments the most.

Patman

They missed out on a punchline in the ambulance by not having Ambrose reference back to their mom making them practice how to laugh.

Second Guest

I had that same thought, but then I couldn't figure out why the suspect would be going to such extreme measures to retrieve the candy bars. I mean, it wasn't as though he'd accidentally spilled poison on them. The development of the story was perfect, giving away just the right bits of information at a time so it wasn't obvious too soon or baffling at the end. All in all, I found it to be a very satisfying episode.