Monk/Tear Jerker

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Tear Jerkers in Monk include:

  • There is an episode where Captain Stottlemeyer gets kicked out by his wife and ends up staying with Monk. Monk drives him crazy, particularly the fact that while everything else in the apartment is perfectly straight, the coffee table is crooked. After Stottlemeyer has left, Monk sits and looks at the coffee table. Then he flashes back to when Trudy was alive. When he would come home from work tired, she would pull one end of the coffee table closer and put her feet on it, then put his head in her lap.
  • "Mr. Monk Goes Home Again": Monk is told by his agoraphobic brother Ambrose, who has only stepped outside once in many years, that their father, who abandoned them when they were young, is going to return to their old house (where Ambrose still lives} on Halloween night. Monk doesn't believe it, but Ambrose insists that it will happen. Monk, while waiting with his brother, realizes that there's a poisoner on the loose, just as Ambrose eats some of the poisoned food, something from which there is no hope of recovery. They call an ambulance for Ambrose, and Monk and Ambrose say their goodbyes, before they realize that Ambrose hadn't been poisoned at all. Upon returning to Monk's old house, it is discovered that their father left a note telling them that he came and went while they were out, and the end of the note reads 'P.S. Ambrose, I'm proud of you for going outside.' Sniff...
    • "Mr. Monk and the Secret Santa": most of the scenes with Frank Prager (a murder suspect). It turns out that he didn't murder anyone, but was guilty of assaulting Stottlemeyer. The crowning moment comes when Stottlemeyer releases Prager from custody so he can spend Christmas with his family because he feels terrible for what he did.
    • "Mr. Monk and Mrs. Monk": An old informant of Trudy's hires a woman to impersonate her to get a key that belonged to her old partner, leading Monk and his friends to briefly think she's still alive. As if Monk breaking down so badly his doctor has to physically help him just to take a drink of water isn't heartbreaking enough, he then comes to his senses enough to go her gravesite and cry, "It's not you... It's not you." He tells Natalie at the end he knew because "I went to the grave, and it still hurt." But nothing got as many tears as the scene when the imposter is dying from a gunshot and tells Monk, "I'm so sorry. You loved her... I'll tell her." What do you mean this is a comedy?
    • "Mr. Monk's 100th Case"-Ambrose Monk's heartbreaking description of how Adrian was affected by Trudy's death.

Ambrose:"..and I sat there and watched as his soul left his body. The bomb exploded across the city..but it killed my brother too."

  • How come no one has yet mentioned the king of Tear Jerker episodes from Monk, Mr. Monk and the Kid? Just seeing the two bond together throughout the episode, showing how desperately he he wants to adopt Tommy takes the cake for Crowning Moment of Heartwarming. An then to have Monk finally realize he has to give up Tommy in then end was just too much.
    • Oh my God. The storybook version of 'here's what happened', and Monk finally admitting that he can't take care of Tommy...because he can't take care of himself.
  • Mr Monk Fights City Hall. Monk tries for most of the episode to save the parking garage in which Trudy was killed from being demolished to make way for a children's park. He's ultimately unsuccessful, but the City Council elects to call it the "Trudy Monk Memorial Playground" in her memory.
  • "Mr. Monk makes a Friend" really plays up Monk's No Social Skills and he was so happy to make a friend that turns out to be a murderer. Even when he's confronted by the truth, he still doesn't want to believe it. Especially tear jerking is Monk's wish to have a best friend when he was a little kid in his usual therapy session.
  • Mr Monk and the Dog. SEVERAL parts of that would just kill us. (we're dog owners.) Especially the part where the guy wants to kill the dog puppies.
  • Mr. Monk and The End, Part 1. Watching a very ill Monk painstakingly take his medicine capsule apart to separate the colored balls into neat piles was absolutely heartbreaking.
    • And in Mr. Monk and The End, Part 2, Trudy's tape and when Monk meets Trudy's daughter
    • The ending montage..
      • Definitely not helped that the king of tear jerking songs, Randy Newman, wrote a new one "When I'm Gone". As soon as it hit that minor chord.

Back to Monk