The 10 Most Essential Monk Episodes to Watch Before Mr. Monk's Last Case: A Monk Movie

Throughout its 125 episodes on-air, Monk became a network TV rarity. The crime comedy-drama, which ran from 2002 to 2009 on USA Network, managed to provide eight seasons of truly beloved, compelling television without flaming out or jumping the shark. In fact, the show's ratings were unprecedented and the series finale broke a basic cable record. 

Much of Monk's success can be chalked up to Tony Shalhoub (who took home three Emmys for his efforts), who starred as "defective detective" Adrian Monk, a former San Francisco police detective with obsessive compulsive disorder who becomes homebound after his journalist wife Trudy (Melora Hardin) is murdered in a car bombing. The show picks up five years later as he begins to consult with the SFPD again, aided by an assistant who helps him navigate his way through both work and life. A "how catch em" mystery series in the same vein as Columbo and Poker Face, Monk became one of the most memorable procedurals of the 2000s and left a lasting impact on USA's legacy.

Fourteen years after the series finale, Monk returns, in a covid-wary world, and suddenly many of his obsessive eccentricities don't seem so wild. (For some of us, they never did!) Mr. Monk's Last Case: A Monk Movie hits Peacock on Dec. 8 and will see Monk reunite with his entire team to solve a case involving his beloved step-daughter. In honor of Monk's return, we've put together the quintessential episodes from the show's eight seasons. From the funniest moments in Monk's career to the intense episodes surrounding Trudy's murder, here are all of the must-see episodes to catch up on before you watch the movie.

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"Mr. Monk and the Candidate" (Season 1, Episode 1)

"Mr. Monk and the Candidate" is an excellent pilot, since it spends time establishing the key characters and the minutiae of Monk's disorder without sacrificing a genuinely compelling, high-stakes mystery. After Monk is called in to investigate the murder of a young woman, which ends up connected to the high-profile apparent assassination attempt of a mayoral candidate, viewers get to meet Captain Leland Stottlemeyer (Ted Levine), Lieutenant Randy Disher (Jason Gray-Stanford), and the rest of the police department that Monk used to work alongside (and hopes to one day soon join again). With the help of his assistant, Sharona (Bitty Schram), Monk finds the connection between the two cases and eventually saves the day, landing himself a regular consultant's position with the SFPD and a potential way back onto the force.

"Mr. Monk and the Three Pies" (Season 2, Episode 11)

While investigating an apparent carjacking (wherein a woman was actually killed for the pie she won at a fair), Monk's brother Ambrose (John Turturro) starts calling. Everyone is shocked to learn that Monk is not an only child, which he always claimed to be. Monk resents his brother, since the younger man — and agoraphobe — didn't attend Trudy's funeral or even call to check on Monk after her death. At Sharona's urging, Monk finally goes to visit his brother, who believes that his neighbor murdered his wife (his neighbor, of course, is also the pie killer). It's a joy to meet Ambrose, much in the same way that meeting Mycroft Holmes illuminates some of Sherlock's eccentricities. Viewers, via an awestruck Sharona, get to see the orderly house where the defective detective grew up and learn that he is not the most obsessive Monk after all. "Mr. Monk and the Three Pies" is a sweet, forgiveness-driven episode that also illuminates some of Monk's non-Trudy-related traumas, including the fact that his father abandoned his family as a child.

"Mr. Monk and the Red Herring" (Season 3, Episode 10)

Sharona's sudden departure from the show (which was allegedly due to contractual issues with Schram) was probably the show's greatest shake-up and could have easily toppled it had her replacement not been such a different type of delight. The series smartly introduces Natalie Treager (Traylor Howard) not as Sharona's replacement but as the killer — at least for a moment. Three months after Sharona leaves, following several failed interviews for her replacement, a man breaks into Natalie's apartment and she ends up killing him in self defense. It's the second man to break into her home and, fearing for the safety of her daughter Julie, Natalie reaches out to Monk at the urging of the department to figure out why she's being targeted. As Monk investigates a case that hits truly interstellar heights, he (and viewers) can't help but fall for Natalie, before you even realize what's happening.

"Mr. Monk and the Kid" (Season 3, Episode 16)

When Tommy, a missing 2-year-old in foster care, is found wandering with a severed human finger, Monk and Natalie are called in to find the person (or corpse) that it came from. Monk takes an immediate, surprising liking to the boy and eventually volunteers to foster him for two weeks. Naturally, it's difficult for Monk to adjust to the inherent messiness of a child (culminating in an incredible call with a 9-1-1 operator), but he quickly develops a deeper affection for Tommy and voices his intent to adopt him. Things are complicated by the fact that Tommy begins to pick up on Monk's eccentricities, becoming a bit too much like him. It's a very sweet, sentimental side to Monk and puts some of his development on display, both by the mere fact that he took on the task of looking after Tommy in the first place and by his decision to ultimately let the boy go to a family that can take care of him.

"Mr. Monk Gets Jury Duty" (Season 4, Episode 16)

Jury duty is always a fruitful plot device for TV, especially crime shows, and Monk is no exception. Just as the SFPD nabs a wanted drug lord, Monk gets called up for jury duty and finds himself unable to wiggle his way out of serving (not being able to share a bathroom with 11 other people doesn't quite cut it when it comes to getting formally excused). He's put on a stabbing case that doesn't exactly add up and finds himself the lone holdout in a room full of guilty-voting peers, a situation that is exacerbated when a body is discovered outside of the court house. While "Mr. Monk Gets Jury Duty" is a fun team setting for Monk to try out, its greatest attribute for once isn't Shalhoub — it's the 11 other jurors who are crafted in a send-up to 12 Angry Men.

"Mr. Monk and the Garbage Strike" (Season 5, Episode 2)

Monk's worst fear comes true when the San Francisco sanitation department goes on strike, leaving the streets lined with garbage and no clear resolution in sight. When the union boss is found dead from an apparent suicide, the union hires Monk to look into the death and determine whether or not it was suspicious. It's immediately clear that it wasn't a suicide, but Monk lies and says that it was in the hopes of ending the strike. It's a rare morally dubious move for Monk, and Natalie threatens to quit if he doesn't tell the truth, which launches an investigation that eventually lands the mayor as the prime suspect. The episode offers a slight shake-up from its usual formula, because Monk is so hindered by the garbage that he is unable to deduce what actually happened, and keeps coming up with increasingly ludicrous whodunnits, until he's finally taken somewhere clean where he can think. 

"Mr. Monk Is Up All Night" (Season 6, Episode 9)

One of the things that made Monk so special and unique was Monk's enduring love for Trudy and his lack of serious romantic interest in anyone else. The series never tries to force a romance between him and Sharona or him and Natalie, or anyone else in any meaningful longterm way, and instead keeps his late wife as the one true love of his life. While this love comes up in some of the show's most serious, big-hitting episodes, it's also evident in the little moments, like "Mr. Monk Is Up All Night," wherein Monk sees a random woman on the street and develops an intense bout of insomnia. After three sleepless nights of roaming the streets of San Francisco, he believes that he's witnessed a murder, but Stottlemeyer and Disher can't find any evidence. It's a fun plot, but the episode's true joy is the eventual connection that Monk finds between the mysterious woman and Trudy, a reminder that he is always looking for her, even if he doesn't know it.

"Mr. Monk Is On the Run: Parts 1 and 2" (Season 6, Episodes 15, 16)

There are several leads on Trudy's murder throughout the series (and even one fleeting moment where it appears she might still be alive — she's not), but the storyline truly picks up in the final few seasons. In the two-part Season 6 finale, "Mr. Monk Is On the Run," a robbery leads the police to believe that Trudy's mysterious killer is back at it and planning another bombing. When Monk finds the hired hand, who ends up shot, he is arrested for murder, breaks out of jail, and even stages his own fake death. The highlight of the episodes is, by far, seeing how everyone behaves following Monk's "death," from Natalie's grief to Monk's second life working at a car wash. While the plot takes a detour and morphs into a high-stakes assassination attempt that only Monk can stop, the episodes ultimately tee up the stakes of the final two seasons.

"Mr. Monk and Sharona" (Season 8, Episode 10)

Any potential ill-will regarding Sharona's departure wasn't lasting, as evidenced in "Mr. Monk and Sharona," which brings the temporary return of Monk's erstwhile assistant. When Sharona's uncle dies at a country club after an apparent fall, she comes back from New Jersey to deal with his estate and see if the club will offer any money for his accident. Monk is elated to see her, and introduces her to Natalie, who initially hits it off with her predecessor. Sharona is pleased to receive a substantial offer from the club to make up for the wrongful death (enough to send her son, Benjy, to any college he wants), but Monk is quick to deduce that it might not have been an accident (and that her uncle was probably a con man, who made his money staging "accidents" like this). As Monk continues to poke around, Natalie and Sharona start to butt heads, and it's fun to see the two differing styles of Monk's most trusted companions come to a head.

"Mr. Monk and the End: Parts 1 and 2" (Season 8, Episodes 15, 16)

Monk managed to do the near-impossible by saving the reveal of its ultimate series-long mystery — the inciting mythology that viewers have been teased with since the very beginning — for the finale. When a murder at a birthing center (the same place where Monk learned the news that Trudy had died 12 years before) brings things full circle, Monk's search for Trudy's killer is closer than ever. Unfortunately, it becomes a race against the clock after Monk is poisoned and given days to live. The two-part finale ultimately answers the question of who killed Trudy, but it also asks the question of how you move on with life when the thing that you've been consumed with for so long is resolved. It's an excellent lesson in how to successfully end a long-running network series in a way that offers a satisfying conclusion while still leaving space for the characters to keep growing (plus, we get to see a long-suffering Monk truly happy at last with his newfound step-daughter).

Mr. Monk's Last Case: A Monk Movie premieres Friday, Dec. 8 on Peacock. Past seasons are also streaming on Peacock.