Monk episode review — 1.8 — Mr. Monk and the Marathon Man

Original air date: September 13, 2002
Director: Adam Davidson
Writer: Mitch Markowitz

Rating: 8/10

The San Francisco Marathon is the final run for legendary marathon runner Tonday (Zakes Mokae), who Monk is incredibly excited to see, but ends up missing because he’s busy fixing someone else’s shirt buttons.

A woman is murdered, and she was having an affair with one of the runners, Trevor McDowell (Peter Outerbridge of Saw VI fame). Trevor runs a furniture store, and despite having motive for the murder, he has a perfect alibi, as all marathon runners are kept track of electronically with some device. And it turns out at all times, he was running within a few paces of Tonday, so Monk gets an excuse to talk to one of his heroes.

Apparently Monk was a big runner back in the day, and he mentions that there was something that happened to him at the state championship that made him quit. We later learn that his shoelaces came untied, and he stopped during the race to fix them, which is a great little detail.

Tonday gets Monk back into running, giving him a new pair of shoes that really get him hyped up. And of course, eventually he uses them to chase down the killer, Trevor.

Again, this is a pretty clever mystery, one of those seemingly obvious killers that also seemingly couldn’t possibly have done it. Like I said with “Mr. Monk Meets Dale the Whale,” these are episodes I tend to love.

There are three really stand out moments. There’s the scene where Monk and Sharona go to the marathon office and he shakes hands with three people, the last of whom is black, so when he wipes his hands, it makes him look racist. I also love the end scene where Tonday gives him his unwashed headband from his 1973 marathon as a thank you. But my favourite moment is something much smaller, when Monk is confronting Trevor at his store. After McDowell states his innocence, Monk says he’s crooked, only for it to be revealed that he’s referring to a cardboard cutout of him that’s situated right behind him.

It’s a pretty strong episode, probably my third favourite so far.