Mr. Monk and the Garbage Strike

I know I don't normally review episodes of Monk, but I felt the need to do this one. This week's was the best ever, even better than the one with the monkey.* The directing was excellent, like the scene in Dr. Kroger's office where trash bags fall intermittently from above outside as Dr. Kroger accuses Monk of sending him his own garbage in the mail. Also, there was the scene where Monk fills the captain in on his theory in secret but the acoustics of the rotunda they were in told a nearby gang of reporters everything and when Stottlemeyer realizes what he just did, he lets out a very exasperated, monotonous, expletive just before the reporters start babbling. There was also when Monk loses it completely and accuses Alice Cooper of the crime while trying to be San Francisco's sole garbageman, or "garbage vigilante" as Disher put it.

*About the monkey thing: In that older episode, Monk refers to a chimpanzee as a monkey, and my Dad reacted to that line strangely, saying that Monk should have said it was a chimp. Nowadays, Mom and I always jab him about that, as we can't think of anything else to jab him about other than his tendency to get Booker T. Washington and George Washington Carver confused and his male pattern baldness that I know my kids will jab me about in a few decades.