Mr. Monk’s Last Case explained: Did Monk solve the case?

Fellow Monkifiers are in for one more murder case with renowned San Francisco detective Adrian Monk (Tony Shalhoub). When Molly’s fiancé has a horrible accident implicating murder, Monk uses his skills to bring the killer to justice in Mr.Monk’s Last Case.

It’s been 14 years since Monk solved the biggest case of his career – Trudy’s murder. The last time fans saw him, he discovered Judge Rickover planted the bomb and that their daughter was alive. Now being free of the guilt, Monk moves on with life and develops a bond with Molly.

Post-pandemic, Monk returns in Mr. Monk’s Last Case out of retirement when Molly’s fiancé is killed in what looks like an accident. But Monk and Molly (Caitlin McGee) know better.

With the original crew returning to help Monk, he must work past his personal issues to catch the killer. As Monk would say – here’s what happened. Warning: Spoilers ahead!

Molly’s fiancé angers a powerful millionaire

It’s almost time for Molly’s big day and everyone has flown in for the occasion, but when her fiancé takes his ritual bungee jump, things go wrong and he plummets to his death.

While Monk is worried about how to afford Molly’s wedding, it becomes the least of his problems. Molly’s fiancé Griffin (Austin Scott) is also a journalist and is writing a story on billionaire Rick Eden (James Purefoy). But instead of a story on his life, Griffin wants to expose his lies. In their meeting, Griffin reveals a photograph of the supposed death of Eden’s former business partner during a scuba dive in Barbados. Per reports, his partner was alone and warned not to dive alone and drowned. But Griffin’s enlarged photo hints that Rick was with his partner during the accident.

It rattles Rick but keeps his cool and offers Griffin a hefty sum of money and a job. Griffin refuses. A few days before the wedding, someone breaks into Griffin and Molly’s home. The following day, Griffin prepares his bungee jumping equipment himself as he always does. He’s never missed a jump and knows the exact length of the rope should be – he even measured twice.

On the day of the jump, everything seems normal. Griffin jumps from the bridge with Molly looking away until she hears startled hasps. The rope is too long, not stopping where it needs to, and plummets Griffin into the ground. Molly becomes convinced Rick is responsible. After all, he inherited his partner’s half of the company worth millions.

Is Rick the killer?

Monk is unconvinced until they visit the bridge. Molly recalls a man having said the rope was six feet too long. That one detail captures Monk’s interest and when Molly says the man had his two index fingers painted white. He soon remembers it’s something baseball players do. Randy (Jason Gray-Stanford) goes to find possible suspects as the others head into the garage.

Monk is soon convinced it was murder when realizing the painted-shut window was opened and the trophies on the windowsill are out of order. Randy reveals the man in question is a delivery driver for Rick’s company. When going to Rick’s home, they meet Stottlemeyer (Ted Levin) who’s his head of security. Having become close to Rick, Stottlemeyer doesn’t believe he’s the killer.

In Rick’s office, he noticed a magazine with Griffin on the cover as he’s a dangerous sports enthusiast. But Rick refuses to admit to knowing the delivery driver who was present at Griffin’s death. Video footage of that day also shows the two never interacted. But the driver has a heavy criminal record.

Stottlemeyer is soon convinced Rick is the killer when he sees him and the driver on CCTV footage talking to each other. Monk is then perplexed when a new article for a dog shelter receiving threats captures his interest. Seeing the letters at the shelter, he remembered the address and handwriting from a post-it note on Rick’s desk. When leaving, he and Natalie (Traylor Howard) see the delivery driver on his route. Rick picked a random business to send threatening letters to that’s on the driver’s route. He planted a bomb that would go off when he reached the dog shelter.

Monk puts the pieces together of the murder case

With the driver dead, Monk tries to steal Rick’s laptop during a party but fails when he goes over a cliff into the ocean. Molly is ready to give up when they can’t find evidence of Rick as the killer. Until Monk has an epiphany. While chatting with twin funeral owners, he notices their heads are a quarter-inch difference in size.

When he sees the two measuring tapes together, he realizes what Rick did. Rick knew about Griffin’s ritual bungee jump and his habit of measuring the rope himself. He hired the driver to break into Griffin and Molly’s home to tamper with the measuring tape. The tampered tape was a fraction of a millimeter longer – something no one would notice.

Griffin measured his rope as he always did – but was unaware the tampered measuring tape was adding more length than intended, leading to the rope being six feet longer.

You can read more TV & Movies news here, and Dexerto’s review of Mr. Monk’s Last Case here.