Mr. Monk Paints His Masterpiece

Victoria Tennant, who was superb in All of Me, guest stars in this fine episode of Monk. Hard to believe that Monk was filmed in the 2000s, before Twitter and Facebook were invented.

Anyway, Monk immerses himself in the art world and takes it very seriously indeed. But there is an ulterior motive for sure layered in this episode.

In attempting to solve the murder of a junkyard owner, Monk takes up painting. Don't ask. A stranger then appears (the wonderful Peter Stormare) and offers Monk substantial sums of money for his attempts at art. Monk then begins wearing a matching beret and artist smock to his art classes. While it may be easy to spot the bad guy, figuring out the whys and wherefores of this convoluted mystery will have you doubled over with laughter or in disbelief, or maybe both. Monk's art teacher is archly played by Victoria Tennant, whom any film buff will instantly recognize from years past. And watch the transformation of the goth girl in Monk's art class from cynic to sycophant as Monk keeps racking up sales of his scribblings. She's a hoot.

When Monk becomes bored, Dr. Kroger and Natalie try to get him to turn to a hobby. A murder has been committed in a kind of junkyard/flea market. So while investigating, they come upon a set of artists supplies. Monk takes up painting. He has no sense of art, but soon a Russian man comes to him and pays outrageous amounts for his "work." His head swells and he soon begins to think he is hot stuff. The results are pretty funny.

Okay, the mystery is decent, everything else is decent. Except why did Monk have to set fire to his own paintings knowing they were vital pieces of evidence to the counterfeiting case. Also, I get it, the painting of Natalie is terrible, but Randy is right it's a piece of evidence now in a major counterfeiting conspiracy, so don't try to burn Nat. This could have worked, but why have Monk make such a stupid decision like that just to lure the gangster out of the house. Dumb, Dumb, Dumb.

This Swedish born actor is a very underrated North European man who can portray any character any day of the week and twice on the weekend. His natural talent for accents along with his charismatic taste comes off so easily it doesn't look like he's trying hard and the funny part is that he's so good at it.

In this episode, Peter Stomare in typical Stomare fashion portrayed a Russian art dealer/con artist with an ulterior motive for purchasing Monk's amateur paintings and drawings.