Doing the Monk math

Tonight, I watched the 100th episode of Monk. At the end, when homicide detective Adrian Monk wanted to give up on a nice round number, Natalie did some math to show him the error of his ways. While she was doing that, I remembered Monk had a pair of two-parters, so he’s only cracked ninety-eight cases on-air. And Disher got the credit for at least one, taking it down to ninety-seven. And weren’t there two episodes without homicides, taking it down to ninety-five? (Actually, I remember that Monk solved cases incidentally in “Mr. Monk and the Paperboy,” so the writers could call that whatever number of cases they needed to come up with an even hundred.) More puzzling given Monk’s obsession with round numbers, USA Network didn’t think to hold next week’s episode till December or January to round the summer season to an even number.

Seriously, though, it had a nice twist and a good running gag about neither Monk nor Stottlemeyer wanting to watch the profile of Adrian Monk on TV (Monk because he’s embarrassed, Stottlemeyer because there’s a good basketball game on).