Everyone’s favorite obsessive complusive former detective Adrian Monk (played by the exemplary Tony Shalhoub) is delivering his farewell tonight, and longtime fans of the show will finally be able to make sense of the series-long mystery surrounding wife Trudy‘s death. Series creator Andy Breckman spoke with the Huffington Post about the final episode of his Emmy Award-winning show, and his answers were decidedly forthright as teaser interviews go. (Note: He plans on watching it tonight at home with his wife. Maybe his eldest daughter will stop by.) After the jump, read what Breckman had to say about tonight’s series conclusion.
For eight seasons, fans have laughed and cringed as Mr. Monk exposed killers, waged war on germs of all kind, and touched every traffic meter in sight. The finicky Monk will finally learn tonight who killed his wife, but series creator Breckman admitted there was no master plan in the beginning:
“When I wrote the pilot and I wrote that Trudy, Monk’s late wife, died in a car bomb some years earlier, to be honest with you, I never expected in a million years I’d have to solve that damn crime.”
Thankfully for Monk fans, we won’t be seeing any abrupt cliffhangers in the final episode. Breckman acknowledged his attempt to wrap things up nicely for his fans, so don’t expect any David Chase-like ambivalence:
“All I can say is we worked hard to end the show on exactly the right note and to satisfy everyone. And I think we’ve come close. As a writer, it was the biggest challenge of my life, and I did my best for you.”
Many fans seem to think that Monk and Trudy will be reunited, but the only plausible way for that to happen is with Monk’s death (part one of the series finale involved his poisoning). This would be bittersweet for fans of the show, as Monk never allowed himself to get involved with another woman after his wife’s death. We’d throw out the possibility that Trudy faked her death, but that sounds like wishful thinking — and a much bigger plot twist than the Breckman interview suggests.
So far, he has done a great job of tying up loose ends this season with former assistant Sharona (played by Bitty Schram) hooking up with Police Lt. Randall Fischer (played by Jason Gray-Stanford) and current assistant Natalie Tegar (played by Traylor Howard) finding love with Casper Van Dien’s Marine Lt. Steven Albright. Even disgruntled Police Captain Leland Stottlemeyer (played by Ted Levine) found a wife in Virginia Madsen’s TK Jensen character. But the biggest mystery still remains.
We think the mastermind is Craig T. Nelson’s judge from part one of the finale, but that’s idle speculation. Who do you think did it and how do you think it will end?