User Reviews

This episode of Monk was one of the best, but that opinion is a lot biased, since I am a fan of actor/magician, STEVE VALENTINE, who guest starred as Torini, the bad guy (Steve does 'bad' sooooo good). The reason I didn't give it a '10' rating is because of having to suspend your belief of reality several times to move the plot along. Especially the ending when Monk disappeared. C'mon folks. The cops are just gonna let the suspect, Torini, walk out while they bumble around the stage area, looking for Monk whom Torini made "disappear"? And yes, Mr. Valentine IS a magician in real life, as well as an awesome actor. I am assuming the magic tricks performed at Torini's apartment were not camera tricks, but done by Steve, himself (after all, he is an award-winning magician). Anyway, it was an entertaining episode, made all the more so by Steve Valentine.

Like just about every other episode, this one was predictable. I knew what was gonna happen early on, but I kept praying I was wrong! But I wasn't. They killed Kevin 😭 I was devastated. I loved Kevin! Sure he was annoying, but just like Adrian, his quirks were part of his charm. I'll miss seeing him and hearing his neverending rambles. RIP Kevin.

Despite losing a beloved character and the episode's usual predictability, I found the plot intriguing. Using a remarkable magician was equally as interesting as the savant chess player. Having Monk go head-to-head with others as brilliant as he makes for good TV!

Some Monks are better than others. This one is pretty good because the murderer (Steve Valentine) uses a ruse that he is narcissistic enough (but right) to say is both simple and clever, giving Monk a run for his money, and because Monk finds the limits of his self-centeredness in ways both funny and sad. His annoying neighbor, Kevin, is the victim, and after the murder, Monk feels guilty about bad-mouthing Kevin while he was alive. He confesses to lying just to avoid Kevin. Trying to comfort Monk, Natalie comes close to admitting that she sometimes deliberately avoids Monk. Monk has more in common with Kevin than he knows.

Kevin, played by Jarred Paul, really is annoying. At the funeral, Monk and Natalie find out that his whole family is annoying. Funerals are not usually this funny. (Especially if you know who Colin Robinson is - I think the secret is that Kevin's whole family are energy vampires.)

The punchline is that Monk is so squeamish about germs that he recoils at being kissed by a beautiful woman (Peyton List) even knowing that her kiss could literally save his life. That is very, very neurotic, and her wordless reaction to his squeamishness is priceless. (I'm trying to save your life, here; and, besides, men don't usually turn down my kisses!)

This is Kevin Dorfman's last episode, and it's very poignant in the final scene. I thought Kevin's character would survive the duration of Monk. But not to be.

Anyway, the magic tricks in this episode are awesome, with Monk almost being a victim to one at the end. This is another fine episode of an incredibly wonderful series. Monk needs a reboot please in these pandemic times.

If the writers had been able to take the skills of the magician and have him face off with Monk in a really well constructed mystery plot, it would have been an awesome episode. Instead, it's the usual lazy TV writing. There must have been money available to make this happen. The Magician, with all his skills, has to kill Dorfman to cover his drug dealings. It seems he could have used some distraction (or even a creative lie) to put off the big mouthed kid. So he invents this ridiculous ruse. He could have even put suspicion on Dorfman and make him a kind of fall guy. Anyway, I started seeing the decline of the series a while back, but it will be interesting to watch to the end.

Sometimes an excellent show makes not that excellent episodes. And I believe their makers are allowed to do so since they're human after all, and they always make it up to us.

I love (Magnum, P.I.). It's the best. True nothing is perfect, but that show's imperfection was sparse. Nearly a couple of episodes. The most infamous one I recall is (Faith and Begorrah). It was the last episode of the third season, precisely number 23, aired for the first time on 28 April 1983. It centered around (Higgins) half brother, an Irish Catholic priest from Northern Ireland (played by Higgins himself; John Hillerman) arrives in Hawaii to confront a British officer who he claims stole an ancient artifact from his church. Maybe they were tired after 22 episodes already, wanting to warp it up anyway. Maybe they were out of their touch. I don't know. The thing that I do know is that it wasn't magical, it was poor, confused, or rather looking made so hastily.

So, accordingly, this is (Faith and Begorrah) of (Monk). It is so hasty. The character of the cute windbag is murdered while he could have been just hurt, in coma, etc. The 2 funny policemen, or the modern time answer to (Laurel) and (Hardy), (Disher) and (Stottlemeyer), were totally mute. The events are so little and dry. There are many silly points, just recall; why (Monk) was that sure that the magician hides his drugs in the box of vanishing? It was so late for professional policemen to discover the trick of vanishing through the stage's floor. And it's the top of silliness when the murdered boy leaves a recorded will; firstly, he has nothing to left (or to go to a lawyer to write a well in the first place!)?, secondly, he was so young to record it, having no irremediable sickness as well??? I know, it was just a desperate way to end the episode with a smile, a very desperate way I must say!

It has only 3 advantages. Having a magician as a killer in a (Monk) episode. The scene in the magician's house, where he dazzles the leads with many tricks, is done so dazzlingly. And the moment of (Monk) refusing the attempt of rescuing him, as long as it involves a mouth to mouth kiss, and one of them has to be his; this is funny and original indeed!

It's pretty short. Like (Monk: the children comics). But I forgive them. Because when it comes to (Monk)'s writers, they do their job smartly every time. This is just a (Faith and Begorrah) in the way.

While much of this episode was entertaining, the stupidity of many characters prevents it from deserving a high score from this reviewer.

We begin with a magician named Karl Torini totally boring an Asian drug dealer with slight-of-hand tricks when all the dealer wanted was for him to agree to smuggle kilos of heroin to San Francisco. The magician agrees.

Next we see Monk's neighbor, accountant Kevin Dorfman going to his client, Torini, to report that the airlines for several years have been charging him more for the weight of his baggage on return trips from overseas than they charged for flights from the U.S. Kevin thinks Torini should sue them for cheating him.

It is at this point all logic leaves the show. Torini tells Kevin that he is going to Reno to propose to Tanya, his assistant. He asks the amateur, would-be magician, Kevin to substitute for him for that one night he will be in Reno. This is to set up a scene where just before Kevin takes the stage, Torini and Tanya phone "from Reno" to tell everyone at the theater about their engagement.

Right after the show-a total dud of course, Kevin is murdered in his dressing room. It seems Torini somehow thought this meek accountant would be so troubled by Torini not following up on what he was told and suing the airlines, that he would be going to the police to report him?... Well, I cannot think of any reason why he should worry about the accountant knowing about his baggage weighing more. As I watched this one today, I immediately thought he could easily explain to Kevin that when he travels, he's always picking up new props to use for new tricks in his act. Or even souvenirs he packs with his other stuff. Point is-Kevin was not a cop thinking Torini was doing anything illegal and there was no logic at all in killing him.

Torini's assistant was somehow happy to go along with helping him fool everyone on where he was at the time of the murder. She wasn't shown to even know about the drug smuggling. This, while possible, is highly illogical. In fact, Torini is said to be the "best" magician in the world. You would think he is making Copperfield money and performing in huge stages. Instead, he demeans himself by smuggling drugs for extra dough and performs in a stage in a tiny theater that appears to seat fewer than 100 people.

Monk does figure out Torini did it, based on one gesture that anyone could make, that he observed Torini making, matching a "maintenance man" at the murder scene that Monk figures had to be Torini. The gesture-a two-fingered pointing-could well be made by anyone. It might make Torini a suspect, but Monk almost instantly decides he is the guy.

Monk goes on to let Torini know he thinks he did it. Then he trusts him by going onstage during his act and going inside a locked box. During the show, Monk tells Torini and the audience how he has figured out heroin was held in secret compartments in the box. What is stupid here is Monk's insistence on telling everyone while he is still locked in Torini's box. The magician believes he can use the omnipresent trap door to make Monk disappear to the cellar, where he will kill him with the help of Tanya, before the bumbling police ever figure out what happened to Monk.

When Stottlemeyer and Disher arrive, they amaze us by letting Torini leave, without being followed, while they have no idea what happened to Monk. Torini explains only that the box was not a disappearing act, but his claim that he doesn't know what happened HAS to seem like a lie. You would think they would insist on taking Torini downtown for questioning while others continue to search for Monk.

And you absolutely would expect the first place they would look would be in the basement-stages are well known for having trap doors. Instead they bumble around on stage looking at the box as though Monk will suddenly reappear inside it.

In the cellar, before they put the tied-up Monk in a furnace to leave no trace of him, Tanya has decided to betray Torini by smuggling a key to Monk while she is supposedly strangling him by placing the key in her mouth and passing it to Monk in a quick kiss-out of Torini's sight. Monk is so germophobic he spits out the key, but he is saved anyhow by his friends who finally figured out there is a trap door.

Making Monk disappear while inside his own special box seems like a stupid way for Torini to decide to do away with Monk; especially with his whole audience of dozens having heard him being accused of smuggling heroin. Even without a body, he could well be convicted of murder, given the circumstances.

For that matter, the zig-zag box where large blades are inserted while the assistant is inside is a familiar magic trick that can only be executed by a nimble assistant who knows just where to stand and how to twist to avoid contact with the blades when they are inserted. Someone simply standing upright in the box would be committing suicide because the blades are real and they are really inserted into the box.

I just can't get past the feeblest reason ever for murder on this series. An innocent accountant thinks Torini is getting gypped by airlines and to prevent him from coming up with the notion that Torini is instead committing a crime, Torini decides to kill him.

I think, while the man is in real life a magician, most of the tricks we saw were done with camera magic. But they were fun to watch, so I give this show a 4 out of 10. Too much stupidity going on, from the murderer, to Monk, to the Captain and Randy.