Mr. Monk and the Magician - Recap

Magician Karl Torini meets with a Chinatown drug lord to make arrangements to ship heroin for him. After showing off with his sleight of hand abilities to the impatient Thai drug lord, Torini finally agrees he’ll bring another shipment in from Thailand to San Francisco.

At the Magic Castle, Kevin Dorfman is working as a CPA and going over Torini’s accounts as the magician rehearses on screen. Kevin, an amateur magician informs Torini that he’s noticed that the airline receipts show a mysterious increase in the weight of his luggage on his return trips. He figures the airplane is ripping off Torini but the magician tells him not to worry about it. He then informs Kevin that he is going to Reno to get married with his assistant Tanya, and he’d like Kevin to take over his stage show in his absence.

At his apartment, Kevin recruits Natalie and Adrian to watch him rehearse. Adrian observes that Kevin isn’t that good and wonders how he got the job. Kevin talks about how Torini asked him when they were discussing the luggage problem.

Adriana and Natalie attend Kevin’s show. Before the show starts, Torini calls the theater and has the stage manager put him on speaker phone. He and Tanya talk about how they’ve gotten engaged and everyone, including Kevin, gives them their bet wishes. Kevin then goes on-stage and performs (badly). While Adrian and Natalie wait for Kevin after his show ends, he goes over his performance in his dressing room. He looks up as someone enters and recognizes them.

Adrian finally goes backstage to find Kevin. A maintenance man waves him in the direction of the dressing room. When Adrian arrives there, he finds Kevin on the floor, dead.

The police arrive to investigate but no one has any idea way Kevin was strangled to death. Adrian is grief-stricken with his friend’s death but insists that he’ll find out who the killer. He examines Kevin’s body and finds traces of black paint on his neck, indicating that a magician strangled him with “invisible” magic thread. Adrian remembers the maintenance man and when the stage manager says that the maintenance staff wasn’t working that night, Adrian realizes that the man he saw was the killer in disguise.

Adrian and Natalie attend Kevin’s funeral and meet his equally chatty aunt, and realize where Kevin got his habits. Torini, smoking a pipe, and Tanya arrive to pay their respects and Adrian notices that Tanya isn’t wearing an engagement ring. He begins to suspect that Torini killed Kevin but there’s no motive and Torini’s phone records confirm he called the Magic Castle from Reno.

Adrian and Natalie visit Tanya and Torini at Torini’s apartment. Tanya acts awkwardly and Natalie wonders if she knows something. Torini arrives and engages them in a battle of wits and magic tricks to keep Adrian off-balance. Adrian accuses him of being at the club dressed as a maintenance worker but Torini denies it. Adrian also points out that Torini wouldn’t have asked Kevin to replace him, because he was such a horrible magician. Torini sticks by his story and points out that he has no motive and no opportunity.

As Natalie and Adrian pack away Kevin’s belongings, Adrian finally admits that Kevin drove him nuts with his incessant talking. Natalie almost admits that Adrian does the same thing for her. When Natalie takes a call on her cell phone from Disher, she sets it down on a trick magic box and it disappears through a hidden panel. Adrian realizes that many of the illusions have secret compartments, and that’s the reason for the extra weight that Kevin mentioned was in Torini’s luggage: he’s a smuggler.

Adrian and Natalie go to see Torini at the evening performance. The magician calls Adrian up to perform in his cabinet illusion and the detective balks, but Natalie says he has to do it for Kevin. Adrian eventually gets in and fumbles through a test for heroin. When Torini opens the face panel to reveal Adrian, the detective announces that the cabinet tested positive. Torini hastily closes the panel and then makes Adrian disappear.

Natalie calls in Stottlemeyer and Disher but they can’t find any trace of Adrian and Torini claims he has no idea what happened. Adrian is actually downstairs where Tanya has tied him up. She explains that Torini is going to kill him and then dispose of the body in the furnace. She apologizes for having to kill him but insists on standing by her boyfriend. The phone rings and Adrian suggests she answer it, but Tanya says it’s an extension. Adrian spots pipe tobacco next to the phone and realizes what happened. Torini and Tanya checked in to the hotel in Reno and made sure they were seen. Torini then drove back to San Francisco, dressed as a maintenance man, and waited in the basement. Tanya called at a predetermined time and Torini secretly picked up the extension phone. The two of them staged their conversation and Torini then killed Kevin.

Torini comes downstairs and prepares to dispose of Adrian. Tanya begins to have second thoughts and tries to slip Adrian the clue for the handcuffs fastening him to the chair. However, she tries to give it to him using her mouth and Adrian backs away. Tanya drops the keys and Torini realizes that she’s betraying him. Before he can kill the two of them, Stottlemeyer and Disher arrive, having found the hidden trap door. They arrest Torini and Tanya, and Natalie is satisfied that Kevin has been avenged.

Later, Adrian and Natalie watch Kevin’s video will. He begins talking about everything and anything, but Adrian just smiles and tells Natalie to let it play.

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