Ranking Episodes, Season Five (top half)

8. 316 (5x6, Jack)
Episode highlight: Jack visits his grandfather
#2: Jack and Kate, if you like that sort of thing

7. Jughead (5x3, Desmond)
Episode highlight: Charles Widmore was an Other?
#2: There's a hydrogen bomb on the Island...hmm, I wonder if that might be important later.

6. Follow the Leader (5x15, Alpert)
Episode highlight: Locke intends to kill Jacob.
#2: Locke tells Richard to tell him that he needs to die.

5. Whatever Happened, Happened (5x11, Kate)
Episode highlight: Hurley and Miles debate the rules of time travel.
#2: Richard takes Ben to the Temple

4. The Variable (5x14, Faraday)
Episode highlight: Faraday is shot in the back by his own mother.
#2: Widmore admits that it was he who fakes the wreckage.

3. Dead is Dead (5x12, Ben)
Episode highlight: Ben meets the Monster in a tunnel under the Temple in the form of Alex. Yeah.
#2: Flashbacks to key moments in Ben's life.
#3: The introduction of the question "What lies in the shadow of the statue?"

2. This Place is Death (5x5, none)
Episode highlight: We finally see what happened to Montand's arm...and the rest of the travails of Rousseau's team.
#2: Locke meets Christian again as he turns the wheel.

1. The Incident (5x16, Jacob)
Episode highlight: Jacob has a fish breakfast and a terse conversation with Black Robe
#2: Locke's body tumbles out of the box and fake Locke and Ben confront Jacob.
#3: Jacob visits (and touches) various Lostaways throughout their lives.
#4: The familiar end card we all know is inverted from black to white.

Ranking Episodes, Season Five (bottom half)

16. Some Like it Hoth (5x13, Miles)
Episode highlight: Bram abducts Miles and tells him about the pending war
#2: Faraday steps off the sub

15. Namaste (5x9, none)
Episode highlight: Christian tells Sun she has a long journey ahead of her
#2: Radzinsky and the Swan model

14. He's Our You (5x10, Sayid)
Episode highlight: Sayid shoots young Ben
#2: Sayid's drug-induced tale of the future

13. Because You Left (5x1, various)
Episode highlight: The opening scene
#2: Faraday talks to hatch-dwelling Desmond

12. The Little Prince (5x4, Kate)
Episode highlight: Jin is alive, and rescued by Rousseau and her team
#2: The (still-to-be-seen from the opposite perspective?) shootout between the Ajira group and the Lostaways

11. The Lie (5x2, Hurley)
Episode highlight: Hurley lays it all on the table for mom
#2: Eloise and Ben in the Lamp Post
#3: Flaming arrows!

10. LaFleur (5x8, Sawyer)
Episode highlight: The statue from behind
#2: Sawyer blows Richard Alpert's mind

9. The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham (5x7, Locke)
Episode highlight: Ben saves Locke from suicide, then murders him
#2: Locke talks to Walt (hopefully not the end of Walt on LOST)

Mr. Monk and the End

In a fragment: a satisfying finale. I was very happy that Monk survived, as his death would not have fit the tenor of the series at all. The only angle that would have worked at all is that he would finally be reunited with Trudy. Was it a little disappointing that there hadn't been more hints about the identity of Trudy's killer dropped in previous episodes ("the judge" was mentioned in the season six finale, "Mr. Monk is On the Run", but outside of that there was nothing to help you reach that conclusion)? Sure, but that's no big deal in the big picture.

It was great to see a happy ending for all of the characters, it was great that Monk and Natalie did not hook up, and while it probably won't ever happen, it was great that the door was left open for a TV movie or something. I'd like to see a case that stumps new police chief Disher and his men in New Jersey, so he calls in his old friend Adrian Monk and the San Francisco gang to help him out.

As a retrospective of the entire series, I'll pick one favorite episode (not necessarily my absolute favorite, but the one that comes to mind right now) from each season:

Season 1--"Mr. Monk Goes to the Asylum"--He meets some quirky asylum residents, including Manny, who is obsessed with Santa Claus, and a wily, murderous director.

Season 2--"Mr. Monk Goes to the Ballgame"--How can you not like a baseball episode of Monk, with Scott Gregorio chasing the single season home run record, causing Rainn Wilson (Dwight from The Office) to take measures to distract him--because he caught the record-breaking ball hit by Darryl Grant, the current record holder?

Season 3--"Mr. Monk Gets Stuck in Traffic"--The fourth Natalie episode, I think it's the one in which their bond really clicks. Monk makes friend with an ambulance chasing lawyer, who later appears after Monk is accused of shooting Santa Claus.

Season 4--"Mr. Monk and the Astronaut"--Perhaps my favorite episode of all-time, as Monk matches wits with a killer astronaut, the always awesome Jeffrey Donovan (Michael Westen from Burn Notice). The case pops up again in...

Season 5--"Mr. Monk and the Actor"--...as a movie is being made about the case. A method actor gets too close to the essence of Monk, and the result is not good. The scenes in which he mimics Monk and the way the movie has sexed things up with a, um, different Lt. Disher, are priceless.

Season 6--"Mr. Monk and His Biggest Fan"--The show always did great meta-episodes; this is the best as Sarah Silverman reprises her role as Marci from "Mr. Monk and the T.V. Star". Her diorama of "Mr. Monk and the Three Pies" (and Monk's incredulous "Where do you come up with these names?" reaction) is a playful but serious rebuke to fanboys like me.

Season 7--"Mr. Monk Gets Lotto Fever"--Maybe it's just the fact that Natalie gets to dress up pretty as the lotto girl, but I love this episode. A close second choice here would be "Mr. Monk's 100th Case", a faux-Frontline episode with great callbacks to previous cases.

Season 8--"Mr. Monk and the UFO"--People always referenced the fact that it seemed Monk was from another planet. In this episode, some freaks actually believe it to be true.