Tony Shalhoub was interviewed about the end of Monk and it was interesting that as an actor, he waited till he filmed the end before learning Monk’s fate. He said, “I think it’s a good send-off. At the beginning of the season, the writers asked me if I wanted to know how everything [ended] and I said, if it was okay with them, I’d rather wait.”

If you would rather wait, too, don’t read below because I’m going to postulate a couple of ideas about what we saw on Friday and what might be coming. These aren’t spoilers, because I don’t know. However, if I stumble upon the right answer, I wouldn’t want to be accused of spoiling it for you.

Okay, based on what Randy told Leland, the poison in Monk’s body is lethal and it’s too late to find an antidote. If that’s true, Monk is like Edmund O’Brien in the movie D.O.A. (or Dennis Quaid in the remake of D.O.A.), and he’s going to solve the murder before he dies. In Monk’s case, he’ll solve his own murder and Trudy’s at the same time.

If Monk were to die like that, the fanciful finale could be that he and Trudy are reunited in the afterlife. Some readers think that’s wholly appropriate. Some think that the producers wouldn’t kill off Monk because they’d want to bring hm back for TV movies. Some just can’t imagine Monk being killed.

My mind keeps going back to Trudy’s tape to Monk. If Trudy knew she was in danger, if — as the tape suggests — she sent it to Adrian because she knew she was going to die, is it possible that Trudy’s not really dead? Did she want him to believe that she was dead for his own protection?

Suppose she had uncovered information that was so explosive that she had to go into Witness Protection? Suppose she had to keep the information from Adrian to save his life? Or did she determine that she couldn’t take him into Witness Protection with her because of his OCD? (By the way, if this were the case, it would be great to see Mary Shannon — actress Mary McCormack — from In Plain Sight as her WITSEC agent!)

What makes me think that Trudy’s not really dead? Well, watch her run through the parking garage from the last episode. She has the keys in her hand, but then reaches into her purse for something else. Could she have had a device to signal someone else to create the “bomb” diversion? Also they showed the six-fingered man, but there was another man’s head shown? Or it could have been the same guy, who knows?

Maybe all the evidence was manufactured to make it appear that Trudy was dead? The evidence would have to appear completely consistent with her death because not only did it have to convince Monk, it had to convince the judge who ordered her murder.