Monk and Mayor Ray Nicholson in “Mr. Monk and the Garbage Strike”

Monk

Yes, sir, it just came to me last night in a vision. One, we evacuate the city, every man, woman, and child.

Evacuate?

Monk

Two, we burn it down. We just burn it. Scorched earth.

Uhh....

Monk

Then, just to be safe, we collect all the ashes and what do we do? We burn the ashes. Three, we bring everybody back and start over. Think of it, we rebuild San Francisco... from scratch. Start fresh, everything clean. Everything brand new. Gonna have that new city smell. Fresh off the lot, we can even straighten out Lombard Street while we’re at it.