“Monk” amok

Since its inception, “Monk” has been driven by Adrian Monk’s (Emmy winner Tony Shalhoub) obsession with finding the person responsible for the death of his beloved wife Trudy, which transformed him in the jittery genius added with OCD that he is today.

As the first of a two-part season finale begins Friday, we discover that the plot behind her death has wheels within wheels – and, really, is probably way too complex to justify the murder of the spouse of a police detective, even one as brilliant as Monk.

The show’s writers a) have really overthought this thing, or b) realizing they lose the show’s emotional spine once he finds resolution in his wife’s murder, keep dragging the mystery out, “Lost”-like, to the point where, in the season’s final two episodes, it seems to be a conspiracy as convoluted and politically far-reaching as that in the first season of “Prison Break.”

Tonight, we finally meet the Six-Fingered Man, the guy who ordered Trudy’s murder. He’s around just long enough to get murdered himself, with Monk the only suspect. He’s booked (adjusting his crooked ID card for his mug shot) and fingerprinted (a bit of an ordeal, given how he hates getting smudged in any manner).

On the way to jail, Monk escapes and goes on the lam, and the jurisdictional Sheriff Rollins (Scott Glenn) has a pretty dubious bloodlust when it comes to Monk. It all circles back to Dale “The Whale” Beiderbecke, the guy who almost makes Monty Python’s Mr. Creosote look petite, who’s currently in lockup, whom Monk hates because The Whale won’t tell him what he knows about Trudy’s murder. (Thelonious Monk and Bix Beiderbecke, the jazz-world inspirations for the characters’ monikers, had no such feud, FYI.)

“Monk” fans have long learned to overlook the sloppy and non-existent logic that goes into the plotting. In next week’s episode, there’s a doozy that allows Rollins to menace again another day. And, given that the story centers around Monk’s beloved, the laughs are essentially consigned to the fringes of the episodes. But these episodes nudge Adrian a little out of his comfort zone, which is probably necessary for the evolution of the series.

Finally, “Monk’s” too breezy an entertainment for the writers to get mired in a conspiracy mythology. Fans like “Lost” and “Heroes” because it allows them to hypothesize and over-analyze; “Monk” viewers appreciate the fact that the show doesn’t force them to think. So placing Trudy’s murder inside a sprawling, sinister conspiracy may not prove to be the wisest gambit: Those who prefer “Monk’s” simpler pleasures may choose to wash their hands of the whole mess.

- “Monk” season finale: 9 p.m. Friday and Feb. 22, USA Network.