by The Crime Watcher.

In as weird a bit of casting as you’re likely to see this summer, Snoop Dogg was a recent guest star on Monk. Yeah, Monk.

Snoop, maybe not making that big a stretch, plays a rapper named Murderous who comes to Monk (with two entourage-ers named Assassin and Silent Killah…) to ask Monk to clear him of a murder. The victim was a rival rapper named something like Extra Large, an obvious take-off of Biggie. Apparently, Extra died in a car bombing, right after Murderous wrote a song about him called ‘Car Bomb.’ Monk, so intimidated by the gangstas in his house (they somehow did a good job not making that seem racial…) , says he’ll take the case, but instantly when they leave thinks he rejected the case. As evidence piles up, Natalie’s the only one who sees clues that would help Murderous- which is weird, because the clues are mad obvious, I mean, if you didn’t know who the killer was as soon as he appeared on screen, you must have been playing some kind of Monk drinking game.

Anyhow, Monk doesn’t listen to Natalie. They’re in one of their (semi-annoying) respect battles. He gave her flowers for secretaries day; she says that’s insulting because she’s so much more than a secretary. Whatever. He doesn’t pay attention til a clue becomes obvious. I won’t give it all away because writing about clues is boring, BUT, needless to say, Snoop is innocent.

A lot of comedic stuff in this episode, not surprisingly. Snoop does pretty well and watching Monk deal with the rappers and their lingo and wanting badly to get out of the case is funny. I wouldn’t say the story itself was classic, or that Monk’s phobias and o.c.’s were put to optimal use; in fact, this episode could have been better. But it was funny, very funny in some parts. Snoop rapped the "here’s what happened" part which was amusing. But funniest of all was Disher, who earlier had tried to rap, getting on stage after that and plugging The Randy Disher Project website. That joke never gets old.

On Psych, Lassiter was on a nine case win streak, and Sean was depressed about it and his own lack of police work lately But a case involving dinosaur bones, a farm, and a dead palentologist sparked a resurgence for Sean and Gus. They were in full-throttle banter mode during much of the case,and many funny moments ensued as they tried to uncover the truth and uncovered some fossils at the same time. No rappers but still a funny episode. We learned Gus is an expert lock cracker, or did we already know that? Lassiter got some sympathy from Jules when his streak snapped, good to see the exes on better terms (how weird was it they were a couple, however briefly?). Dad Henry admitted he worried about Sean putting himself in the middle of gunplay. (There was some odd thing with the dad hiring the department shrink because he was worried about Sean- and the Sean turned it around on him, but I didn’t think that whole thing quite worked.) One interesting thing I was reminded of was that Sean’s dad and Captain Vick haved worked together in the old days, as they were talking in part of this episode. And whatever happened to the Captain’s baby? (Doesn’t she seem kind of old to have a baby?). Next week Lou Diamond Phillips guests as another psychic. Uh-oh.

The Closer brought Gabriel back into the fold, but that was sidebar. The case involved Orson Bean as an old reporter who confessed to killing residents at his old folks home so Brenda and the team would begin investigating. The show did a great job in avoiding sentimentality in a lot of places by having the characters wise-off- Sanchez particularly had some good one-liners. There was a sideplot about a house Brenda and Fritz were going to buy, but that was only so-so, despite the French Stuart cameo. The best moment was probably the confession. The killer was nuts.

Crime news: CBS says CSI’s Willam Peterson is said to be slated for a crossover with Gary Sinese on CSI NY and Anthony LaPaglia on Without A Trace. Cherry Jones is set to be the next president, the first female one, on 24 next season, says Fox. Geena Davis is said to be a front runner to replace Mandy "I’m Outta Here" Patinkin on Criminal Minds, according to wire reports.