Before Monk and Natalie leave for the latest case, Monk checks the stove to make sure it is off. Natalie comments it would be awful to get to the crime scene and then wonder if the stove was turned off. Monk comments that it has happened before. This is a reference to the first scene of the first episode of the series in which Monk is at a crime scene and asks Sharona if she checked the stove before they left.
Monk is pointing a 9 mm Beretta 92FS at Rickover. It was the standard issue police pistol before the Glock.
The building used as the "East Bay Chronicle" is the Metropolitan Water District building at the southern end of the Union Station (train) complex, 800 N. Alameda Street, in downtown Los Angeles. The door used for the Chronicle is the north facing door of the MWD, and the fountain is in the square right in front of that door. The fountain marks the center of LA's old Chinatown, which was moved to the northeast when construction of the station began in the 1930s. Union Station opened in 1939.