History Characters / Monk

** [[Characters/MonkAdrianMonk Adrian Monk]]
** [[Characters/MonkNatalieTeeger Natalie Teeger]]

* [[Characters/MonkMinorCharacters Minor Characters]]

[[foldercontrol]]

!Main Characters

[[folder:Adrian Monk]]
!!Adrian Monk
[[quoteright:259:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/2makesafriend_8571.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:259:I don't know how you did it, but you did it. You created this Wiki/TVTropes page.]]
->Played by: Creator/TonyShalhoub

The main character of the series. He is a former UsefulNotes/SanFrancisco police inspector who suffered a [[FreakOut nervous breakdown]] after [[DisposableWoman the murder of his wife]], Trudy. He is a lifelong sufferer of [[SuperOCD Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder]] and has many phobias, and those obsessions became crippling after his breakdown, forcing his retirement; he recovers throughout the series, though he is never fully "cured". His OCD is also the reason Monk was such a successful policeman; one of his compulsions is [[HyperAwareness paying amazing attention to details]].

Thanks to his breakdown, Monk was [[TurnInYourBadge discharged from his department]], but is frequently called in to consult on cases which baffle the police, often some kind of LockedRoomMystery, by his friend and former commander Captain Stottlemeyer. His [[DisabilitySuperpower disorders]] are part and parcel of his unique mind; without them, he wouldn't be able to solve these cases. Of course, the one case Monk's been trying to solve since his breakdown is Trudy's murder, and each season of the show brings him a little closer to finally solving the mystery behind her death (with the show's final season bringing the case to a close for good).
----
* AbsurdPhobia: Has many typical and atypical fears. Oddly enough, he is most definitely not afraid of criminals and is willing to personally engage them when necessary.
* AccidentalAimingSkills: In the pilot, Monk hits something by accident. In "Mr. Monk Can't See a Thing," he quickly jerks Stottlemeyer's pistol off to the side to fire off a warning shot when cornered by Peter Breen in the morgue and, in "Mr. Monk Is At Your Service", despite not having bothered to aim at anything, kills a bird with a rifle.
* AfraidOfDoctors: In an episode, "Mr. Monk Goes to the Dentist," Monk reveals that dentists are among the many things he fears. The dentist in question, Dr. Oliver Bloom, becomes the main suspect in the episode's murder investigation, but Monk is afraid of the dentist's office even before he suspects Dr. Bloom.
* AfraidOfNeedles: To such a point that in "Mr. Monk and the End", they have literally single employee in the hospital brought in to restrain him while they inject him.
* AirHugging: Though this is less Monk being uncomfortable with men (specifically, his brother) and more of a "his being uncomfortable with touching" case.
* ArsonMurderAndJaywalking: In "Mr. Monk and the Psychic", Monk says, "You've gotta be a little skeptical, Sharona. Otherwise you end up believing in everything. [=UFOs=], elves... income tax rebates...."
* AttentionDeficitOohShiny: Monk solves impossible cases regularly at least once per episode, but he often solves cases in under a minute when he's barely paying attention, since he's already distracted by another case. Often he solves four or five cases within fifteen minutes like this, or cases so obscure that nobody actually cares about them. He once determined while working on another case in a museum that the body on display was actually hit in the skull rather than dying from the cause declared by the museum, effectively solving a 30,000 year-old case. In one episode he picks up a several hundred page book called "Almost Perfect Murder". After reading the first page he flips to the last one and says "I knew it." Stottlemeyer actually exploits this, calling out the facts of various cases while he's distracted.
** Note that the closer a case comes to his own life, the more trouble he has solving it. For example, in "Mr. Monk and the Garbage Strike", the problem is his pet peeve, cleanliness, that literally drives him insane trying to solve, and takes three tries and actually going into a computer cleanroom before he closes it. Likewise, he has problems to a lesser degree in "Mr. Monk Goes to a Fashion Show," that involve the son of "Inspector Number 8" of his shirts. Here, however, his problems vanish once he gets enough evidence to make a solid start on the case. The ultimate example of course being the case of his wife, Trudy, and her car bombing.
* BadBadActing:
** In "Mr. Monk Goes to the Theater", after Hal Duncan is stabbed and killed on stage, Monk ends up taking the dead man's place... it goes as well as you'd expect. Also averted in that he did manage to act out the events quite well to recreate the crime scene... when the stage was empty. In fact, literally the only reason he was not acting well is due to stage fright. But this will probably remind you very well of what it was like the first time you ever went out on stage if you ever were a stage actor.
** Thare's also "Mr. Monk Gets Married," where Monk and Sharona act like a couple with bad marriage problems to get into a marriage therapy clinic (Monk posing as a cowardly mop salesman and Sharona being his alcoholic wife), and do such a terrible job of it that the couple's therapist is relieved to hear they aren't married.
* BadBoss: For as much as he depends on his assistants, he's terribly stingy when it comes to actually paying them.
* BadSanta: He proves to be a rather awful mall Santa during "Mr. Monk and the Secret Santa."
* BecomingTheMask: Twice. In "Mr. Monk Is Someone Else", Monk adopts the persona of a dead hit man in order to save the life of his target. He ends up playing his role a little bit too well, which Stottlemeyer praises him for. And in "Mr. Monk Is At Your Service," he goes undercover as the head butler for someone who had a crush on Natalie, and seems to enjoy it more than solving crimes. His acting is pretty good, though - he hastily improvises lies on the spot that he wasn't expecting to make, and does a good job pretending not to know Natalie when they meet during the luncheon in the episode.
** This also happens in "Mr. Monk and the Employee of the Month". Monk goes undercover as a Mega-Mart employee and is surprisingly good at it--so good that he almost beats out current Employee of the Month Jennie Silverman.
* BewareTheNiceOnes: Really. In episodes related to Trudy's death, Monk can take on some KnightTemplar traits.
** In "Mr. Monk and the Man Who Shot Santa", with thief Michael Kenworthy dressing as Santa and setting up a distraction while his crew attempts to heist a diamond, Monk is in an emotionally bad state and ends up having to shoot Kenworthy in self-defense with his own revolver when the perp tries to kill him.
** Monk shows throughout the series that he is quite capable of defending himself when the situation demands, to the point of completely ignoring his phobias — including shooting and severely wounding a murderer in self-defense while temporarily blind, overpowering a deranged man with a gun, or fending off a perp with dirty bags when being ill.
** In "Mr. Monk and the Badge" Monk fights off Mikhail Almonov on an unstable window-washing platform and stabs the man in the leg with said badge.
** "Mr. Monk and the Blackout" — "Be careful, your left shoelace is untied," when stalking Winston Brenner in the dark. Brenner replies, "How does he know that?!"
** For Adrian, it could be anything, really, but his true BerserkButton is Trudy's death. Anything that threatens his memory of her, or implies anything about what happened, causes Adrian to snap, leading to BewareTheNiceOnes, as above.
*** That particular BerserkButton causes Monk to protest the demolition of the parking garage where Trudy was murdered in the Season Seven finale, "Mr. Monk Fights City Hall"; the structure was being demolished to make way for a children's playground, and Monk was worried that the demolition could destroy any remaining potential evidence. [[spoiler:However, the councilwoman who helps bring the matter before the city council is killed, leaving Monk to solve her murder and reveal that her vote would keep the parking garage standing; unfortunately, Monk insults the councilwoman's replacement during TheSummation, which causes the replacement to change the deciding vote out of spite. A sign shown after Monk leaves the structure for the last time shows that the playground replacing the parking garage will be named in Trudy's honor.]]
*** The end of "Mr. Monk Takes Manhattan", when Monk [[spoiler:finally meets the man who put the bomb in Trudy's car -- a man who is very ill and on his death bed -- and turns off his morphine when the man asks for forgiveness. The fact that Monk only turns it back on because it's what Trudy would have wanted is somehow even darker. Were it not for the love he had for his wife, Adrian Monk would have left a dying man to suffer in his final hours.]]
*** The memorable moment in "Mr. Monk Is on the Air" when the DJ made cruel jokes about Trudy's death (to the point his heckling yes men were disturbed by it). The yes men even tried to stop their boss before Monk simply jumped over the table and beat him up.
*** In the series finale, when Monk confronts Trudy's killer, [[spoiler: Ethan Rickover]], he claims that Trudy was unstable and crazy, prompting Monk to ''beat the crap out of him''. Mind you, at this point, Monk is [[spoiler:poisoned and ''dying'']]. The cool bit was that [[spoiler:the Judge wanted to make him look crazy. When he tries to get Monk killed by the cops using the same method at the end of the episode, Monk ''doesn't'' fall for it.]]
* BlackAndWhiteInsanity: Monk will try prosecuting people for letting their dogs pee in the street, having an uneven number of buttons undone on their shirts/sweaters or wearing mismatched socks, as InsaneTrollLogic and SuperOCD make him believe that such "crimes against the universe" will "invariably" lead to ArsonMurderAndJaywalking. And don't get us started on his nudity problem. He can't even look at nude ''sculptures'' (in fact, in "Mr. Monk Takes the Stand", when Monk must describe a nude marble sculpture that Evan Gildea had been creating, he describes it by.... squealing through gritted teeth, which almost sounds a bit like a tea kettle. So the judge asks the stenographer to read back what Monk said: "Witness: The defendant removed a sheet revealing a naked eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee...." ''[pitch falters]'').
* BlessedWithSuck: "It's a gift... and a curse."
* BoundAndGagged: When he gets taken hostage along with several other jury members in the episode "Mr. Monk Gets Jury Duty".
* BreakingTheCycleOfBadParenting: His father ended up abandoning his family while his mother was emotionally distant. When he became a foster parent to a toddler name Tommy, he was genuinely caring towards him and wanted to adopt him. However, he knew that he wasn't a good fit because of his condition and decided to give Tommy to a better suitable family.
* BrokenAce: Back when Trudy was alive, Monk was a very high-functioning detective who just had a handful of quirks such as a hesitance to shake people's hands. In the present, he's still very brilliant, but losing her has exacerbated all his neuroses.
* BrokenPedestal:
** When Christine Rapp writes a tell-all book about Monk's favorite TV show in "Mr. Monk's Favorite Show" -- the ''only thing that made him happy as a child'' -- there isn't enough BrainBleach in the world to help him. Given the rest of the book is that bad, it begs the question: what is on [[spoiler:page 73?]]
** One more serious version when he found the [[spoiler: secret of Trudy]] in the finale.
* BuffySpeak: When Monk tells people to pause or fast-forward something on a TV in later episodes, he says "picture freeze" or "picture go fast". Ironically, he didn't do this in earlier episodes.
* BunnyEarsLawyer: He's an OCD obsessed man who is one of the smartest detectives in the world.
* BusmansHoliday: Naturally, like with a lot of other mystery shows, Monk cannot seem to go on vacation anywhere without a few dead bodies involved.
** [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] in "Mr. Monk Gets Cabin Fever":
--->'''Natalie Teeger:''' Everywhere you go, every time you turn around, somebody is killing somebody else!\\
'''Captain Stottlemeyer:''' That's true.\\
'''Adrian Monk:''' What?\\
'''Captain Stottlemeyer:''' [[ContinuityNod There was the time you went on vacation]] ["Mr. Monk Takes A Vacation"] and then on the airplane. [="Mr. Monk and the Airplane"=]\\
'''Adrian Monk:''' These things happen!\\
'''Captain Stottlemeyer:''' [[ContinuityNod And that stage play...]] [="Mr. Monk Goes to the Theater"=]\\
'''Adrian Monk:''' It happens!\\
'''Natalie Teeger:''' To you!
** Natalie even concludes at the end of the episode that fate makes Monk go to these places JUST SO he will be there to solve the murders...
* CannotTellAJoke: Supposedly he tells all of two jokes during the entire series, both times shocking everyone around him; this doesn't stop him from [[DeadpanSnarker snarking]], especially early in the series. He can't tell a joke, but at least he can be [[InsistentTerminology sardonic]].
** One was in "Mr. Monk and the UFO", [[spoiler: unless of course he really ''is'' [[CassandraTruth an alien that will destroy the planet if Natalie doesn't stop trying to see his belly button]].]]
** In "Mr. Monk Goes to the Ballgame", when Monk and Sharona walk into the Hammonds' house, Monk quips that he and Trudy considered buying the same house, which is not likely on a San Francisco cop's salary.
** There is also his excruciatingly painful attempt at stand-up comedy in "Mr. Monk is the Best Man".
** Also, in "Mr. Monk is on the Air," Monk tries to deliver some insulting one-liners in order to feel more comfortable around shock jock Max Hudson and Co. His nervous, deadened delivery kills every punch line.
* CantHoldHisLiquor: "In Mr. Monk Gets Drunk," he has to have a lie down after two sips of wine. Then he drinks a whole carafe by mistake...
* CareerEndingInjury: Monk's mental breakdown from Trudy's death ended his career as a police officer.
* CatchPhrase:
** "You'll thank me later."
** "Unless I'm wrong, which, you know, I'm not..."
** "Here's what happened..."
** "Here's the thing..."
** "I don't know how he did it, but he did it."
** "He's the guy."
** "It's a gift...and a curse."
** "Wipe."
* CharacterTics: Neck-crinking, fingers steepled, hands in front when examining crime scenes... it's compounded by his obsessive-compulsive tendencies. It's eventually revealed that the finger-steepling is something he got from his truck-driver father. He even provides the page image.
* CharacterizationMarchesOn: Season 6 introduced Monk's crippling lack of technological adequacy and his ignorance of such things as rewind, pause, and fast-forward, even though he had no problem using television and video beforehand.
-->'''Monk:''' ''Picture go back!''
* ChasteHero: Even if he is a widower, Monk thinks of himself as very married and the mere fact that his wife happens to be deceased does not make it any less so. He dates occasionally and halfheartedly, and in the end always returns to his default condition of being in love with his wife.
** According to Monk while talking to his psychiatrist, the most physical his love life, even with Trudy, ever was is falling asleep holding Trudy's hand and waking up holding it.
* {{Claustrophobia}}: One of Monk's big phobias.
** In one episode, he is trapped in a coffin, and memories of Trudy keep him from completely freaking out.
** In another episode, he's caught in a submarine (he was convinced he's only be in there for a few minutes but they went under while he was on board), and only solves the problem by hallucinating that Dr. Bell is with him.
** [[spoiler: And in season 8, he gets over the fear trapped in a car trunk. With Harold, no less.]]
* ClearMyName: In "Mr. Monk Is On The Run, Part Two"
%%* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}
* ColdSniper: During the pilot, his usually fidgety expression settles into one of steely determination as he fires at a criminal who has taken Sharona hostage, hitting the perpetrator (non-lethally) in the head.
* TheComicallySerious: In "Mr. Monk Is on The Air", Monk asks Natalie if she's ever heard him make a joke in the three years they've known each other. She can't remember a single one. But he can, on occasion, be a DeadpanSnarker.
* ComicallySmallBribe: Monk is a pathetic cheapskate. Even when he takes Dioxynl (see other entries for more).
** In "Mr. Monk Goes to the Theater", Monk attempts to bribe a doorman with four dollars. Then Sharona gives him $40. Then Monk asks for his four dollars back. Then says, "We have four dollars in credit for future information!" as Sharona drags him away.
** In "Mr. Monk and the Bully", he tries to bribe a barman with a picture of General Washington (a $1 bill). Then he ups the bribe with another General Washington ([[UpToEleven a quarter]]). Monk and Natalie resort to getting information from the patron sitting right next to him.
* ConvictionByContradiction: Monk can often figure out the crime this way before he has any solid evidence and spends the rest of the episode obtaining said evidence. Lampshaded in "Mr. Monk Fights City Hall," when Paul Crawford questions the validity of ''how he phrased a sentence'' as evidence.
* CowardlyLion: Despite his phobias and neuroses, Monk can and will take physical action if necessary, disarming criminals holding him at gunpoint, shooting at least two suspects (one while blind), and knocking a hitman unconscious with a bottle (while drunk). Despite being visibly terrified, he does things like [[spoiler:standing in front of an F-22 fighter jet about to take off.]] In the finale [[spoiler:he beats up the judge who murdered Trudy]].
* CrapsackWorld: At first it seems this is just Monk's opinion, but think about it: he discovers murders and dead bodies almost everywhere, half the time when not on a case, and he's ''never wrong''. [[FridgeBrilliance Guess it really is]] [[ThematicThemeTune a jungle out there.]]
* CriminalDoppelganger: In "Mr. Monk Is Someone Else," he turns out to be a dead ringer for a mob hit-man. {{Inverted|Trope}}, in that the police don't mix him up, but instead the FBI need him to make the other ''criminals'' think he was the hit-man.
* CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass: Socially inept, obsessive-compulsive and afraid of everything. But he manages to solve the most baffling crimes and he can hold his own in a fight — he was a cop once, remember. And if you even so much as ''insult'' Trudy, he will hand you your ass. In the episode where the suspect was a marathon runner, who grabs the key piece of evidence and takes off on foot, Monk proves that he used to be a great runner in school by giving chase (especially in his new sneakers which he got from his idol).
%%* DeadpanSnarker
* DeadPersonConversation: Sometimes talks to Trudy in his sleep.
* DefeatingTheUndefeatable: Monk outsmarts killers with airtight alibis, has beaten unbeatable {{Amoral Attorney}}s, has toppled supposedly untouchable crime lords, has taken on some of the most [[SmugSnake smugly superior]] geniuses you've ever seen and always comes out on top. Most seasons have at least one case against an adversary like this, often more.
* DefectiveDetective: The TropeNamer. The show even used to be marketed as such, and this is what Randy refers to Monk as when first meeting him in the pilot.
* {{Determinator}}: In the finale. [[spoiler:After finding out who killed Trudy in the finale, he powers through the poisons killing him when he was previously too exhausted to move, confronting and assaulting the man before having to be hospitalized. He drugs the officer watching his room, makes his way to the murder's house and forces the man to dig up the evidence before he finally collapses.]]
* DisabilitySuperpower: Offensively so. Once, in "Mr. Monk and the Class Reunion," Natalie lampshades his ability to remember handwriting written on his back:
-->''[Monk has explained to Natalie how he met Trudy]''
-->'''Adrian Monk:''' And that’s how I got her number.
-->'''Natalie Teeger:''' Wait, wait, wait! You mean when he wrote it on your back, you could ''feel'' it? You--you could do that?
-->'''Adrian Monk:''' I have very sensitive skin.
-->'''Natalie Teeger:''' That's like a superpower! Like a very weird, not very useful, superpower!
* DrivesLikeCrazy: In "Mr. Monk Takes His Medicine" when Monk drives a Ford Mustang convertible.
* DrunkenMaster: In "Mr. Monk Gets Drunk", Monk accidentally gets drunk and is able to subdue a hitman, and solve a conspiracy involving everyone in a hotel covering up a man's death so they can keep his money.
* DysfunctionalFamily: It is heavily implied in the series starting with "Mr. Monk and the Three Pies", that Monk's family was dysfunctional, and contributed to most of Monk's quirks.
* EasyAmnesia: In "Mr. Monk Bumps His Head," Monk gets hit on the head and loses his memory, but not his quirks.
* EurekaMoment: "I think I just solved the case."
* TheExoticDetective: A private detective with a very literal case of SuperOCD (as in, on the few occasions that he tries to seek treatment for it, he completely loses his detecting mojo... and it's a RunningGag he drives everybody nuts with his nitpicking).
* ExasperatedPerp: Can be caused by Monk's eccentricities.
* The {{Expy}}: SherlockHolmes, as well as Literature/HerculePoirot but with his OCD and obsession with cleanliness amped up for the sake of comedy and drama.
** The GreatDetective who is the last mind sought when no one can figure out a queer situation, [[LampshadeHanging even called Sherlock Holmes on many occasions]].
** A brother who is even smarter who rarely puts it towards solving crime because of crippling shyness.
** An ArchEnemy who makes only sporadic appearances, usually preferring to stay in the background.
* FailedAuditionPlot: Monk's continued attempts to get reinstated despite being continually rejected.
* FakeOutMakeOut: Averted drastically in "Mr. Monk and the Genius", when Monk and Natalie are on a stakeout. Natalie sees their suspect approaching their car, Natalie blurts out "We should kiss!" only to [[SugarWiki/FunnyMoments immediately backpedal]].
* TheFinickyOne: He has turned his obsessive penchant for detail into a helpmate rather than a liability.
* {{Flanderization}}: The later seasons of the show depicted Monk as unable to cope particularly well with modern technology (including his common reference to video functions like Pause and Rewind as "Picture-Freezer" and "Picture-Go-Back"); early seasons depicted him without even remotely having this problem, so this technological illiteracy came largely out of nowhere.
* FlowersForAlgernonSyndrome: "Mr. Monk Takes His Medicine"
* FoundTheKillerLostTheMurderer: Happens when Monk gets close to finding [[spoiler: Trudy's killer.]]
* FourTemperamentEnsemble: Melancholic
* FriendOnTheForce: Lieutenant Disher and Captain Stottlemeyer.
* GoodIsNotSoft: As an experienced ex-police officer, he will not hesitate to use lethal force to protect himself or others if no other recourse is available. It's all but stated that he would have killed the assassin from the pilot episode (who is arrested with an obvious head wound) if the darkness of the sewers hadn't impaired his aim.
* GreenAesop: Arguably, "Mr. Monk and the Garbage Strike". ([[InsaneTrollLogic By the way, the best way to deal with trash is to burn the city. Then burn the ashes and rebuild San Francisco from scratch]]. And while they're at it, they can straighten out Lombard Street.) There's a simpler solution: Just throw all the trash into the bay, "one bag at a time. One truck at a time! One bag at a time." It might take a while, but at least you're making an effort!
* GreenEyedMonster: His dislike of Harold Krenshaw stems from both his jealousy of having to share a therapist and the fact that despite how Harold's neuroses seem to be worse than his, he's managed to somehow make a family of his own, an opportunity denied to Monk due to Trudy's death [[spoiler:(until the end of the series)]].
* HandshakeRefusal:
** Monk is a germaphobe and refuses to shake hands with just about anyone. If he's forced to, he will immediately turn to his assistant for a wipe.
** In one episode he voluntarily shook hands as a sign of friendship with an ex-colleague of his, who was accused (even by Monk) of being in the drug-business (which he wasn't, which was proven of course.)
** In another episode he shook hands with a succession of people, after the last one he immediately turned to his assistant for a wipe. The problem being, the last handshakee was black, leading to much accusations of racism.
* HappyDance: Monk does the "jig" when he solves the case in "Mr. Monk Gets Fired".
* HappyFlashback: Several times, mostly involving Trudy.
* HasAType: Unbeknownst to Monk himself, both his assistants share a lot of traits with Trudy in that they're all blonde, intrepid women who [[spoiler:happen to all be single mothers.]]
* HatesBeingTouched: He's germaphobic, obviously.
* HeroicBSOD: The entire series is him suffering through a years-long HeroicBSOD. It's shown through exposition and flashbacks that he was always odd and suffering through various issues but that Trudy helped him deal with them to the point where he could function relatively normally and even have an active social life. Her death caused all his problems to come back with a vengeance, leading him to be dismissed form the San Francisco Police Department, go into therapy, and require near round-the-clock care. [[spoiler: It isn't until he discovers the truth about Trudy's death and meets her long-lost daughter that he finds closure and can get his issues back under control]].
** He also has relatively minor episodes that exacerbate his condition, such as whenever it seems that he'll be reinstated as a detective but is denied or when his private investigator's license is revoked after he accidentally deleted several years worth of forensic files while attempting to clean crumbs off a keyboard.
* HighlyVisibleNinja: He barely bothers to change his appearance or even his name during undercover work.
* HoldingTheFloor: In "Mr. Monk Goes to a Wedding," Monk uses this tactic to keep Natalie's brother's BlackWidow bride from leaving, long enough to allow Stottlemeyer to bring an injured Randy down to identify her.
* HollywoodPsych: The way the show portrays OCD is incredibly inaccurate. Although the writers seem to realize this, and therefore Monk is explicitly identified as having OCD maybe only once across the entire series, with characters opting to call him simply "weird" or "persnickety" when explaining his disorder to others. It's heavily toted as OCD in promotional material, however.
* HonorBeforeReason: When Monk becomes Stottlemeyer's best man, he takes his duty of keeping the wedding ring safe seriously -- by holding it clenched in his fist ''for nine days straight'', like [[SarcasmMode it is the only guaranteed way that you won't lose your friend's wedding ring!]]
* HurricaneOfPuns: When Monk participates in the interrogation of the guy who bullied him in middle school (imagine Monk's horror over getting a swirly). Monk unleashes a slew of toilet/swirly-related puns.
%%* HyperAwareness
* ICantBelieveAGuyLikeYouWouldNoticeMe: How Monk feels about his Trudy, even years after they got married.
* ICouldaBeenAContender: While he's always wanted to be a cop, Monk is rather morose over the fact that his condition prevented him from fully exploring his interests in athletics and music.
* ILetGwenStacyDie: Variant. His ''main'' source of guilt isn't that he couldn't prevent Trudy's murder, but that he's never been able to bring her killer to justice.
* IdiosyncraticEpisodeNaming: Every single episode has "Mr. Monk" in the title, always at the beginning of the title (the only episode where it ''isn't'' at the beginning is "Happy Birthday, Mr. Monk").
* ImprobableAimingSkills: In the second part of the series premiere, Monk manages to aim and shoot the perpetrator holding Sharona hostage in the dark. "Aiming" here is key, as that's what separates it from AccidentalAimingSkills.
* ImprobableWeaponUser: Since he's not allowed to carry a gun, Monk occasionally has to make do with less orthodox means of self-defence. During "Mr. Monk is Up All Night," he uses a very heavy stack of newspapers to knock out a murderer after tossing it out of a moving van.
* InsaneTrollLogic: Happens a few times in the novels when Monk sees someone doing something he finds disgusting from his perspective -- which causes him to call said person out with a very interesting idea of the consequences of their actions, to the point that Natalie has occasionally said it might make sense to Monk in some way but not to her. Though occasionally, he does actually have a point.
* IResembleThatRemark: In "Mr. Monk and the Actor".
-->'''Adrian Monk''': He's completely obsessed - and not in a good way, like me.
* IronicName: The word "monk" conjures up images of someone who is calm, serene, at peace with themselves and the rest of the world and never gets anxious or upset about anything. In other words, the complete opposite of Adrian Monk.
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Probably to make him less pathetic, but the way he treated the people around him in the last few seasons, especially Natalie, makes one want to smack him. Monk's usual level of jerkiness is nothing compared to the way he behaves in "Mr. Monk Takes His Medicine," due to the side effects of his anti-OCD medication. He still has brave, selfless, and genuinely nice moments.
* JekyllAndHyde: Monk uses this analogy in ''Mr. Monk Goes to Hawaii'' to describe the personality he has when he is on the anti-OCD medicine Dioxynl.
* TheKnightsWhoSaySquee: Occasionally, he gets into fanboy mode, such as over Tonday Mawwaka in "Mr. Monk and the Marathon Man", or ''The Cooper Clan'' in "Mr. Monk's Favorite Show."
* LargeHam: He's soft-spoken, but his movements can be highly energetic.
* LaughingMad: Monk briefly undergoes this trope in "Mr. Monk and the Garbage Strike" when, [[spoiler:after being driven insane by the continuing piling of garbage as well as his earlier failure to find the one responsible for the murder of the sanitation union boss due to being wrong the first time around, hijacks a city garbage truck, and is planning to dump it into the bay, and implies to do the same with every garbage truck available until the city is clean]], as well as coming up with an even less credible and ridiculously hilarious theory that Music/AliceCooper killed the union leader due to envy over his owning a chair. In case you're wondering how it's less credible, the first theory was only wrong in that the Mayor killed the union leader, and everything else was spot on, even the Mayor visiting the union leader the night of his death. The second theory, however missed out on a lot of the evidences observed by Monk earlier, and was simply too ludicrous to be true. Randy takes it so seriously that he starts poking holes in it until Stottlemeyer asks him, "Do we really need to poke holes in the 'Alice Cooper wants a wingback chair' theory?"
* LickedByTheDog: "Dog...lick...hand! Boil water!"
* LimitedWardrobe: A rare non-animated version; Monk likes consistency in every aspect of his life, and this extends to wearing nearly-identical suits at almost all times, with a dress shirt buttoned all the way up and no tie. He only wears other clothing when absolutely necessary, such as donning his old police uniform when trying to get his badge back.
* LiquidCourage: While drunk he retains his keen analytical skills, but loses many of his neuroses in exchange for being much less cautious and prone to reckless behaviour.
%%* LovableCoward
* MadnessMantra: When Monk breaks down during the garbage strike and tries to get rid of the trash himself by driving it into the sea, he keeps muttering "One bag at a time, one truck at a time" to himself.
* ManChild: Monk becomes one through [[HypnoFool hypnosis]] in "Mr. Monk Gets Hypnotized". He gets better, though. Its also hinted that even during this state, he still innately could find clues about the actual murder, although his way of expressing these facts is much different -- like tasting a piece of gum taken off Sally Larkin's ''shoe''.
* MarijuanaIsLSD: In "Mr. Monk Visits a Farm," HilarityEnsues when Monk accidentally thinks he's inhaled marijuana fumes caused by Jimmy Belmont burning his illegal crop to destroy any evidence of it. He tries to counter the effects by handcuffing himself to the grain drill, but is shocked back to get the EurekaMoment when the sprinklers turn on and drench him.
* MistakenForBadass: Quite a few times. One good example is when Monk, disguised as a strangely identical hit man, straightens a mobster's tie -- which apparently is taken for an intimidating gesture.
* MistakenForExhibit: In "Mr. Monk Takes the Stand", a flashback during Monk's testimony shows that at the victim's house, he mistakenly believed a display stand was an art piece.
* MistakenForRacist: In "Mr. Monk and the Marathon Man", Monk is meeting with a group of people at the marathon committee's office, and has a wipe ready to wipe his hands after all handshakes are complete. Unfortunately, the last person to shake his hand is a black man, and Monk wipes his hands right after. This trope is played straight, racism is implied and accused. Afterwards, everyone there regards him with contempt.
* MoodWhiplash: The show is fearless about switching between drama and comedy. The best examples, by far, are in "Mr. Monk and the End", such as Dr. Shuler informing Monk he's going to die. He'll feel better, then there'll be vomiting, followed by death. [[ComicallyMissingThePoint Of course, Monk wants death to happen before the vomiting]].
* MundaneMadeAwesome: Monk's reaction in "Mr. Monk on Wheels" to discovering Dean Berry's square tomatoes. He is literally beside himself with joy, since each slice is the ''exact'' same size and won't overlap in sandwiches.
-->'''Monk:''' You can taste the ''symmetry''!
** Of course, there is a small SeriesContinuityError with this - in "Mr. Monk Goes to the Asylum", Dr. Morris Lancaster reads from Monk's patient chart that Monk is allergic to tomatoes.
* MurderMakesYouCrazy: At least to all appearances in "Mr. Monk is on the Run". [[spoiler:When Frank Nunn is shot dead, to all appearances by Monk himself, he acts really disoriented and neurotic (more so than usual). Driving in circles while attempting to steal a pickup truck (as the club is locked around the steering wheel), and stopping to re-thread his torn prison uniform with the correct color thread, are probably good examples.]]
* MyBelovedSmother: He has complicated feelings towards his mother, because while she was a paradoxically fussy and distant maternal figure, she never stopped believing in Adrian and tragically died before she could see him come into his own as a police officer.
* MysteryMagnet: With only a few exceptions, not a single corpse that he runs across has ever died of a natural death.
** This has been lampshaded a couple of times. In the novel ''Mr. Monk on Patrol'', after Monk and Natalie are nearly incinerated by an arsonist who sets their hotel rooms on fire with a Molotov cocktail, Officer Walter Woodlake tells Randy (paraphrased), "Chief, I thought these two were supposed to drive crime down, not up." In ''Mr. Monk Is Miserable'', Natalie says she feels like she'll have to start carrying body bags around.
%%* NeatFreak
%%* NervousWreck
* NoSenseOfPersonalSpace: While he doesn't like people touching him, he can be terribly obnoxious when it comes to "fixing" the world around him.
* NoSocialSkills: He has been a life-long social outcast because of his neurotic personality. Both as a kid and as an adult, he's had very few friends.
* NobleBigot: His love of symmetry causes him to react badly towards (living) people who are missing limbs. More pronounced is his distaste towards "hippies", which is a rather broad category in his mind as he considers anyone with a bohemian lifestyle (or who seems to have one) to be a "hippy." Monk's prejudices towards the latter are ultimately examined and challenged during "Mr. Monk and the Naked Man" where the "Bigot" part of this trope threatens to smother his nobility.
* NotAfraidToDie: Death isn't even one of his top five fears (it's ranked either #7 or #8) so while he'd be willing to risk his life for the greater good, just thinking about people being born can scare him stiff.
* OffscreenMomentOfAwesome: By the time of Season 6's "Mr. Monk and the Wrong Man," Adrian has personally been involved in over 410 cases, not counting ones he consulted on remotely or in passing. Distressingly, over a quarter of those involved murder.
* OhTheHumanity: Monk yells this whenever he encounters something ''really'' nasty.
** "Mr. Monk and the Paperboy": after realizing he just wiped his hands with an oily garage rag
** "Mr. Monk and the Kid": when changing a diaper.
* OOCIsSeriousBusiness:
** Monk has severe OCD and a host of other phobias, such that he frequently needs sanitary wipes. In "Mr. Monk and the Garbage Strike," he is so disturbed by the trash bags piled around that he is unable to function as a detective. By the climax of the story, he's driving a garbage truck around, picking up the garbage himself, and [[BigLippedAlligatorMoment fingering Alice Cooper for the crime in a summation that's more implausible than usual]]. His friends get him to a clean room, and he gets back to normal. Relatively speaking.
** And "Mr. Monk Is On The Air": Monk suspects that radio host Max Hudson murdered his wife while he was broadcasting a live show on the radio. Unfortunately, Max only wants to talk to Monk if Monk agrees to come on ths show. So the interview starts. Kevin Dorfman tries to help Monk out, even calling in a joke that doesn't work. Then Trudy's death is brought up, perhaps unintentionally. And while Max's colleagues feel remorseful for Monk, Max starts making tasteless jokes. Warning: You ''know'' Monk is ''extremely pissed'' when the normally mild-mannered detective who abstains from physical contact jumps across the table to tackle Hudson, and has to be forcibly pulled out by the security personnel. Even worse since Natalie had been shut out of the studio, forced to sit in the control room and watch.
** Also, when someone Monk cares about is in danger (for instance, in "Mr. Monk and the Three Pies"[[note]]his desire to speed up in traffic to get to Ambrose when he realizes the shell casing incriminating Pat van Ranken in his wife's death is in Ambrose's house[[/note]], "Mr. Monk Gets Stuck in Traffic"[[note]]when Ray Galardi [[AccidentalKidnapping accidentally kidnaps]] Natalie in his dump truck[[/note]], "Mr. Monk and the Class Reunion"[[note]]when Monk realizes Kyle Brooks is planning to kill his wife Dianne[[/note]]), he tends to set aside his persnicketiness and [[LetsGetDangerous get dangerous]].
* PaintingTheMedium:
** In the season 4 episode, Monk is finally put on retainer by the police. He's guaranteed 16 homicides a year for the next two years.
** In an inadvertent example, the ad for "Mr. Monk Stays in Bed" features Monk being served a bowl of alphabet soup. Monk says, "I see letters". Yes, he's talking about the letters in the soup, but by ContrivedCoincidence in TV airings, he's looking in the direction of the episode's [[UsefulNotes/MediaClassifications age rating]] on the screen.
* ParalyzingFearOfSexuality: Monk's a CelibateHero (sometimes a ChasteHero depending on the situation) and he's uncomfortable around intimacy, sex, nudity, and even immodesty. The death of his wife aggravated this phobia but even while she was alive he expressed a disinterest in sex.
* PerpetualPoverty: Much of his money is used to pay for his rent and to fund his neurotic lifestyle, resulting in his savings account never really peaking past $32,000.
* PetTheDog: A literal example occurs in the final season.
* PhotographicMemory: Monk's powers of recall are nothing short of incredible. He memorizes an entire stage play after seeing it once ("Mr. Monk Goes to the Theater") and can even remember tiny details such as the right and wrong ways to check someone's pulse. If he witnesses a crime, he ''will'' find the perpetrator.
-->'''Monk:''' I know that rock!
* PhraseCatcher: "It doesn't have to be perfect." From pretty much every random person Monk works with who isn't already aware of his neuroses, directed at Monk.
* PlayedForLaughs: Monk's debilitating mental illness.
* ProperlyParanoid: "Mr. Monk Is Up All Night". [[spoiler: Monk is walking out late at night, and oversees a sour drug deal going wrong in a restaurant kitchen. An Asian man reveals that he is an undercover cop and pulls his gun on a bald-headed customer and a drug dealer, and orders both of them to line up against the wall. A fight breaks out and the undercover cop is shot dead by the drug dealer. The bald man is hustled by the drug dealer outside to a waiting car that drives away. By the time Monk has gotten back after running a few blocks to a payphone to call the police, the kitchen is practically spotless, and there is no evidence of a killing, making Stottlemeyer and Disher suspect that Monk was seeing things as he was suffering from insomnia. Monk's first clue is when the supposedly killed "undercover cop" turns up alive at the train station, throwing out some trash that is traced to an antique coin store (the Asian claims he is on his way to see his brother in Portland). Tracing the garbage, Monk recognizes the coin dealer as the bald witness, who claims he was in bed at the time. When the "undercover cop" turns up dead at the station, Monk realizes something mentioned by Gully, who pickpocketed his wallet earlier: that it's a different city at night. The solution: the "undercover cop" was not actually killed, and a waitress working late helped him clean up the kitchen afterwards. The "drug dealer" was scamming the coin dealer into giving them his antique coins under the pretense that it was hush money.]]
* RudeHeroNiceSidekick: Monk's first assistant, Sharona, is a JerkWithAHeartOfGold who nonetheless knows how to deal with people better than Monk, who has NoSocialSkills. Natalie is generally nicer and friendlier than Monk, although prone to BewareTheNiceOnes moments.
* ScreamsLikeALittleGirl: "Mr. Monk Goes Camping." [[spoiler:Because of a bear. A [[BearsAreBadNews big damn bear]]]]. Interestingly, though, the trailers for this scene had Tony Shalhoub screaming in his own voice. They dubbed it over with a little girl's one due to the RuleOfFunny.
* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: His neuroses often trump his sense of justice if the locale (ex. a state penitentiary in "Mr. Monk Goes to Jail" and a submarine in "Mr Monk is Underwater.") he is investigating distresses him enough. Subverted in the prison's case, however, as the second Dale the Whale bribes him with information about Trudy's murder, [[{{Determinator}} Monk instantly goes right back in to investigate, and even goes so far as to impersonate an inmate and share a cell with a dangerous psychopath in order to get the job done]].
* {{Sexiled}}: Invoked and ultimately subverted in the episode "Mr. Monk and the Class Reunion", where Monk may have had this with his roommate, as shown by the dialogue when Monk and Natalie are in the dormitory corridor:
-->'''Natalie Teeger:''' Mr. Monk, come on! Let's have some fun! ''[snaps her fingers]'' You said you were gonna show me your dorm room!\\
'''Adrian Monk:''' Well, it's right here. This is it, old #303. Uh-oh! Tie on the doorknob! ''[Camera pans to show a tie wrapped around the doorknob; Natalie laughs]'' My roommate and I did the same thing, it's a code.\\
'''Natalie Teeger:''' ''[grins]'' Yeah! I think I might know about that.\\
'''Adrian Monk:''' Yeah, it means, "Don't come in! I'm reorganizing my closet!" ''[Natalie stares at him incredulously]''\\
'''Natalie Teeger:''' Your ''closet?''\\
'''Adrian Monk:''' Yeah. My roommate in freshman year, Greg, he reorganized his closet 4-5 times a week.\\
'''Natalie Teeger:''' Uh-huh, and did his girlfriend ever come over to help?\\
'''Adrian Monk:''' Oh yeah, all the time, they were real neat freaks. I used to tease them about it. "Neat freaks!"
* SheIsNotMyGirlfriend: A number of times, other characters seem to be under the impression that Monk and Natalie suppress romantic feelings for each other. Natalie usually finds the suggestion rather amusing.
** In "Mr. Monk Gets Lotto Fever," Monk is mistaken for Natalie's boyfriend by one of her fans.
* SharedFamilyQuirks: Adrian and Ambrose are both {{Insufferable Genius}}es, and both are crippled with psychological diseases (Adrian has OCD, Ambrose has agoraphobia).
* ShellShockedVeteran: Averted. Despite being taken hostage very frequently, buried alive on a few occasions, frequently seeing the aftermath of many bloody murders (shootings, stabbings, explosions, beatings, even a few mutilations on the side), Monk is afraid of milk, handshakes, and germs, and has traumatic memories of birth.
* SherlockScan: As an expy of the TropeNamer, Monk is notorious for this. However, since Monk is also socially inept, he also doesn't always know that there are some details not to bring up. Here's a good piece of advice: If you know that a woman is lying about her age, don't call her out on it. Or if you know that the judge at a hearing is sleeping with his secretary, don't use that as your way of proving your credibility to him. Or mention that a widow is having a sexual affair if her daughter is also standing there.
* ShowDontTell: In the entirety of the show's run, Monk was explicitly described as having OCD ''maybe'' twice, not counting promos. This is made especially jarring on the multiple occasions where Monk gets in trouble for grossly inappropriate behavior and Natalie or Sharona tries to explain to an authority figure that Monk suffers from a condition; the best she's ever able to come up with is "he's... persnickity".
* SickEpisode: "Mr. Monk Stays in Bed"
* SlippingAMickey: Invoked and [[HoistByHisOwnPetard Inverted]] in [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin "Mr. Monk Gets Drunk"]]. Monk attempts to do this to Al Nicoletto to extract a confession from him, and also orders for a non-alcoholic beverage (intended for himself) and an alcoholic beverage for Nicoletto. He ends up being the one drunk shortly thereafter. It's implied that the orders were mixed up.
* TheSoCalledCoward: Monk is terrified of 312 specifically named, listed, and ordered things. In spite of constantly encountering them, he ''always'' gets his man. And he never gets over his fear.
* StatusQuoIsGod: Whenever Monk makes a new friend, they turn out to be [[SixthRangerTraitor evil criminals manipulating him]]. Whenever he makes some progress in his mental health, he's [[ResetButton back to being worse than ever at the end of the episode]]. It took the final episode to give him some closure. However, the final season has him working though some of his problems.
** An episode at the beginning of the final season had him make a friend whose wife died in the {{cold open}} in a hit-and-run and was not [[AssholeVictim evil or manipulating]]. However he lived in another country, and had to be PutOnABus in the end.
** In "Mr. Monk Goes to the Office", his coworkers at the office he was working at while undercover liked him and seemed to be forming a friendship, but of course after the crime was solved he had to go back to his regular job. Making it worse, Monk had ruined his relationship with them due to not wearing proper shoes at a bowling game.
** One episode lampshaded it by having him convinced that the elderly woman who had become a mother figure to him had to have been in on the murder, because everyone else who had become his friend in the past ended up betraying him. Things got awkward when he found out that she really was innocent, right after cruelly berating her.
** In "Mr. Monk and the Badge", [[spoiler:Monk quits the force after having been back on it for only a few days, finding consulting to be more of his thing.]]
** Monk had sparked a possible romance with a woman who is arrested for murdering an escaped war criminal. [[spoiler:She had taken the rap for the real killer, her mother]].
* StripperCopConfusion: Sadly, yes, in the one where Natalie's brother gets married. Monk couldn't notice that the guy had dollar bills sticking out of his belt.
* TheSummation: Almost always signaled with the CatchPhrase "Here's what happened..."
** Lampshaded in "Mr. Monk Gets Drunk": "Monk was doing his summation thing..." Played with in [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin the manner in which he delivered it.]]
** Subverted in "Mr. Monk and the Earthquake", wherein the episode goes through all the usual bells and whistles of the summation formula (black and white flashbacks, dramatic camera shots, etc), while totally oblivious to the fact that the voiceover being supplied by an unusually-addled Monk is pure gibberish.
** Also played awesomely in "Mr. Monk and the Kid" where Monk reads the summation to the one-year old boy he has temporarily adopted as a bedtime story.
* SuperOCD: Very. [[http://forums.usanetwork.com/index.php?showtopic=384205 Possibly]] a misdiagnosed autistic savant, instead.
* SuperSenses: Although not emphasized in every episode, it's periodically shown that Monk's senses, particularly hearing, smell, and touch, are sharp to an almost superhuman degree. The show emphasizes the negative SensoryOverload aspect of having such senses, with Monk often being driven nuts by noises or smells that no one else even notices.
* TagAlongActor: Monk acquires David Ruskin in "Mr. Monk and the Actor". It didn't work out well because of the guy's method acting.
* TakeAThirdOption:
** In "Happy Birthday, Mr. Monk," faced with hiding in either a dumpster or port-a-john, Monk declares "I choose death!"
** "Mr. Monk and the Red-Headed Stranger":
-->'''Stottlemeyer:''' It's either (a) the blind woman who has zero motive or it's (b) your friend the red-headed stranger.\\
'''Randy:''' Who had motive, means, and opportunity, and was identified by the only witness at the scene.\\
'''Stottlemeyer:''' A or B, Monk.\\
'''Monk:''' I think it's C.\\
'''Stottlemeyer:''' What the hell is C?\\
'''Monk:''' I don't know yet.
* * TakesTenToHold: In ''Mr. Monk and the End'', because of his OCD, Monk has to be restrained by the entire hospital staff to hold him down just so they can draw blood from him after he was poisoned.
* ThirdActStupidity: Monk will often let it slip to the killer that he knows he's the killer and has solid evidence to prove it. This usually occurs when the killer is an authority figure in a position to kill Monk in a way that would raise absolutely no questions. As a result, Monk is regularly endangered in ways he could have easily avoided if he had kept his mouth shut and waited for the police to arrive. This is generally explained by the fact that Monk has ''really'' bad social skills.
* UnusualEuphemism: "BM" for "shit" and "haul bottom" for "haul ass".
* UpToEleven: Monk's OCD becomes much worse after Trudy's murder.
* WantingIsBetterThanHaving: Getting back on the police force was one of Monk's goals since the start of the show. When he finally accomplished it late in the final season, he discovered that he actually preferred the independence of being an outside consultant.
* WeWantOurJerkBack:
** {{Inverted|Trope}} in the episode "Mr. Monk Takes His Medicine", when Monk ends up taking a type of medication where all of his regular quirks are being suppressed and he can live a (relatively) normal life after an incident where he was forced to let a criminal get away due to his hands being soiled. It works too well, and he ends up becoming similar to one of those jerkish college frat-boys, with Sharona and the SFPD wanting the Monk they know to be there. Eventually, Monk manages to give up on that medication when it became apparent that he'd have to choose between the medicine and his memories of Trudy.
** Lee Goldberg brings the drug back in some of the novels, as the only way Monk can manage to make an airline flight. [[spoiler: In ''Mr. Monk Goes to Germany'', at one point Natalie observes that this will keep him from solving the murder. He replies that he has already solved it, and just needs to find the evidence-- indeed, it turns out that in his normal state he would not have been ABLE to handle the evidence. Unfortunately, Monk and Natalie are almost killed when the shack they enter to retrieve the evidence in question catches fire, and they barely escape the flames.]]
* WeirdnessMagnet:
** In the episode "Mr. Monk Gets Cabin Fever", Natalie observes that everywhere Monk goes, people get murdered, supposing he's followed by some karmic cloud of disaster. By the end of the episode, she changes her mind about him: he's not a Weirdness Magnet for murder, he's cosmically drawn to where murders occur so he can solve them.
* WhatTheHellHero: In "Mr. Monk and the Red-Headed Stranger", when Stottlemeyer finds out that Monk not only released a streaker that they just picked up for disrupting two police press conferences, but also hired him to streak, is about to tell Monk off for it, until Monk points to Mrs. Mass to indicate her reaction, showing he actually had a good reason for hiring him. Some other examples:
** In "Mr. Monk and the Genius," Stottlemeyer takes Monk aside to warn him about jumping off the slippery slope after learning that Monk wants to get Patrick Kloster by way of planted evidence.
** In "Mr. Monk and the Bully", Natalie angrily chews Monk out for his desire to continue following Roderick Brody's wife.
** In "Mr. Monk and Sharona," Stottlemeyer chews Monk, Natalie and Sharona out for just botching any possibility of them nabbing Perry Walsh for killing Sharona's uncle.
* WildTeenParty: Inverted in "Mr. Monk is the Best Man". Because Stottlemeyer lets Monk plan his bachelor party (which turns out to be anything but a good idea), it's barely even a "party", and most certainly isn't wild with: a port-a-potty within the actual bathroom, pizza with [[ExactWords nothing on it]] (not even cheese or sauce), one 12 ounce beer for each partygoer [12 party members, amounting to 144 fluid ounces of alcohol total] which requires Randy to be assigned Designated Drunk; some jokes that just don't go well, and he shows them ''Film/BachelorParty'' as their movie, of which the movie is implied to not be a popular choice among the cops. The closest it ever gets to being a wild teen party is when Randy staggers in asking who owns the police unit out front that's painted a charcoal gray with flames on the side and on the roof and windshield, which causes everyone to run outside and find Stottlemeyer's car on fire.
* YankTheDogsChain: Every time he makes a breakthrough in his therapy and starts down a good road, something traumatic always happens to set him back again. This includes a near breakdown at the end of "Mr. Monk and the Actor" that completely undoes what was unprecedented progress.
* YouCantGoHomeAgain: In "Mr. Monk and the Badge" Monk realizes his goal of being reinstated in the SFPD, only to find that nothing about policing was familiar to him anymore and the episode end with him retiring from the force.
* YouJustToldMe: This is usually how Monk manages to get the perpetrator should the evidence he finds can't implicate the perpetrator directly, although it's more similar to "You Just Showed Me."
* YouNeverDidThatForMe: In the episode where Sharona and Natalie meet, Natalie finds out that Monk paid Sharona a lot more than he paid her. Thus she complains that Monk never paid her that much. It was a difference of twenty dollars.
* YourPrincessIsInAnotherCastle: In the finale, [[spoiler:Monk sits around in a chair with his therapist at about 40 minutes in, the case apparently solved, and talks about [[LampshadeHanging his lack of closure]].]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Natalie Teeger]]
!!Natalie Jane Davenport-Teeger
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/howard_09_6366.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:300:''"Detective Monk, why don't we solve my case first, all right? Then we can come back here and figure out who killed Ogg, okay?"'']]
->Played by: Creator/TraylorHoward

Monk's personal assistant starting with the second half of Season 3.

Unlike the other characters, Natalie is the only one to come from an upper class background. In her case, she was born in Monterey in the 1960s, child of Bobby and Peggy Davenport. She had one sibling, a brother named Jonathan. Her grandfather, Neville Davenport, was a former chemist's assistant, who eventually got an epiphany and founded his own toothpaste company, now the third largest in the world.

In the early 1990s, Natalie married a Navy lieutenant commander named Mitch Teeger. With him, she had one child, a daughter named Julie, named for Mitch's aunt. The resulting marriage also strained Natalie's relationship with her family. Their marriage lasted seven years, until 1998, when Mitch was killed in combat in the Kosovo War.

Over the next seven years, Natalie bounced around between a number of odd jobs, like blackjack dealer, office worker, and housesitter, but nothing stuck.

In her first episode, "Mr. Monk and the Red Herring," Natalie is working as a bartender and living in the Noe Valley neighborhood of San Francisco. Her life changes when her house is broken into twice in the span of a couple of days: the first time, a man posing as a water meter inspector comes in, but quickly flees when she catches him snooping around in the living room. A few nights later, a second man breaks in through a side window. Natalie is awoken by a noise, and when she goes down to investigate, the intuder, Brian Lemmon, attacks her. Natalie is forced to kill him in self-defense with a pair of scissors. Captain Stottlemeyer and Lieutenant Disher are baffled upon learning that this is the second intruder in less than a week, and they suggest Natalie take her case to Monk, who is currently trying to get over Sharona's departure from his life and looking for replacements. Monk is intrigued by Natalie's case, and comes in to help.

Throughout his investigation, Monk is impressed enough by her, and her similarities to Sharona, that he asks her if she wants to become his new assistant. At the end, when Monk is forced to choose between grabbing a valuable moon rock or Julie's pet fish, he chooses the fish, and this is the final factor that convinces Natalie to join Monk and leave her life of bartending.
----
* FifteenMinutesOfFame: In "Mr. Monk Gets Lotto Fever," Natalie gets a ridiculous amount of fame from a brief stint as a lottery girl, much to Monk's chagrin.
* AdaptationExpansion: Whereas the TV series generally focuses on just Monk, Natalie arguably is almost as much a main character of the novels, as she is also the books' narrator.
** The novels ''Mr. Monk Goes to Hawaii'' and ''Mr. Monk is Miserable'' expand on Natalie's memories of Mitch.
** ''Mr. Monk in Outer Space'' reveals that Natalie's grandfather's toothpaste company almost was closed down by the discovery that the formula was laced with sugar, expanding on the background mentioned in "Mr. Monk, Private Eye".
** For the second half of season 4, all of season 5, and the first half of season 6, Creator/USANetwork published a series of blog entries written by Natalie. The entries were written to coincide with episode air-dates, and refer to the events in the episodes. The episodes provide additional clarifying details about some episodes, like for instance again reinforcing in the "Mr. Monk is on the Air" entry that Monk and Natalie dislike radio DJ Max Hudson for using shock jock humor. Natalie's blog for "Mr. Monk Can't See a Thing" describes a scene cut from the story where Monk goes to a blindness therapy group to learn how to adjust to being blind, which doesn't go well for Monk (some of the stuff he tells the blind therapist convinces her that he's been preparing for blindness, stuff he says at Dr. Kroger's office in the episode). Many of the entries describe Natalie's reactions to the events of the episode in particular.
* ArbitrarySkepticism: Played with. In "Mr. Monk and the Critic," when Natalie tries to convince Monk and the others that [[StrawCritic John Hannigan]] murdered his girlfriend Callie Esterhaus, Monk and the others don't believe her because they point out that he had a very airtight alibi for this, and they believe she's upset about the critical review Hannigan wrote of Julie's performance in the play he was using as his alibi. A number of other times, she has averted this:
** In "Mr. Monk and the Other Detective," she supports Monk's belief that Marty Eels is "cheating" at the case.
** In "Mr. Monk Goes to a Fashion Show," she is the only one not skeptical of Monk's belief that the framed delivery boy is an innocent person. Whether Stottlemeyer or Disher are convinced right away that something is up like Natalie is unclear, although it's clear that they tag along just because Monk and Natalie mention who exactly they will be talking to in their investigation.
** In "Mr. Monk and the Astronaut", she is at first skeptical of Steve Wagner's guilt in the death of his girlfriend until [[spoiler:Wagner]] gives a TheReasonYouSuckSpeech to Monk.
** In "Mr. Monk Goes to a Rock Concert," when Monk and Natalie are approached by Kendra Frank, the murder victim's girlfriend, Natalie is initially skeptical for a minute or so about Kendra's claim:
--->'''Kendra Frank:''' His real name was Greg Murray. Look, they're trying to say that [Greg Murray] OD'd! Okay? That's impossible! He's been clean for 17 months! I know, I talked to him about it every day!
--->'''Natalie Teeger:''' Well, Kendra, we were there. We saw a needle in his arm-
--->'''Kendra Frank:''' No, that's how I know there's something wrong. Stork was completely phobic about needles! He was the only roadie I've ever met that didn't even have ''one'' tattoo! I mean he missed a whole South American tour last year because he wouldn't get vaccinated!
--->'''Natalie Teeger:''' ''[shrugs]'' Maybe he got over it. ''[Kendra explodes with rage]''
--->'''Kendra Frank:''' You don't just get over a phobia like that overnight! Do you?!
--->'''Adrian Monk:''' No. ''[shakes his head]'' You don't.
** In "Mr. Monk and the Bad Girlfriend," Natalie is the only one quickly convinced by Monk that Stottlemeyer's girlfriend is a killer. Note that Monk and Natalie had been sent by Stottlemeyer to investigate that murder. Hence, Natalie proves crucial to helping Monk catch Linda: keeping Linda out of her house while Monk searches it. Later, Monk pretends to talk to Natalie over a webcam, as part of a trap to lead Stottlemeyer to the incriminating evidence.
* ArsonMurderAndJaywalking: In "Mr. Monk Gets Cabin Fever", Natalie is upset with Monk for having to be in the Witness Protection Program just because he didn't stay in the car, for: she is stuck with him, Stottlemeyer and Agent Grooms in the middle of the woods; her daughter is missing a full week of school since she has to stay with Natalie's parents, Monk has a price on his head, and... he broke someone's car radio antenna while trying to straighten it out. The last of these was the one that caused all of the earlier problems.
* AsideGlance: InUniverse case. In one of the scenes in the documentary within "Mr. Monk's 100th Case," when Monk deduces that a murder was staged as a break-in, Natalie turns to the camera and says, "Pretty good, huh?" And later, in a scene where Monk and Natalie are driving with the cameraman riding in the backseat, with Monk telling Natalie to keep her eyes on the road as she simultaneously is telling the camera what lead they are on their way to check out. Monk says he's feeling nauseous, and Natalie says, "Did I mention he also doesn't like driving?"
* BerserkButton: Natalie is mostly amused by Monk's eccentricities. However, a few of them can trigger this, which Monk does on a regular basis, although a few are triggered by something else.
** Natalie is generally driven into a furious rage whenever Monk is late with her paycheck or is unable to pay her, for whatever reason (although unlike Sharona, she doesn't threaten to quit). Lampshaded in "Mr. Monk and the Genius," where Monk and Natalie are fighting about back pay, and are interrupted by Linda Kloster, who apologetically says she heard screaming. Natalie then calmly says, "Oh, no, that's just me. I scream every payday," which implies that this must happen very frequently.
** Natalie gets angry if she learns someone has been lying to her or keeping the truth back from her. She gets pissed off with Stottlemeyer in "Mr. Monk Is On The Run Part 2" when she realizes that he has been covering up the fact that he helped fake Monk's death, is one example.
** Also don't betray her. An example is in ''Mr. Monk Goes to Germany'', when Natalie sees Dr. Kroger with Dr. Martin Rahner, a six-fingered man like the bomber Monk has been looking for since "Mr. Monk Takes Manhattan". Monk runs off, while Natalie's response is to suddenly punch Dr. Kroger in the face.
* BewareTheNiceOnes: Natalie is generally nice, and pretty decent to be around... but she is quite capable of defending herself. Her first ever scene in the show is herself killing an intruder in self-defense. In terms of fights, Natalie doesn't get involved in many, but there are a couple of memorable ones: "Mr. Monk and the Daredevil," where she attacks Joey Krenshaw with a piece of metal pipe (arguably to stop Joey from shooting or pushing his cousin Harold off a hospital rooftop), and in "Mr. Monk on Wheels," where she wrestles with Sarah Longson for a pistol, comes out on top, and trains it on her. Also, in the novel ''Mr. Monk on Patrol'', she walks into a convenience store robbery and stops both of the would-be thieves with just a can of air freshener.
* BlackSheep:
** Once we learn about Natalie's family in "Mr. Monk Goes to a Wedding", it's clear that she is considered one by her parents. Her mother Peggy is described as having two habits: "Tennis, and making me feel like dirt. She's a champion at both." Her backstory, when constructed over the course of the series, portrays Natalie as filled with instances of youthful devilry. As another example, she keeps her late husband's surname after his death in 1998.
** Not only that. Prior to becoming Monk's assistant, she is so estranged from her own family that she doesn't even tell Monk, Captain Stottlemeyer, or Lieutenant Disher about the fact she is descended from the founder of Davenport Toothpaste until "Mr. Monk Goes to a Wedding," and even then, this discovery is only because Randy happens to notice the name "Jonathan Davenport" on a wedding invitation, which prompts Stottlemeyer to say, "You're always kissable fresh with Davenport, like the toothpaste." Randy then skeptically says, "''This'' is you?" while holding up a tube of Davenport toothpaste. However, Natalie's relation with her parents seems to have mended, as she and Monk are seen having an early lunch with them in "Mr. Monk Is At Your Service".
** Though not related to the trope, a series of tie-in character blogs on USA Network note that Natalie finds Monk to be better than her parents in a number of places: one is that [[http://web.archive.org/web/20070726000337/http://www.usanetwork.com/series/monk/webexclusives/blogs/teeger29.html he never has a hidden agenda or manipulates people to benefit himself]], unlike several examples she gives of how someone else used her to manipulate her parents into doing something for them. Furthermore, [[http://web.archive.org/web/20070811200020/http://www.usanetwork.com/series/monk/webexclusives/blogs/teeger21.html the tie-in blog]] for "Mr. Monk Is At Your Service" notes that she finds Monk to be a much better boss than her parents.
* BoundAndGagged: In the episode "Mr. Monk Stays In Bed", Reggie Dennison subjects Natalie to this.
* BracesOfOrthodonticOverkill: In ''Mr. Monk and the Two Assistants'', Natalie mentions having worn braces while growing up.
* BusmansHoliday: Naturally, wherever Monk and Natalie travel, bodies turn up shortly thereafter. This is more prominent in the tie-in novel series. Natalie generally tends to be the complainer about this happening too much, saying in ''Mr. Monk and the Dirty Cop'' that the odds of them finding the Abominable Snowman stabbed to death in the Arctic when they are totally by themselves seem very high.
** In ''Mr. Monk Goes to Hawaii'', Monk and Natalie go to Hawaii. Natalie goes because she's been invited to be a bridesmaid at her friend's wedding. Monk goes along because he'll feel hopeless without Natalie. The next day, not only does Monk ruin the wedding by exposing Natalie's friend's groom as a bigamist, but he and Natalie also stumble upon a beating death at a bungalow nearby. Hence, Natalie tries her best to enjoy what she can of her vacation, while Monk basically ropes her into helping him solve the murder and expose TV medium Dylan Swift as a phony.
** In ''Mr. Monk Goes to Germany'', Monk and Natalie go to Lohr, Germany solely to follow Dr. Kroger as Monk is suffering a breakdown. While they're there, a visiting journalist from Berlin is killed as is a local in a bizarre double-killing.
** In ''Mr. Monk Is Miserable'', which follows up on the previous: Monk and Natalie witness a man die of peanut poisoning on the flight to Paris, Monk stumbles on a fresh skull while they explore the catacombs, and later, when Monk and Natalie are at a blind restaurant (where you are put in full darkness), a woman who sits down at their table and starts talking to them is stabbed and killed.
* CharacterizationMarchesOn: In her earliest appearances Natalie is significantly more brusque, standoffish, and overtly tough, dealing with the plot and Monk with more impatience and even occasional hostility. She was also more prone to solving problems using amoral means, with more emphasis on her ExpansionPackPast. In the next season, however, perhaps to [[{{Foil}} distance her personality more]] from Sharona, she evolved into the bubbly and endlessly patient partner she came to stay as, writing her more as showing the harder sides of her personality only when the situation calls for it.
* ChekhovsSkill: In "Mr. Monk Buys a House", Natalie, Stottlemeyer and Disher share the knowledge of Morse code. Proves handy when Monk and Natalie are taken hostage by Honest Jake Phillips and have no cell phone on hand to call for help.
* ClearMyName: For Natalie, she and Sharona get this in the novel ''Mr. Monk and the Two Assistants'' when Ian Ludlow kills a shoe salesman named Ronald Webster and frames Natalie for it.
** In ''Mr. Monk Is a Mess'', Natalie gets into some hot scrutiny from the FBI when a woman commits suicide in Natalie's bathtub and sting money stolen from an FBI evidence locker room is discovered under her mattress, but she's never arrested or charged with a crime since the real perpetrator (one of the agents accusing them of the theft) is eventually caught in the end.
* ContrastingReplacementCharacter: To Sharona. While both were single mothers, she was a widow who was happily married while Sharona had a bitter divorce. Also, she came from wealthy family and Sharona was more working class. Oh, and while she has a daughter, Sharona has a son.
* ADayInTheLimeLight: It should be noted that Natalie appears in all 87 episodes from her intro in "Mr. Monk and the Red Herring" onwards. However, whether she gets a day in the limelight is episode-dependant, as there are some episodes where she gets a lot of screen time, and others where she doesn't get much. For example:
** In "Mr. Monk and the Class Reunion," Natalie appears in almost every scene Monk is in, except for flashbacks. Ostensibly, Natalie had to be present so that Monk has someone to talk to while attending his reunion.
** In "Mr. Monk Meets His Dad", "Mr. Monk Visits a Farm," and "Mr. Monk Goes to the Hospital," she gets all of roughly two or three scenes.
** For an InUniverse one, "Mr. Monk Gets Lotto Fever"
** Episodes like "Mr. Monk and the Bad Girlfriend" do give Natalie more onscreen time.
** Sometimes, one episode will give her more screen time to compensate for her lacking such time in previous episodes. In "Mr. Monk on Wheels," Natalie is in every scene that Monk is in because she is central to causing the main plot. In the next two episodes, "Mr. Monk and the Lady Next Door" and "Mr. Monk Makes the Playoffs," Natalie goes to the background and doesn't get many scenes. Then in "Mr. Monk and the Bully," Natalie appears in every scene Monk is in except for two (Monk talking with Roderick Brody in the police interrogation room and Monk in Dr. Bell's office).
* DeadpanSnarker: Just like Monk. A few examples:
** From "Mr. Monk Gets Cabin Fever":
-->'''Agent Grooms:''' All right, you can stretch your legs. Just don't call any attention to yourselves.
-->'''Natalie Teeger:''' [[HypocriticalHumor Good advice coming from a guy wearing a three-piece suit in the middle of the woods.]]
** From "Mr. Monk Goes to a Rock Concert", Monk walks into a port-a-potty, thinking it's a payphone. When he exits a minute later:
-->'''Natalie Teeger:''' Oh! Oh! ''[runs up]'' Mr. Monk! What are you doing?!
-->'''Adrian Monk:''' I was just calling for a taxi; they're gonna pick me up out front in about ten minutes!
-->'''Natalie Teeger:''' ''[smiles]'' But, Mr. Monk, that ''wasn't'' a phone booth!
** Later:
-->'''Adrian Monk:''' ''[wiping his neck]'' God, how long do you think I was in there [in the port-a-potty]?
-->'''Natalie Teeger:''' I don't know, Mr. Monk. Maybe a minute!
-->'''Adrian Monk:''' It was rough. It was like some kind of medieval torture device.
-->'''Natalie Teeger:''' Yeah, I know. I actually read that the Spanish Inquisition used to lock people in port-a-johns.
-->'''Adrian Monk:''' That wouldn't surprise me.
** In "Mr. Monk's 100th Case," during one of her interviews from James Novak:
-->'''Natalie Teeger:''' Keeping him focused, that's one of my jobs.
-->'''James Novak:''' What else do you do for him?
-->'''Natalie Teeger:''' What else do I do? How long is your show?
** In "Mr. Monk and the Lady Next Door"
-->'''Captain Leland Stottlemeyer:''' ''[getting taken hostage]'' Keyes, you don't wanna do this. You don't want to kill a cop.
-->'''Adrian Monk:''' Or an ex-cop.
-->'''Natalie Teeger:''' Or an ex-cop's assistant.
** In "Mr. Monk and the Bully", Natalie has brought a new digital camera for Monk to use:
-->'''Adrian Monk:''' Where's the telescope thingie?
-->'''Natalie Teeger:''' Uh, it has an automatic zoom, so it's built-in.
-->'''Adrian Monk:''' Built-in? Excellent! ''[starts to slowly use a scalpel to make an incision in the packaging. Natalie drops her hands, exasperated]''
-->'''Natalie Teeger:''' Mr. Monk, it's not heart surgery!
-->'''Adrian Monk:''' If we leave right away, we can be at her house by eight o'clock. ''[Natalie rolls her shoulders]'' We can follow her all day-
-->'''Natalie Teeger:''' Yeah, look, um, Mr. Monk, I have to tell you something. I made a decision: if you want to keep following Mrs. Brody, I ''suppose'' that's your right, although it really ''isn't'', but...I can't help you anymore.
-->'''Adrian Monk:''' Why not?
-->'''Natalie Teeger:''' I--I--I'm just not comfortable! Her husband fired us!
** From that same episode, when preparing to meet Roderick Brody:
-->'''Natalie Teeger:''' She [Marilyn] seems nice! How bad can her husband be?
-->'''Adrian Monk:''' It doesn't always work that way! Eva Braun took in stray puppies, for God's sakes!
-->'''Natalie Teeger:''' Well at least we know his checks won't bounce.
** From "Mr. Monk and the Magician," when Monk is checking out one of Torini's knife props and brings one blade on Natalie's back:
-->'''Natalie Teeger:''' OW!
-->'''Adrian Monk:''' OK, this one might be real. Don't play with this one.
-->'''Natalie Teeger:''' All right, I won't.
* {{Determinator}}: If Natalie decides she needs to do something - especially something that she feels morally obligated to do - pretty much nothing can stop her from doing it, and [[BewareTheNiceOnes she can be a lot more stubborn than she initially seems]]. This includes whatever anyone says, whatever protocol the police have set up, and (what seems like) ''multiple attempts on her life'' - and she usually drags a reluctant Monk along for the ride ("Mr. Monk and the Election" and "Mr. Monk on Wheels" being good examples). Not to mention whenever someone close to her needs help - not even the threat of arrest or death will deter her.
** "Mr. Monk and the Election": Natalie is determined to continue her school board election campaign even after her campaign office is shot up by a rifleman and said guy later tries killing her, Monk and Randy by lobbing a hand grenade through the window of her house
** "Mr. Monk on Wheels": After accidentally helping thief John Kuramoto as he flees an office park on a bike he's just stolen, Natalie seems shaken and she decides that she is obliged to find the bike and return it to Dean Berry, the original owner. Monk is very reluctant to help out with the investigation of such a mundane matter, and Stottlemeyer and Disher clearly are uninterested. Then Monk gets shot in the leg.
** "Mr. Monk Is On The Run Part II": In spite of being told by Stottlemeyer not to go see Monk, who is hiding from corrupt sheriff John Rollins, Natalie goes to see him anyway because she's afraid for him. Even though this almost causes Monk and Natalie to get held at gunpoint by Rollins.
* DrivesLikeCrazy: In "Mr. Monk and the Three Julies," Natalie "borrows" Captain Stottlemeyer's brand new Dodge Charger. The first time, she clips off the shotgun mirror, something Stottlemeyer can take in stride. The second time, [[DrivingTestSmashers the car's entire front end is torn up]]:
-->'''Captain Leland Stottlemeyer:''' ''[drops his hands, exasperated]'' What the hell happened? It was only two miles!
-->'''Natalie Teeger:''' I took a shortcut. I... cut across the creek. ''[beat]''
-->'''Captain Leland Stottlemeyer:''' There's no bridge across the creek!
-->'''Natalie Teeger:''' I know.
-->'''Captain Leland Stottlemeyer:''' There is no bridge across the creek.
-->'''Natalie Teeger:''' Yes, I know.
-->'''Captain Leland Stottlemeyer:''' There's no bridge across the creek.
-->'''Natalie Teeger:''' Captain, I am sorry. I will pay for everything.
* EmbarrassingSlide: Natalie and Monk are mortified when pictures of Stottlemeyer in riot gear show up in the slideshow in "Mr. Monk and the Class Reunion".
* EstablishingCharacterMoment: She stabs an intruder dead in her house with a pair of scissors. That she should show some trauma to what she'd done is then HandWave off.
* {{Expy}}: Like Monk is one of SherlockHolmes, Natalie is one of Dr. Watson. However, it isn't entirely a perfect expy, as Natalie is a deceased Navy pilot's widow, in contrast to Sharona, who was a nurse before Monk hires her.
** Natalie being a Dr. Watson expy is expanded on in the novels where she is the narrator.
* FakeOutMakeOut: Averted in "Mr. Monk and the Genius", when Monk and Natalie are on a stakeout. Natalie sees Patrick Kloster approaching their car:
-->'''Natalie Teeger:''' Oh my god, he's coming! What do we do? Uh, we should kiss! NO! I didn't say that! I wasn't thinking, I never said that!
* FourTemperamentEnsemble: Phlegmatic.
* GilliganCut: In "Mr. Monk Is On the Run, Part 2", Stottlemeyer makes Natalie promise not to locate Monk (who is in hiding). Immediately, the scene cuts to Natalie packing a suitcase.
%%* GirlFriday
* GoodLookingPrivates: In "Mr. Monk Goes to the Bank," when Monk goes undercover as a guard at his bank to find the inside man on a robbery, there is a scene where he and Natalie are sitting in their car on a small stakeout. She spends several minutes complimenting Monk on his appearance while wearing the uniform, even asking if he will be allowed to keep it after he ends his assignment. While this adds to the ambiguity in any potential attraction between the two, it's better interpreted as being that Natalie is attracted to men in uniform. This is also seen in the way she flirts with Lt. Steven Albright in "Mr. Monk Is Underwater".
* HeyThatsMyLine: To flatter Monk in "Mr. Monk Gets Lotto Fever," Natalie signs off with Monk's signature line, "You'll thank me later!"
-->'''Adrian Monk:''' "You'll thank me later?" That's my line! I say that!
-->'''Lt. Randall Disher:''' It hurts, doesn't it?
* HollywoodSpelling: Natalie's last name has twice been a plot point.
** In "Mr. Monk and the Election," Monk proves that a death threat letter against Natalie (running for the school board) was a diversion because he notices that although the shooter did take the time to dot his I's and cross his T's, he didn't write the last R on her last name when writing the message ("Close Ashton High, Natalie Teege Must Withdraw" is the result). This is proven when he realizes the shooter was getting her name from a custom poster with Natalie's name, from which the R had fallen off, indicating that the shooter didn't know her already.
** In "Mr. Monk and the Voodoo Curse," Angeline Dilworth has disguised two accidental deaths as the work of voodoo, then kills her rich uncle, and makes his death look like a voodoo-induced heart attack. When Monk notices an error in her staging of the crime scene, Angeline, having overheard that Natalie is scared of voodoo, sends Natalie a voodoo doll to trick her into thinking she will be decapitated. Monk realizes that the sender can't have known who Natalie was, since the sender misspelled her last name as "Teager" (with an A instead of a double E). Then Angeline [[NotMyDriver happens to be the one who picks Natalie up after she mistakenly ingests Reverend Jorgensen's concotion during a cleansing ritual]]. During the ride, after Monk gives TheSummation to Jorgensen in the van, Natalie is in the ambulance and happens to notice that Angeline misspells her name as "Teager" on the patient chart. A struggle breaks out.
* HideYourPregnancy: Traylor Howard became pregnant in the second half of season 5. We used Traylor as the header image on that page. Therefore, it was necessary for writers to position her in basically every scene accordingly so that her midsection and below were hidden by items like bags, tables, or car doors. This is evident in "Mr. Monk Makes a Friend" and "Mr. Monk and the Really, Really Dead Guy".
** Conveniently, when "Mr. Monk Is at Your Service" was filmed, the writers took advantage of Traylor's pregnancy by incorporating it into the episode. So for most of her scenes in that episode, Natalie stands or sits in positions that make it so that we see only the section above her chest, (like behind Stottlemeyer's desk or leaning against her car with the driver's side door open when she and Monk are at the crash scene). However, when she needs to rescue Monk from her old obsessive boyfriend Paul Buchanan, she wards off his advances [[PillowPregnancy by stuffing a pillow down her chest]]. For these scenes, they just filmed her like they would in normal episodes, like in the first half of the season.
* HypocriticalHumor: In "Mr. Monk and the Leper," Natalie tells Monk he's overreacting when Monk tries to douse his hand in kerosene and light his hand on fire after shaking hands with a leper (who turned out to be a phony). Later, when Natalie makes out with Dr. Aaron Polanski, who turns out to be a cured leper, her reaction is to drink a stream of hot water directly from the tap and instruct Julie to fill up a bathtub with Listerine. Lampshaded in the next scene when Monk sees her drinking a bottle of mouthwash:
-->'''Adrian Monk:''' Are you ''drinking'' that?
-->'''Natalie Teeger:''' ''[gulps]'' Mmm-hmm!
-->'''Adrian Monk:''' ''[shocked]'' Where’s the woman who’s been lecturing me all week about compassion and tolerance?
-->'''Natalie Teeger:''' Okay, you know what? It’s not funny! You didn’t have your tongue down his throat!
-->'''Adrian Monk:''' Well I shook hands with one! That’s bad enough!
-->'''Natalie Teeger:''' Your leper wasn’t even a real leper! My leper was the real deal!
-->'''Adrian Monk:''' I thought he was real! That’s what counts! You know the old saying, “There is no heart so black as the black, black heart of the Phony Leper”?
-->'''Natalie Teeger:''' No! I never heard that one!
* IAteWhat: In "Mr. Monk and the Voodoo Curse," she accidentally drinks a ritual potion that she was meant to dabble on her neck.
* [[IJustShotMarvinInTheFace I Just Shot Mr. Monk in His Good Leg]]: Natalie accidentally discharges a bullet into Monk's good right leg in "Mr. Monk on Wheels" due to lack of proper firearms training.
* {{Jerkass}}: In some of her early episodes before [[CharacterizationMarchesOn her characterization marched on]], Natalie seems to fit this.
** "Mr. Monk vs. the Cobra" being a defining example. You see she complains a lot about Monk not covering her expenses, which, although understandable, is just really irritating when you are bringing it up constantly while Monk is trying to conduct a homicide investigation that Stottlemeyer fears could make or break his own career. Though this is TruthInTelevision: people do occasionally blow up even on the job.
* MamaBear: Do not mess with Julie or Monk in front of her.
* MysteryMagnet: Natalie supplies the page quote.
* NiceJobBreakingItHero: "Mr. Monk on Wheels", the opening scene shows Natalie helping John Kuramoto after his bike hits a pothole and crashes, and even fixes his chain, then compliments him on his bolt-cutters, all while unaware that the bike is stolen. She is very embarrassed when Dean Berry, the bike's legitimate owner, comes running out just as Kuramoto rides away. This causes Monk to get shot in the leg by Kuramoto, ultimately leading to Monk verbally abusing Natalie to the point that she becomes his emotional punching bag/virtual slave.
* NotSoDifferent: Natalie is a lot like Sharona: both are single moms raising only children, and both were once married. However, that's about all that's the same. Natalie's parents are both still alive at the time of the series, while Sharona's father died when she was 10. Additionally, Sharona divorced her husband Trevor, but Natalie lost her husband Mitch to Navy warfare.
** In ''Mr. Monk and the Two Assistants'', Natalie describes the parallels between herself and Monk as pretty similar in that both Trudy and Mitch were lost to fiery deaths and both were affected greatly.
* OOCIsSeriousBusiness: In "Mr. Monk Gets Lotto Fever," Natalie becomes a lottery hostess. But immediately upon doing so, she changes, and Monk gets increasingly irritated as she becomes more of a liability than an asset to him. She is inattentive to Monk's investigation when he's filling her in with facts on his progress. Also, her personality shifts, from being a generally cheerful girl to a full tilt-diva. When she trips over a few sound wires on the floor after one show, something that most people would just get over, she gets so incredibly worked up about it that she gets into a heated argument with the sound engineer. Monk is disturbed by her getting all the attention when he thinks that ''he'' has the more important job:
-->'''Dr. Neven Bell:''' Natalie's your friend. Maybe you're afraid she doesn't need you any more; maybe you're afraid you're going to lose her.
-->'''Adrian Monk:''' Or maybe I just feel ''insulted''!
-->'''Dr. Neven Bell:''' Insulted?
-->'''Adrian Monk:''' What I do is hard! I am out there, I am sweating out every clue, I am putting killers behind bars! What does ''she'' do? What does she ''do''?! ''[He grabs a calendar off the desk with the date "July 16" on it]''
-->'''Adrian Monk:''' "91! Number 91! 91! Number 91! 91! Number 9-" I mean, how hard is that?! You know, a talking monkey could do her job! It's--it's embarrassing.
-->'''Dr. Neven Bell:''' Actually that's a 16. See, you're holding it upside down.
-->'''Adrian Monk:''' ''[looks at it]'' Oh, it's confusing. There's usually a little line under the 9.
** And then:
-->'''Dr. Neven Bell:''' But I see your point about the monkey.
-->'''Adrian Monk:''' All I'm trying to say is... it's ''not'' the same Natalie! If you knew her, you wouldn't know her! Last night after the show, she got somebody fired!
-->'''Dr. Neven Bell:''' Really?
-->'''Adrian Monk:''' One of the crew, sound guy! There were some wires on the floor, and she was just like ''[leans back in his chair, curls his fingers like claws, and snarls like a raptor]'' you know, complaining! And I met the guy when I was there and he was a nice kid. Now what's he gonna do? ''[cuts to the person in question, Billy Logan, showing up at a lottery fanatic's apartment, then killing him]''
* ProductPlacement: At some point, the producers started giving Natalie a new car to drive every new season. They start with a Jeep Grand Cherokee from her introduction to halfway through season 5. She then drives a Buick Lucerne for a few episodes, then drives a Ford Escape for the duration of season 6. In season 7, she drives an Audi A3 for the first eight episodes, a Nissan Sentra for three episodes in the middle of the season, and then a Hyundai Genesis from "Mr. Monk and the Lady Next Door" to the end of the series. How she affords this on Monk's low salary is questionable (although since the same license plate is reused on the last three, it's likely she did transfer plates whenever she changed vehicles). One person on the IMDB boards did suggest that perhaps Natalie is using a lot of short-term leases, but still her vehicle turnover rate is high. This doesn't, however, explain why she manages to keep the same license plate on the last three vehicles.
* ProperlyParanoid: In "Mr. Monk and the Voodoo Curse," Angeline Dilworth sends her a voodoo doll in the mail to trick Natalie into thinking she will be decapitated. Subverted in that Angeline is trying to distract Monk when he notices a mistake regarding the murder of her uncle.
* RecklessGunUsage: After fighting with [[spoiler:Sarah Longson]] for her Walther PPK pistol in "Mr. Monk on Wheels", Natalie turns around, gun in hand. She tells Monk, who had already been shot in the leg earlier in the episode and was trying climb down some stairs to assist Natalie, that she was okay... and [[IJustShotMarvinInTheFace accidentally shoots Monk in his uninjured leg]]. Which makes no sense at first given that in "Mr. Monk and the Three Julies", Natalie tells Randy that she went to a firing range all the time and knows how to use a gun.
** Actually, it's rather Justified: this is only the second time that Natalie has held a firearm (having once held, but never used, a twelve gauge shotgun in an earlier episode). For all we care, she probably hasn't used one for a minimum of eleven years.
* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: Occasionally leaves Monk's side to pursue other responsibilities or personal interests. At times, she does so while he's in the middle of a murder investigation such as in "Mr. Monk and His Biggest Fan."
* SheIsNotMyGirlfriend: Natalie is highly amused whenever someone tries to suggest she has romantic feelings for Monk.
-->''(Dianne Brooks sees Monk and walks over to him)''\\
'''Dianne Brooks:''' Adrian! There you are. We've been looking for you. ''[Dianne notices Natalie and looks at her suspiciously]''\\
'''Natalie Teeger:''' Hi! I'm Natalie Teeger. ''[Natalie and Dianne shake hands]''\\
'''Dianne Brooks:''' Hi. Dianne Brooks.\\
'''Natalie Teeger:''' I'm his assistant.\\
'''Dianne Brooks:''' Ahh... Oh, so you two aren't [dating]... ''[she points between Monk and Natalie; Natalie grins]''\\
'''Natalie Teeger:''' ''[laughs]'' No!
** And in ''Mr. Monk Goes to Hawaii'', Natalie has to deny to her friend Candace that she and Monk are dating.
** In "Mr. Monk Gets Lotto Fever", one of Natalie's lottery fans asks her if Monk is her boyfriend when Monk is grabbing wipes from her purse.
* SharedFamilyQuirks: Natalie is disturbed by Kevin Dorfman's family being a bunch of {{Motor Mouth}}s in "Mr. Monk and the Magician".
* ShipTease: In "Mr. Monk and the Genius", Monk and Natalie are on a stakeout. When their cover is threatened, Natalie briefly and inexplicably blurts out, [[FakeOutMakeOut "We should kiss!"]], and immediately wonders aloud why she said it.
* SpitTake: Natalie has two memorable ones.
** From "Mr. Monk Fights City Hall":
-->''(Harold is trying to figure out the identity of Monk's new therapist)''
-->'''Harold Krenshaw:''' I'm talking about your new therapist, the mystery doctor, the genius you're always raving about. Who is he? Just tell me his name!
-->'''Adrian Monk:''' I can't tell you. It's privileged information.
-->'''Harold Krenshaw:''' No, it's not. What happens in the session is privileged. His name isn't privileged. People recommend therapists everyday. Am I right, Natalie?
-->'''Natalie Teeger:''' I don't know. I'm just waiting for the conversation to be over.
-->'''Adrian Monk:''' Okay, fine. His name is doctor... ''(glances at elevator doors)'' Door.
-->'''Harold Krenshaw:''' Dr. Door? Is that the best you can do? I suppose if we were standing by that alarm you would've said "Dr. '''Bell'''". ''(Natalie promptly spits water in Harold's face)''
-->'''Natalie Teeger:''' Oh god, Harold! I'm so sorry!
** From "Mr. Monk and the Genius":
-->'''Natalie Teeger:''' You have to admit, he's real good. ''(takes a sip from her lemonade)'' What? He was right. I am thirsty. '''(Monk looks at her oddly)'' What?
-->'''Adrian Monk:''' How do you feel?
-->'''Natalie Teeger:''' Uhhh, I feel fine. ''(Monk continues looking at her oddly; she takes another sip)'' What?
-->'''Adrian Monk:''' It just occurred to me: if there's poison in the lemonade, we could go to the DA and we'd have all the evidence we need. ''(Natalie promptly spits out her lemonade)''
-->'''Natalie Teeger:''' "It just occurred" to you?! And you didn't say anything?! My gosh, Mr. Monk, I've never seen you like this! ''(Disgusted, she dumps the rest of her cup onto the pavement)''
-->'''Adrian Monk:''' How do you feel now?
-->'''Natalie Teeger:''' You know I hate to disappoint you, but I feel fine!
* StageMom: When Julie goes into acting in "Mr. Monk and the Critic", Natalie becomes this.
* SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute: Some fans considered Traylor Howard, and in turn, Natalie, this, when she was introduced in the middle of season 3 to replace Bitty Schram (Sharona). The fandom has long been locked in a battle over which one is better. It works better here than a few other cases because things like Natalie being similar to Sharona down to having a kid the same age (Benjy, instead of Julie) can be explained by Monk trying to make things stay the same when life changes around him. Though the episode "Mr. Monk and Sharona" highlights how different they are as well.
* TakeOurWordForIt:
** In "Mr. Monk Paints His Masterpiece," Monk paints what is supposed to be an image of Natalie, although the subject in the image has a mustache like Stottlemeyer. Nearly everybody's reaction to it is one of disgust, and Natalie herself is mortified to find it on display at an art show. Going so far as to her trying to burn it at the end even as Randy tries to restrain, even though it's evidence against a money counterfeiting scheme. Averted, in that you do get [[FreezeFrameBonus a glimpse of the painting]] when Randy is trying to restrain Natalie. It looks like someone made a very bad Microsoft Paint doodle.
** In "Mr. Monk Fights City Hall", when Monk and Natalie are searching one of Eileen Hill's apartments for evidence of her disappearance, Natalie opens a drawer to find something surprising and possibly dirty (in both ways), and then right after, she repeatedly tells Monk to never open that drawer.
* UndyingLoyalty: To Monk. No matter what, even when the whole world is against him, even when he is at his worst, Natalie is always there by his side. By the end of the series, she would go significantly out of her - even through hell and danger - to help and support him. Discussed with Sharona in "Mr. Monk and Sharona" where the two bond over why they're willing to go through so much hassle for him.
* UnlimitedWardrobe: Natalie must have one. She has a different outfit for practically every single episode, and sometimes goes through as many as five outfits in one episode (although admittedly that might be justified if an episode takes place over the span of a few days). Her styles also change every episode.
** A few episodes provide aversions, depending on how many days they are set over: Natalie's page image at the top of this section is a production still from "Mr. Monk Goes to a Rock Concert." As that episode takes place over the course of a single day, she wears the same outfit for the entire episode - a white T-shirt and brown shorts. In "Mr. Monk and the Class Reunion," she does wear a couple of different outfits - a green t-shirt on the Saturday of the reunion, a long-sleeve V-neck shirt on the second day (Sunday), and a formal dress in the evening. In "Mr. Monk and the Bully," Natalie wears the same dark black trenchcoat on two days, though there are different shirts underneath.
* UnusuallyUninterestingSight: In "Mr. Monk and the Miracle", when Monk and Natalie are harmonizing TheSummation to get it to Stottlemeyer, we wonder how come none of the other monks hear two voices that obviously don't blend in.
* UnconventionalSmoothie: In "Mr. Monk is On The Run - Part 1", Natalie needs to use a power drill to get Monk's shackles off. Unfortunately, Randy is also staking out Natalie's house. To explain the drill, she pretends that her blender broke and uses the drill to create a smoothie from a number of questionable and unusual ingredients. It's quite funny, admittedly.
* TheWatson: More pronounced in the books where, like Watson, she's the principle narrator of each case.
* WeirdnessMagnet: In the episode "Mr. Monk Gets Cabin Fever", Natalie observes that everywhere Monk goes, people get murdered, supposing he's followed by some karmic cloud of disaster. By the end of the episode, she changes her mind about him: he's not a Weirdness Magnet for murder, he's cosmically drawn to where murders occur so he can solve them.
** Natalie's one to talk here. Before her daughter Julie even gets her driver's license, she was involved somehow in ''six'' homicide investigations and one museum heist.
* WeNeedADistraction: In "Mr. Monk and the Bad Girlfriend," Natalie uses the pretense of viewing a new apartment to keep Linda Fusco out of her house while Monk searches it for evidence that proves her responsible for shooting her business partner.
* WhatTheHellHero: Natalie has been on the delivering end and the receiving end.
** On the delivering end, among other examples, this one from "Mr. Monk and the Bully":
-->'''Adrian Monk:''' If we leave right away, we can be at her house by eight o'clock. We can follow her all day.
-->'''Natalie Teeger:''' Yeah, look, uh, Mr. Monk, I have to tell you something. I made a decision: if you want to keep following Mrs. Brody, I suppose that's your right, although it really isn't, but, I can't help you anymore.
-->'''Adrian Monk:''' Why not?
-->'''Natalie Teeger:''' I--I--I'm just not comfortable! Her husband fired us!
-->'''Adrian Monk:''' It's what they call pro bono.
-->'''Natalie Teeger:''' No, "pro bono" is for lawyers! This is stalking!
-->'''Adrian Monk:''' No, this is comeuppance. Pro bono comeuppance.
-->'''Natalie Teeger:''' No! No! That is just crazy talk! ''[She marches forward and switches off Monk's table lamp]''
-->'''Adrian Monk:''' It's not crazy talk!
-->'''Natalie Teeger:''' Pro bono comeuppance?! That's the craziest talk there is! You heard what he said! He wants you to '''quit!'''
-->'''Adrian Monk:''' I wanted him to quit! I begged him to quit 40 years ago, in stall #3! ''[He starts looking at the digital camera as Natalie's cell phone rings]'' Oh yeah.
** In "Mr. Monk Is On The Run," Natalie chews Stottlemeyer out for withholding the truth from her about Monk faking his death.
** In ''Mr. Monk Goes to Germany'', Natalie gets both the receiving and delivering end with Dr. Kroger. The receiving one happens when Monk and Natalie show up at a psychiatric conference Dr. Kroger is attending, and Dr. Kroger is not happy about their appearance:
-->'''Natalie Teeger:''' It's nice to see you. You're looking very rested.
-->''[Dr. Kroger stood up, grabbed me firmly by the arm and led me into the lobby]''
-->'''Dr. Charles Kroger:''' I am shocked, Natalie!
-->'''Natalie Teeger:''' I bet you are.
-->'''Dr. Charles Kroger:''' ''[thrusting his finger at me like a weapon]'' What Adrian has done today is a serious breach of the doctor-patient relationship and you enabled him to do it!
-->'''Natalie Teeger:''' No more than you enabled him to follow me to Hawaii.
-->'''Dr. Charles Kroger:''' I thought you were an intelligent and responsible woman, that you were a positive influence on Adrian's emotional and psychological well-being. Obviously I was wrong: you are a deeply disturbed woman.
-->'''Natalie Teeger:''' My "job" is to look out for Mr. Monk's best interests and that's exactly what I am doing!
-->'''Dr. Charles Kroger:''' By helping him to stalk me and invade my private life?! What he has done is a crime and you were his accomplice!
-->'''Natalie Teeger:''' I don't begrudge you a private life or vacation! God knows, I'd like to have them too! But don't play dumb. You had to know Mr. Monk was going to fall ''completely'' apart without you and that there was no way he would ever see a one-armed psychiatrist! But you didn't care. You dumped the problem in my lap and went on your way, leaving me to deal with it.
-->'''Dr. Charles Kroger:''' And ''this'' is your idea of a solution?
-->'''Natalie Teeger:''' Take a look at him! Adrian Monk is here, in Germany, a world apart from his own. Imagine the rippling fears he had to overcome just so he could be here in that chair right now. ''That's'' how much he needs you! All he asks in return is one hour of your time. One hour of patience, understanding and advice. Is that so damn hard for you to give?!
-->'''Dr. Charles Kroger:''' ....I shall call the police and have him removed.
-->'''Natalie Teeger:''' And create an embarrassing scene in front of your colleagues from around the world? I don't think so.
** The delivering one from that novel is when she sees Dr. Kroger with Dr. Martin Rahner, a psychiatrist with six fingers on his right hand, just like Trudy's bomber. Her response is to punch Dr. Kroger in the face, breaking his nose.
-->'''Dr. Martin Rahner:''' ''[helping Dr. Kroger to his feet and giving him a napkin to stifle the bleeding]'' What is going on, Charles? ''[He had a deep baritone voice that embodied authority and an undefined European accent]'' Who are these people?
-->'''Natalie Teeger:''' ''[struggling]'' As if you didn't know!
-->''[Monk was right. The man who hired someone to put a bomb in Trudy's car had fled to the last place on Earth that Monk would ever visit. But then Dr. Kroger made the mistake of going there, leading Monk directly to his wife's murderer.]''
-->'''Dr. Charles Kroger:''' ''[clutching his napkin]'' The man is Adrian Monk, one of my patients. This is Natalie Teeger, his assistant.
-->'''Dr. Martin Rahner:''' They stalked you all the way to Germany? ''[Everyone turned and looked at me with disbelief]'' I'm calling the police.
-->'''Dr. Charles Kroger:''' That won't be necessary.
-->'''Natalie Teeger:''' The hell it isn't! Call them! If you don't, I will!
-->''[Dr. Kroger approached me slowly, with his head cocked. I wasn't sure if he was doing that stop the bleeding or to regard me with curiosity]''
-->'''Dr. Charles Kroger:''' I'm not going to press charges, but I would like to understand why you attacked me.
-->'''Natalie Teeger:''' How can you look me in the eye and ask me that question after what you have done?! You might as well have killed Trudy Monk yourself!
-->'''Dr. Charles Kroger:''' Have you lost your mind?
-->'''Natalie Teeger:''' You tell me, doctor! Does he have six fingers on his right hand or am I hallucinating?!
-->''[Dr. Kroger looked back at Dr. Rahner, then agin at me. There was an expression of horrified realization on his face as the full impact of what was happening sank in]''
-->'''Dr. Charles Kroger:''' [[OhCrap Oh, my god]].
-->'''Natalie Teeger:''' The charade is over, and you're both going to prison!
** In ''Mr. Monk is Miserable'', Dr. Kroger chews her out for refusing to help Monk in a homicide investigation.
* YouNeverDidThatForMe: In the episode where Sharona and Natalie meet, Natalie finds out that Monk paid Sharona a lot more than he paid her. Thus she complains that Monk never paid her that much. It was a difference of twenty dollars. Though one might wonder why she has to complain, considering that the math (from the WMG page) shows that this would equate to Natalie having an annual salary of $48,360.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Capt. Leland Stottlemeyer]]
!!Captain Leland Francis Stottlemeyer
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/tedlevine_3894.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:300:"How do you know that?"]]
->Played by: Creator/TedLevine

Stottlemeyer is Monk's former partner/watch commander and closest friend.
----
%%* ArbitrarySkepticism
* BadassMustache: He wears one with such pride that in "Mr. Monk and the Miracle," Monk has trouble recognizing him when he shaves it off and becomes a monk (the only way Monk can identify him is to use the feather on a quill). When Leland is out of action, Randy grows one in response. Monk and Natalie are dumbstruck when they first notice Randy with a beard (though this isn't unusual, as it was said that Randy had a mustache when he lived in Philadelphia). After Leland returns to the force, he gives Randy a safety razor as an implied way of ordering him to shave it off.
* BerserkButton: Never hurt/nearly kill (intentionally or not) or even imply at having an affair with Leland's first wife Karen, or else you'd better pray that he doesn't end up beating you up or killing you for for it. This one is pressed in "Mr. Monk and the Captain's Wife" by Evan Coker, when he shoots a tow truck driver with a sniper rifle, causing the truck to veer right into the path of Karen's oncoming van, causing her to crash and end up in a coma. In "Mr. Monk and the Captain's Marriage," Sgt. Ryan Sharkey invokes this one on purpose by claiming to be having an affair with Karen to provoke Leland into punching him. This turns out to be because he was responsible for the murder that had just been committed, and he'd lost a tooth in the fight with his victim, and he needed to find an explanation for why the scene was contaminated with his DNA.
** Also, in "Mr. Monk and the Man Who Shot Santa Claus", Stottlemeyer can tolerate people crowding a crime scene to jeer at Monk for shooting Santa (of which the actual details are debated, although Stottlemeyer knows Monk's version is the true version), but if someone ever attempts to go so far as to throw one egg at Monk or Natalie, especially during a crime scene investigation that Monk is involved in trying to determine what most likely happened, Stottlemeyer's fury at this will have no bounds, even going so far as to shout when demanding to know who threw an egg at them and rush towards them.
*** Justified, though. Likely the reason Stottlemeyer gets furious is because the egging could have risked contaminating forensic evidence.
* BlatantLies: In "Mr. Monk and the Red-Headed Stranger," Stottlemeyer claims that his arm is in a sling because he broke it in a motorcycle accident. Afterwards, Monk takes Stottlemeyer aside and quietly suggests he not tell the story of his accident to too many people because the area he claims he had it in has been closed for the past few weeks due to brush fires. Stottlemeyer hesitantly admits that he fell off a ladder while cleaning his gutters.
* CharacterizationMarchesOn: Stottlemeyer's early characterization suggests he and Monk had clashed for their entire shared career and he was extraordinarily opposed to and reluctant to work with him under any circumstances; in his later characterization, Stottlemeyer and Monk are effectively resuming a decades-long friendship that had been briefly interrupted when tragedy struck. This coincides with Monk's slow transition into UnsympatheticComedyProtagonist (starting when Natalie joined the show).
* ChekhovsSkill: In "Mr. Monk Buys a House," Stottlemeyer, Randy, and Natalie know Morse code.
* ChronicallyCrashedCar: In "Mr. Monk And The Three Julies", his new 2008 Dodge Charger falls victim to this as a result of him trusting Natalie to hold his keys.
* ClearMyName: Twice in the novels, and once in the TV series. In "Mr. Monk Gets Lotto Fever," Monk must clear Stottlemeyer and Natalie of accusations that they rigged a lottery drawing. In ''Mr. Monk and the Dirty Cop'', Nick Slade kills a detective named Paul Braddock that Stottlemeyer had a grudge against, and frames the captain for the killing. In ''Mr. Monk Gets Even'', Stottlemeyer is framed for helping Dale the Whale escape from prison.
* CloudcuckoolandersMinder: Generally to Randy when he start with his absurd theories.
* ConvenienceStoreGiftShopping: In "Mr. Monk and the Miracle," after Monk and Natalie rescue a "converted" Stottlemeyer from a monastery, Stottlemeyer gives a safety razor to Randy (who grew a mustache when he took command in Stottlemeyer's absence) as an implied order for him to shave it off, with Randy not being too happy about it.
* TheCSIEffect: InUniverse, Stottlemeyer says he hates ''Series/{{CSI}}'' and personally wants to punch the person "who had the brilliant idea of doing a show that teaches crooks how to avoid being caught."
* ADayInTheLimeLight: Stottlemeyer also has a lot of episodes where he plays a more prominent role.
** Namely, "Mr. Monk is the Best Man" gives Leland a lot of focus as that episode is about his wedding to TK Jansen, and a killer's attempts to sabotage it.
** In two of the episodes that involve Karen, "Mr. Monk and the Captain's Wife" and "Mr. Monk and the Captain's Marriage," Leland gets more screen time.
** Stottlemeyer gets justified extra screentime in "Mr. Monk and the Badge" since Monk temporarily gets reinstated to the force.
** In a few episodes, Stottlemeyer gets a backseat:
*** These are episodes in which Stottlemeyer does not appear at all: "Mr. Monk Goes to the Asylum," "Mr. Monk Takes a Vacation," "Mr. Monk and the Airplane," "Mr. Monk Gets Married," "Mr. Monk and the Game Show," "Mr. Monk Gets Stuck in Traffic," and "Mr. Monk Is Underwater".
* DeadpanSnarker: The snarkiest character of all the series by far.
* DrinkingOnDuty: Does this in "Mr. Monk Goes to Vegas", although in his case, [[DrunkenMaster he really does actually need the alcohol in regards to solving a case]].
* DrivesLikeCrazy: In the last episode. Justified, as they were trying to locate Monk before he ends up doing something bad to [[spoiler:Ethan Rickover]] in revenge for [[spoiler:murdering Trudy as well as a nurse]]. The fact that it is stormy outside, and Disher has sold his siren in a garage sale shortly beforehand (as he apparently thought crime was over and the bad guys had quit) didn't help matters, either.
* EmbarrassingSlide: During "Mr. Monk and the Class Reunion", while Stottlemeyer is making a request for information on the UC Berkeley nurse homicide at Monk's reunion, the projectionist displays some very compromising pictures of Stottlemeyer in full riot gear violently attacking protesters at an anti-nuclear demonstration back in the 1970s. Monk and Natalie are clearly mortified, while Stottlemeyer makes an unsuccessful attempt to calm the booing students:
-->'''Captain Leland Stottlemeyer:''' You didn't have a permit!
-->'''Student:''' Yes we did!
-->'''Captain Leland Stottlemeyer:''' It expired at noon!
-->'''Student:''' 12:06!
-->'''Captain Stottlemeyer:''' Like I said, it expired at noon.
* {{Expy}}: Of InspectorLestrade, by being the smug cop who makes the actual arrest, often being quick to bring the obvious suspect into the interrogation room. Straight at first, but after the first season Stottlemeyer begins to move away from this, generally trusting Monk's intuition, and showing genuine detective skills, especially after "Mr. Monk and the Captain's Wife".
* FourTemperamentEnsemble: Choleric.
* FriendOnTheForce: He and Randy to Monk.
* GenderFlip: The response Stottlemeyer has in "Mr. Monk and the Actor" to seeing his TV-movie self kissing a female Randy is, "That never happened."
* HeroicBSOD: Suffers one in "Mr. Monk and the Captain's Wife" when Karen is hospitalized as a result of the first tow truck shooting.
* HiddenDepths: When investigating the mansion of a music producer who was murdered, he admires the 48-track mixing console in his home studio, hinting that he has an interest in music production.
* INeverSaidItWasPoison: Stottlemeyer's line, "It's called guilty knowledge, and juries eat it up" in ''Mr. Monk Takes the Stand'' supplies the page quote.
** In "Mr. Monk's 100th Case," he admits in an interview that he withholds specific details from the press in order to make it easier to separate useless leads from potential suspects, which is an actual police strategy.
* IntergenerationalFriendship: More obviously with Disher, but Stottlemeyer was all ready a police officer while Monk was still in college.
* JackBauerInterrogationTechnique: In the first part of "Mr. Monk and the End". "Your computer crashed."
* JurisdictionFriction: Stottlemeyer has some with the federal agencies. In both episodes featuring Josh Stamberg's character Agent Grooms, you can tell Stottlemeyer has hostility to him. In "Mr. Monk and the Really, ''Really'' Dead Guy," he clearly does not like being bossed by [[{{Jerkass}} Agent Thorpe]].
* NoodleIncident: In "Mr. Monk Is the Best Man," it is revealed that Karen was actually Leland's ''second'' wife, and his first marriage was annulled after only five days.
** In "Mr. Monk vs. the Cobra," Stottlemeyer tells Monk about an incident that happened in Atlanta: according to him, he got in a cab and recognized the driver as [[HistoricalInJoke the guy who was the SAC of the FBI's Atlanta field office until he accused the wrong guy in the 1996 Olympic Park bombing, which ruined his career.]] He brings it up because the case Monk and Stottlemeyer are working involves a suspect who officially has been deceased for six years, and Stottlemeyer is genuinely afraid of the consequences that might occur if he goes public and is immediately proven wrong.
* PoliceAreUseless: He definitely isn't, but he occasionally struggles with feeling like this - especially in the earlier seasons where being showed up by Monk tends to bother him. In "Mr. Monk Gets Cabin Fever," he admits that it bothers him that his big role in life is "the guy who knows how to find Monk."
* QuipToBlack: Pulls off the occasional line that ''would'' be one if he did it with dramatic flair instead of perfect deadpan, such as referring to a dead hotel guest as having "checked out early." Tries a few in "Happy Birthday, Mr. Monk". Natalie promptly chews him out for being insensitive.
** Monk unintentionally also makes Leland feel bad about them by describing how horrible the victim's death must have been. It involved hooks ripping him apart and then being compacted in what must be the world's deadliest trash compactor. "He must have been screaming for mercy the whole time."
* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: He's rarely skeptical of Monk's intuitive leaps, having seen him in action for so long, and often makes accommodations for Monk's OCD on the crime scene.
* SecretSanta: "Mr. Monk and the Secret Santa". Stottlemeyer forgets to buy a gift for Det. Chasen, his Secret Santa, so he regifts a bottle of port someone had sent him. Then the bottle turns out to be poisoned...
* WatchThePaintJob: He is like this with his new Dodge Charger in "Mr. Monk and the Three Julies". He's on the same stage of cleanliness as Monk in watching out for scratches, dints, or other blemishes. But he makes a big mistake when he trusts Natalie to hold the keys while he's away on a search warrant, a no-no because she manages to reduce it to junk.
* WhatTheHellHero: Stottlemeyer is on the delivering end for Monk's streaker bailout in "Mr. Monk and the Red-Headed Stranger". He gets the receiving end in "Mr. Monk Is On The Run Part 2" when Natalie angrily chews him out for faking Monk's death without telling her.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Lt. Randy Disher]]
!!Lieutenant Randall "Randy" Disher
[[quoteright:259:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/7deadguy_8348.jpg]]
->Played by: Creator/JasonGrayStanford

Stottlemeyer's right hand partner. Usually the butt of jokes, he's mostly there to make Monk and Stottlemeyer look better, but has his moments of competency.
----
* BadassMustache: Grows one temporarily in "Mr. Monk and the Miracle." Monk and Natalie are dumbstruck by it. Stottlemeyer orders him to shave it off with a razor at the end. He actually had one in the past, as he is shown to have one in an old newspaper clipping with his picture in it in "Mr. Monk Goes to a Wedding".
* BerserkButton: People not taking him seriously especially when he actually did witness a murder, resulting in him quitting his job in "Mr. Monk Goes to the Dentist". Similarly, he doesn't like it when people diss his music, or being called "Cracker".
* TheBigGuy: As a police officer in the prime of his life who's in fantastic shape, he remains the most physically capable member of the cast for the entire series.
* BoringButPractical: Although he lacks Monk's ability to solve impossible cases, he is very efficient when it comes to managing ordinary homicides. Stottlemeyer mentions this in ''Mr. Monk and the Blue Flu'', a tie-in novel to the series. His gift is getting people to open up to him.
* BunnyEarsLawyer: To a lesser extent.
* ButtMonkey: When the show doesn't need comedy relief, Randy has been shown to be on the level of his friends, able to keep up with Monk himself at one point. But when they believe they need a joke, however, which is most of the time, you can be assured he will be the butt of it, even if that means portraying him as someone literally TooDumbToLive, let alone get a job as a police officer.
* BrickJoke: In "Mr. Monk Goes to the Dentist," Stottlemeyer suggests that the reason Randy doesn't want to go to the dentist until his scheduled appointment despite a toothache is because he wants to save up his sick days for days when he isn't feeling sick. In "Mr. Monk Goes to a Rock Concert," he is seen playing sick to attend the rock concert. Stottlemeyer gets him red-handed.
* CharacterizationMarchesOn: In the first episode he was a smarmy buttkisser who was very cynical of Monk's abilities. By the time the cast visits New York, he's a full-on dork.
-->'''Sharona:''' ''So, I guess you've given up on trying to be cool, huh?''
-->'''Randy:''' ''[[SincerityMode Yeah, pretty much!]]''
* CitySlicker: Becomes one in "Mr. Monk Visits a Farm." As soon as Monk is called up by Randy to investigate his uncle Harvey's death, Monk discovers that Randy is not a very competent farmer at all. He forgets to feed the animals every day, and he seems ignorant of the fact that one of his tractors has been broken for most of the week.
%%* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}
%%* CluelessDeputy
* CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass: His continued employment as a police lieutenant often mystifies; in "Mr. Monk and the Three Julies" he seriously considers the possibility of [[Franchise/{{Terminator}} a robot assassin from the future murdering women named Julie Teeger]]. Yet [[BigDamnHeroes he has his moments]], especially in "Mr. Monk Gets Married" and "Mr. Monk Gets Cabin Fever" [[spoiler:(even though the latter example is ''[[NiceJobBreakingItHero his own damn fault]]'')]]. Though Randy is often a {{Cloudcuckoolander}}, he becomes scarily efficient, competent, and down-to-Earth when he needs to be, such as whenever Stottlemeyer is disabled.
* ADayInTheLimeLight: Randy gets a number of episodes where he gets a chance to have more screen time - "Mr. Monk Goes to the Dentist" and "Mr. Monk Visits a Farm" for examples.
* DesignatedDriver: Randy is Designated Drunk in "Mr. Monk Is The Best Man".
* DrinkingOnDuty: In "Mr. Monk Gets Married", Randy does this on finding out that his mother Maria has ''married'' a younger man named Dalton Padron, who also turns out to be a killer, and furthermore, that they're spending their honeymoon at a therapy clinic. Monk and Sharona hence pose as a married couple to infiltrate the clinic.
* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: Randy's last name in the pilot episode was "Deacon". They changed it starting the very next episode.
* EarnYourHappyEnding: In season 8, he is seen kissing Sharona and in the series finale he moves to Summit, New Jersey where they move in together. He becomes Chief of Police there.
* EgocentricTeamNaming: Randy Disher's garage rock band was called "The Randy Disher Project". The etymology explained in "Mr. Monk and the Secret Santa" around the band's name: "Well, my name's Randy Disher, and then... Project."
* {{Flanderization}}: Disher's role as a slight {{Cloudcuckoolander}} was later pushed into TheDitz territory.
* ForgotFlandersCouldDoThat: It fit this trope later on when Randy illustrates competent policework.
* FourTemperamentEnsemble: Sanguine.
* GenderFlip: Randy's equivalent in the [[ShowWithinAShow TV show]] in season 5's "Mr Monk in the Actor". PlayedForLaughs as the show version of Randy and Stottlemeyer are acting out the episode "Mr. Monk and the Astronaut" and they start kissing before the actress portraying Natalie comes in. Stottlemeyer says "[[LetUsNeverSpeakOfThisAgain that]] ''[[ThatDidntHappen never happened]]''." The real Randy says, "Not even once."
* GirlfriendInCanada: Subverted in "Mr. Monk and the Employee of the Month"; Randy's girlfriend appears to be one of these -- the picture he shows Sharona is the one that came with his wallet ("She's a wallet model!") and he gives what appears to be a LineOfSightAlias -- except that at the end of the episode, we actually see her waving to him from a taxi.
* HeyThatsMyLine: He says a clever one-liner in "Mr. Monk Gets Lotto Fever" that he's sure is original ("It looks like her number came up"), but when another cop says the same thing, Randy is infuriated enough that he throws his notebook in the guy's face.
* HypocriticalHumor: In "Mr. Monk and the Voodoo Curse," Randy cites his astrological sign (Pisces) as a reason he isn't superstitious.
* IdiotBall: Born with one melded to his hands.
* LeftTheBackgroundMusicOn: Randy lampshades it in "Mr. Monk and the Leper". When he and Stottlemeyer are searching a missing person's apartment, Randy starts playing a few notes of the show's original theme melody on the piano, and when Stottlemeyer makes an important discovery, he plays a dramatic chord. Then the music segues into actual background music.
* LoonyFan: Like some of the worst examples of this trope, he's all too willing to buy up a musician's merchandise shortly before they're arrested so he can sell them for a song. He's also not above taking a selfie with the corpse of one of his most favorite actors.
* MakeTheDogTestify: Randy seems to think this is possible in "Mr. Monk and the Dog". But Stottlemeyer informs him that as far as he knows, in the state of California, dogs are not allowed to testify in open court.
* OhCrap: One funny example happens in "Mr. Monk Visits a Farm" at the beginning, when Randy is on a drug bust at a hotel. Hearing the sound of a toilet being flushed, he breaks into a dark room, #109, rousting the couple. He is very embarrassed when another officer turns on the lights and Randy discovers he's just burst in on an innocent old man and terrorized his wife. He looks at the slip of paper in his hand, realizes that he read it upside down (#601), and looks back just in time to see the dealer they were coming to catch run down the hallway.
* ThePictureCameWithTheFrame: In "Mr. Monk and the Employee of the Month," he claims that he has a girlfriend, and shows the picture of a beautiful woman. Sharona points out that the photo came with the wallet. Randy explains that his girlfriend is a famous "wallet photo model". [[SubvertedTrope It turns out to be true.]]
* PlayingSick: In "Mr. Monk Goes to a Rock Concert."
* QuipToBlack: Randy tries a few in "Mr. Monk Gets Lotto Fever" with no success.
* RunningGag: Randy's "insane" theories. Also, his ceremonial way of delivering information to Stottlemeyer, like here (from "Red-Headed Stranger"):
-->'''Lt. Disher:''' Sir, are you ready for this?
-->'''Capt. Stottlemeyer:''' What is this? A game show? Can't you just walk in here and say what you have to say?
* UnconventionalSmoothie: Randy finds one Natalie makes with a power drill in "Mr. Monk Is On the Run" acceptable.
* UndyingLoyalty: When asked if he would ever lie about Stottlemeyer murdering someone during "Mr. Monk Makes a Friend," Randy reluctantly admits that it would depend on the circumstances of said killing.
* UnknownRival: Bizarre or difficult cases tend to bring out a strange competitiveness in Randy that causes him to start creating all sorts of outlandish theories in an attempt to keep up with Monk and Stottlemeyer.
* WillTheyOrWontThey: Randy's relationship with Sharona. [[spoiler:They do]].
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Sharona Fleming]]
!!Sharona Fleming-[[spoiler:Disher]]
[[quoteright:343:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/sharona_fleming.png]]
->Played by: Creator/BittySchram

Monk's nurse and first assistant, from Season 1 through the first half of Season 3. Originally from New Jersey, she's a single mom with a son named Benjy. Unlike Natalie, she always called Monk by his first name.
----
* BlatantLies: Most notably in I"Mr. Monk and the Panic Room," when Stottlemeyer and Disher are searching Sharona's house looking for Ian Blackburn's monkey Darwin, whom she stole from an animal shelter the night before. Stottlemeyer finds what looks like vomit and crooked photos on one wall:
-->'''Captain Leland Stottlemeyer:''' Hey! What happened here?
-->'''Sharona Fleming:''' Benjy threw up.
-->'''Captain Leland Stottlemeyer:''' On ''the wall''?
-->'''Sharona Fleming:''' It was pretty awful.
* TheBusCameBack: Bitty Schram did return to play Sharona one last time in "Mr. Monk and Sharona".
* BusmansHoliday: Gets one in "Mr. Monk Takes a Vacation", where Monk is incredibly uncomfortable and simply sits on the beach fully clothed. When a murder mystery pops up he couldn't be happier, and drags Sharona into helping him solve it. Upon their return Sharona asks that they never go on vacation again, then says "I can't believe I just said that!"
* DeadpanSnarker: Is she ''ever.'' She's especially this toward Randy.
* {{Expy}}: Of Dr. Watson.
* {{Gaslighting}}: Sharona is made a victim of this in "Mr. Monk and the Girl Who Cried Wolf", where her writing professor Meredith Preminger tries to discredit her sanity by having her lover, a security guard named Denny Graf, pose as a dying man with a knife in his blood-soaked chest and a screwdriver sticking out of his ear, stating "Douglas is worried about you", and then have him disappear by the time Sharona is able to fetch Monk: Thrice. Turns out, she is doing this because Sharona has written a mystery paper (possibly with some input from Monk) about a woman who kills her husband by feeding him tomato soup laced with a toxin that can emulate a heart attack, which Meredith decides is such a perfect scheme that she decides to use it against her own husband, and thus cover their tracks in case Sharona gets suspicious.
* TheGloriousWarOfSisterlyRivalry: In "Mr. Monk and the Earthquake," it turns out Sharona has this with Gail. Gail accuses Sharona of copying her by moving to San Francisco and buying the same style handbag as her. The handbag bit turns out to be a clue since when Darryl Wright steals a set of keys to break into Sharona's house and steal her answering machine (which incriminates his lover Christine Rutherford in the murder of her husband Henry), he inadvertently takes Gail's keys instead, leading to him killing a gas company tech who catches him in the act.
* IWasYoungAndNeededTheMoney: This would explain why Sharona was a nude model in Atlantic City in the past, per "Mr. Monk Meets the Playboy"
** In "Mr. Monk Meets Dale the Whale," it's implied that this was the case during her schooling in Miami as well.
* HookerWithAHeartOfGold: "Mr. Monk Meets the Playboy" infers that this was Sharona's past prior to meeting Trevor Howe
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: She's rough around the edges due to her troubled past but is a good person and a loyal friend nonetheless.
* MamaBear: She is very defensive in regards to Benjy and when necessary, Monk.
* PutOnABus: Bitty Schram's unexpected departure from the show midway through season 3 led to the replacement of Sharona with Natalie. To explain Schram's absence, they say that Sharona moved back to New Jersey to remarry Trevor.
* RaisedCatholic
* RunningGag: Sharona's got a lousy taste in men. The people she's dated, besides her ex-husband Trevor Howe:
** Justin in "Mr. Monk and the Red-Headed Stranger," who turns out to be a streaker who is regularly interrupting Stottlemeyer and Disher's police press conferences.
** "Mr. Monk and the Earthquake" has Darryl Wright, an Australian journalist who only flirted with her so he could steal an answering machine that incriminated his real girlfriend in the murder of her husband (Darryl also kills a gas company technician that stumbles on him trying to break into Sharona's house).
** "Fat Tony" Lucarelli in "Mr. Monk Meets the Godfather", who is actually his uncle Salvatore's most feared enforcer, and whom gets busted in ''Mr. Monk Is Open For Business'' for one of his hits.
** Married men from time to time.
** The murderer on multiple occasions.
* SingleParentsAreUndesirable: She's aware not all men want a woman who comes with a kid attached. After Monk ruins one of her dates by calling the man on some lies, causing him to storm out, Sharona asks him if he thinks she told her date everything potentially off-putting about her, such as the fact that she has a son. Randy Disher ''doesn't'' share this perspective, as alluded to in "Mr. Monk and the Paperboy", which probably influenced [[spoiler: their eventually ending up together.]]
* UndyingLoyalty: To Monk, just as Natalie would later adopt, no matter how much working for him aggravated her. Best exemplified in the first episode, where she seemingly needs to extort a favor out of the mayor's office to go back to work for Monk, but later on when the situation called for it used that favor without hesitation to help him redeem himself and solve the case. Natalie and her discuss this in "Mr. Monk and Sharona," noting that they would never go through so much if they didn't love him as they did.
* VitriolicBestBuds: Also to Randy, to the point that [[spoiler: they got together post-series.]]
[[/folder]]

!Supporting Characters

[[folder:Trudy Monk]]
!!Trudy Anne Ellison-Monk
->Played by: Creator/StellinaRuisch, Creator/MeloraHardin, and Creator/LindyNewton

Adrian Monk's beloved late wife, whom he met in college. She was killed by an explosive device planted under her car. Trudy's unsolved murder is one of the main sources of Monk's constant neurosis.
----
* CruelAndUnusualDeath: The bomb didn't kill her right away. As a result, she spent the last few hours of her life alone and in serious agony.
* DoesNotLikeShoes: She liked going barefoot even in the wintertime.
* ExternalCombustion: Her cause of death was a car bomb.
* MySecretPregnancy: [[spoiler: In the finale, it is revealed, through a videotape recorded by Trudy herself, that in the past Trudy had a child with her professor, Ethan Rickover, who is now a judge. Rickover hid the baby from Trudy by claiming that she died nine minutes after birth (then, Monk learns that Rickover had saved the baby girl who is now a 26-year-old movie critic named Molly).]]
* NiceGirl: From Monk's memories of her, she seems to have been a very pleasant woman.
* PosthumousCharacter: The story all happens after her death.
* SheKnowsTooMuch: [[spoiler: In the videotape she reveals a posthumous conviction that in order to keep their affair and consequential baby secret, she believes Rickover killed Wendy Stroud, the midwife who delivered their baby and she maybe is the next. Unfortunately it was true.]]
* TooGoodForThisSinfulEarth: She's been shown to be nothing less than caring and compassionate, serving as Adrian's moral center even long after her death.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Dr. Kroger]]
!!Doctor Charles Kroger
[[quoteright:308:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/charles_kroger.png]]
->Played by: Creator/StanleyKamel

Monk's first psychiatrist until Season 7.
----
* BewareTheNiceOnes: While very forgiving, even Kroger gets fed up with Monk from time to time, most heavily demonstrated in one episode ("Mr. Monk and the Sleeping Suspect") where Kroger came back from vacation and saw Monk standing outside his home. Another major instance is in ''Literature/MrMonkGoesToGermany'', wherein Monk follows him to a psychiatric conference [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin in Germany]], though in this case, it's Natalie who takes the brunt of his anger at Monk's intrusion, because he knows Monk could never have made the trip without help.
* TheCobblersChildrenHaveNoShoes: Dr. Kroger may be good at giving Monk psychiatric advice, but he's at a total loss when it comes to dealing with his own teenage son, Troy. In "Mr. Monk Gets a New Shrink", it's revealed that Charles has taken three paternity tests at the "request" of his son. Troy also calls his parents by their first names, and it appears that Randy once arrested him for something (as Troy responds "no" when Randy asks him if he's stayed out of trouble). It isn't until Monk spends time getting to know Troy in "Mr. Monk and the Buried Treasure" that Troy's relation with his father is rebuilt.
* TheComicallySerious: Dr. Kroger does have genuinely funny moments, like his singing "John Henry" in "Mr. Monk and the Really, Really Dead Guy" that was so funny that Tony Shalhoub had to bite his lip to keep from laughing.
* CriticalPsychoanalysisFailure: Monk mentions in "Mr. Monk Gets a New Shrink" that every time he had to find a new therapist he ended up driving several to early retirement before he found one who could tolerate him. Meanwhile, Dr. Kroger frequently looks like he is one OCD tick away from losing it.
* DoctorJerk: Somewhat. While he genuinely tries to help his patients, he makes no secret to them that if he could afford to do so, he would buy a private island and spend the rest of his life there as a hermit to get away from the likes of Monk and Krenshaw.
* HundredPercentAdorationRating: It isn't just Monk and Harold that are fixated on Dr. Kroger. Every patient of his we meet absolutely adores him. In fact, in "Mr. Monk Gets a New Shrink," the Monk and the police track down an unstable patient of his they suspect may have killed a woman in his office. But when questioned, it turns out that the guy - who actually ''threatened'' him in the past - has nothing but wonderful things to say about Kroger and as has a breakdown over the thought of him retiring.
* InformedJudaism: It's mentioned that Kroger is Jewish, though his wife is an Irish Catholic.
* KilledOffScreen: In the Season 7 premiere episode "Mr. Monk Buys a House", it was revealed that Dr. Kroger has died of a heart attack, five weeks before the episode took place. (This was because [[TheCharacterDiedWithHim his actor Stanley Kamel died of a heart attack]].)
* LoveTriangle: A non-romantic/platonic example. Kroger is the subject of an ongoing feud between Monk and Harold Krenshaw, another patient with similar problems.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Benjy Fleming]]
!!Benjamin "Benjy" Fleming
->Played by: Creator/MaxMorrow, Creator/KaneRitchotte

Benjy is Sharona's middle-school-aged son.
----
* ADayInTheLimelight: There are a number of episodes where Benjy ends up being part of the case Monk is investigating. In "Mr. Monk Takes a Vacation," he spots a murder being committed while looking through binoculars at a hotel room.
* FlatCharacter: He is just a generic young boy with little personality.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Julie Teeger]]
!!Juliette "Julie" Teeger
->Played by: Creator/EmmyClarke

Natalie's teenage daughter. Introduced alongside Natalie in "Mr. Monk and the Red Herring".
----
* ADayInTheLimeLight: Julie has a lot more episodes fitting this trope than Benjy.
** In "Mr. Monk and the Big Game," her basketball team coach is electrocuted in the shower, so she has Monk come in to investigate.
** In "Mr. Monk and the Birds and the Bees," Julie's love life is explored. She is currently seeing Tim Sussman, her school's swim team star. However, when she starts seeing a star quarterback named Clay Bridges and breaks up with Tim, Natalie has to bring Monk in to give Julie TheTalk. Then it turns out that Julie's being manipulated by Rob Sherman, a sports agent who shot and killed his wife as well as a burglar named Dewey Jordan to make it look like his wife was killed in a burglary gone wrong. It turns out that Julie and Tim were at a local amusement park the same day that Sherman visited that park with Jordan to discuss the details of the planned "insurance scam" Sherman was going to execute. They ended up in the background of a photo of Julie and Tim, so when Sherman sees Julie after the murders, he remembers her and realizes Monk will notice Sherman and Jordan talking in the background, so he's trying to stop her from wearing the shirt too prominently.
** In "Mr. Monk and the Three Julies," Julie takes her driver's license test, but it is in danger of postponement since someone is out there killing women named 'Julie Teeger'.
** In "Mr. Monk and the Critic," Julie is starring in a community theater play, and gets a solo part. She turns out to be crucial to helping Monk prove that theater critic John Hannigan killed his girlfriend Callie Esterhaus.
** In the novel ''Mr. Monk and the Blue Flu'', Julie proves important to helping Monk get a clue about the Golden Gate Strangler serial killer.
** In the novel ''Mr. Monk and the Two Assistants'', Julie breaks her wrist and an advertisement placed on her cast is crucial to cracking the case.
* LittleMissSnarker: Frequently in her intearctions with Monk.
* NotImportantToThisEpisodeCamp: The page quote references Julie in particular.
* OneSteveLimit: Averted; in the episode "Mr. Monk and the Three Julies", the two [[VictimOfTheWeek murder victims of the week]] turn out to be a couple of women who just ''also'' happen to be named Julie Teeger. Naturally, this scary coincidence [[AdultFear disturbs Natalie Teeger]].
* SheIsAllGrownUp: Whenever someone comments on Julie's beauty. Although in "Mr. Monk Goes to a Fashion Show," [[ItMakesSenseInContext Natalie wishes she had a big, fat, hairy wart on her forehead]].
* WeirdnessMagnet: Before Julie even gets her driver's license, she is involved one way or another in at least six homicide investigations and one museum heist.
* WhatTheHellHero: In ''Literature/MrMonkAndTheDirtyCop'', she tearfully berates her mother for confronting an armed criminal in the middle of the night and almost getting killed.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Harold Krenshaw]]
!!Harold J. Krenshaw
[[quoteright:314:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/harold.png]]
->Played by: Creator/TimBagley

A fellow patient of Dr. Kroger's and later Dr. Bell's who spars with Monk on several occasions. He has similar obsessive-compulsive tendencies like Monk, but they quickly become unfriendly rivals.
----
* AlwaysSomeoneBetter: In addition to his alleged superior relationship to Monk's therapists, Harold seems to be several leagues ahead of Monk in terms of mental health as while he has very similar hang-ups, he's actually capable of doing such things as speaking publicly in a confident (if clipped) manner and sexually procreating to start a family with his wife (who is, unlike Trudy, alive).
* AscendedExtra: He become a semi-recurring character as sitcom-rival to Monk.
* {{Claustrophobia}}: One of his phobias. [[spoiler: In season 8, he and Monk gets over the fear when are trapped in a car trunk. And become friends!.]]
* ADayInTheLimeLight: His is in "Mr. Monk and the Daredevil".
* BoringButPractical: In spite of his complete lack of charisma, he manages to best Natalie in "Mr. Monk and the Election" due to how pragmatic his campaign goals were.
* FireForgedFriends: [[spoiler: When Monk and Krenshaw are both kidnapped and stuffed into a car trunk, they help each other escape, and finally let go of all that animosity.]]
* {{Foil}}: He represents a different route Monk could have taken, foregoing using his condition in an extraordinary way in favour of trying to suppress it to live an ordinary life.
* {{Jerkass}}: While he mainly clashes with Monk simply because they have the same disorders but like things to be in different ways, he also deliberately antagonizes him a fair amount, such as in "Mr. Monk and the Election" where - directly after Stottlemeyer reminds them that a man was killed and they're trying to figure out what happened - he riles Monk up again with claims of how close Harold is to Dr. Kroger to make Monk jealous. There's also his moment under NotSoDifferent below. This until "Mr. Monk Goes to Group Therapy" where he and Monk become friends (see above).
* LargeHam
* NotSoDifferent: Natalie observes on multiple occasions that Monk and Harold have so many things in common they really should be good friends instead of rivals. For instance, in "Mr. Monk and the Daredevil," Harold is a stickler for accuracy, to the point that when some kids bring him a poster of him in front of the San Francisco skyline, he and cousin Joey can't help but make fun of his abnormally large head, a giant bird that looks like ''Mothra''. Harold then proceeds to mark up the poster with constructive criticisms with a Sharpie.
* SitcomArchNemesis: For Monk, up until they bury the hatchet.
* TakingTheBullet: In "Mr. Monk Gets a New Shrink," when Monk and Dr. Kroger are being held captive by drug dealer Francis Merrigan, Merrigan is cornered. With Stottlemeyer and Disher closing in from one side, Merrigan turns, aims his pistol at Dr. Kroger, and fires, only for Harold to jump into the line of fire and take the bullet.
* TookALevelInBadass: In "Mr. Monk Gets a New Shrink," Harold's concern for Dr. Kroger leads him to be the one who locates where Monk and Dr. Kroger are being held hostage by Francis Merrigan, and willingly takes a bullet in the chest to keep Dr. Kroger from getting shot.
* TookALevelInKindness: In "[[Recap/MonkS8E8MrMonkGoesToGroupTherapy Mr. Monk Goes to Group Therapy]]" the two men finally reconciled their differences when Monk's HMO forced him to attend group therapy sessions with Dr. Bell, which included Harold. Both men were kidnapped by a killer and thrown into a car trunk together, where they both broke down with claustrophobia. Harold admitted that he has greatly exaggerated his own progress overcoming his phobias to goad Adrian, while Adrian admitted that he envied Harold's relative success in going on with his life despite his many fears. The two men realized that they shared many of the same problems, and even overcame their claustrophobia together, before joining forces to escape the trunk and rescue Dr. Bell from the killer. Afterwards, in an extraordinary gesture, Harold voluntarily transferred to another psychiatrist, to let Monk's "group sessions" with Dr. Bell be individual sessions after all.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Dr. Bell]]
!!Doctor Neven Bell
->Played by: Creator/HectorElizondo

Monk's new psychiatrist beginning in Season 7. This role was cast as a result of Stanley Kamel's death in 2008.
----
* CoolOldGuy: If he's the same age as Hector Elizondo, Dr. Bell's in his early 70s.
* FunWithPalindromes:
-->'''Natalie Teeger:''' Oh, look! His first name is Neven: N-E-V-E-N! It's a palindrome! That's a good sign!
-->'''Adrian Monk:''' It's not a perfect palindrome. The first N is capitalized.
-->'''Natalie Teeger:''' Dr. Kroger's name was Charles. That wasn't a palindrome.
-->'''Adrian Monk:''' It was to me!
%%* LineOfSightName: Harold causes one example of this with Dr. Bell's name in "Mr. Monk Fights City Hall".
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Dale the Whale]]
!!Dale "the Whale" J. Biederbeck III
->Played by: Creator/AdamArkin, Creator/TimCurry, Creator/RayPorter

Monk's ArchEnemy, Dale is a [[FatBastard disgustingly fat]] (he's around ''eight hundred pounds'' for most of the series) financier and DiabolicalMastermind. Despite being so huge that he is unable to walk, Dale is both a genius and extremely wealthy; episodes imply that he "owns half of San Francisco." As detailed below, Monk has particular hatred for Dale, as the villain caused Trudy a huge amount of grief.
----
* ArchEnemy: He's one of the most personally despised criminals that Monk has met.
* BadBoss: He frequently insults, manipulates and abuses his staff - even sexually, in his female employee’s case. In his first appearance, this leads [[TheDogBitesBack to his undoing.]]
* BerserkButton: He has a few: don't deny him food, don't tell him he can't have something, and do not--''do not''--get in the way of his window.
* BigEater: This is partly the reason he became so morbidly obese; at his heaviest, he would have restaurants deliver him every single item on their menus. His binge-eating worsened after his mother's death.
* BlatantLies: Whenever Dale is found guilty of something, he immediately claims that he had no idea about it and is therefore totally innocent. The hollow, sarcastic tone he uses when he does this indicates that he doesn't really care about being found out, as he's convinced that he won't get in trouble anyway...and oh, how wrong he is.
* BondVillainStupidity: Dale's a genius, but his massive ego - particularly his need to make coy boasts and sly references when he thinks he's untouchable - is always instrumental in Monk deducing how to bring him down. Likewise, tacking an elaborate revenge scheme against Monk onto his plan to get pardoned only resulted in ensuring Monk got involved and figured out what was going on.
** It's particularly apparent in "Mr. Monk Meets Dale the Whale," his first episode. Dale orders Dr. Christaan Vezza, his personal physician, to murder Justice Catherine Lavinio. It turns out that "Vezza" is a disgraced former surgeon named Glen Sindell who operated on a child while under the influence of drugs and jumped bail; Biederbeck learned the truth and essentially enslaved Sindell for years. However, when Monk solves Lavinio's murder and the cops uncover Sindell's real identity, Dale never stops to consider that the doctor might turn against him and provide evidence to put the financier away...which is exactly what happens. Heck, the main reason the police are onto him at all is because he forced Vezza to make it look like he himself was the actual culprit when due to his size he never could be, purely to show off how smart and untouchable he is-- had he killed her more discreetly, he might have barely been a suspect.
* BreakThemByTalking: Dale's preferred method of mental torture is to research secrets on people, then deliver nasty speeches to hit them where it hurts most; over the course of the series, he does this to his personal physician, Sharona, and especially Monk (who he mocks by bringing up Trudy's last words). At the end of "Mr. Monk is On the Run", Monk finally discovers how to deal with this: walk away.
* BroughtDownToNormal: His ultimate fate in the TV series--he loses all of his special prison privileges when he's found guilty of conspiracy to commit murder, and ends up as just another inmate in the system.
* BrutalHonesty: Another one of his favorite tactics to threaten people. In his debut episode, a State Superior Court Judge is murdered in her home, with Dale as the only suspect. The ''first thing'' he says about her when he's questioned? "Whoever killed her did the world a favor." It ties into his god complex: he's so convinced that his wealth, smarts, and connections can get him out of any possible trouble that he feels no need to censor what he says or does.
* CorruptCorporateExecutive: He's an obscenely wealthy business tycoon, and is certainly very lacking in any moral scruples, up to and including arranging for his enemies to be murdered. It's not for nothing that Trudy labelled him as "the Genghis Khan of world finance".
* DeadpanSnarker: Dale is sarcastic and rude; if he isn't insulting you outright, he's probably making a nasty comment.
* DealWithTheDevil:
** In a sense, this occurs in "Mr. Monk Goes to Jail." Dale is accused of murdering a death row inmate, and because of his status as a suspect, he's denied a window being installed in his jail cell. He decides to have Monk solve the case by offering him the one thing he can't resist: information on Trudy's death.
** Dr. Christiaan Vezza jokes that he did this in "Mr. Monk Meets Dale the Whale"--he was doing research on the morbidly obese, and Dale offered to fund the project in exchange for Vezza being his personal physician. It takes on an ever greater meaning when the cops discover that "Vezza" is Glenn Q. Sindell, a former surgeon who jumped bail after being arrested for operating while intoxicated. Dale learned the secret and forced Sindell to not only become his physician, but commit a murder.
* EscapeArtist: In "Mr. Monk is On the Run" and ''Mr. Monk Gets Even'', Dale attempts different schemes to get out of jail. In the former, it involves framing Monk for murder, then arranging to have Governor Rick Weschler assassinated by car bomb so that the lieutenant governor will become governor and commute Dale's sentence. In the latter, he agrees to undergo gastric bypass surgery, and concocts an elaborate scheme that involves his girlfriend Stella Chaze staging a truck accident that overwhelms SF General Hospital with emergency room patients, then making everyone think that she has slipped Dale out in a stolen hearse, though in reality she has taken the body of another bypass patient named Jason [=McCabe=], and put Dale in [=McCabe=]'s place.
* EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: [[EvenBadMenLoveTheirMamas He loved his mother]], who's just about the only person whom he ever seemed to care about. After her death, [[PostStressOvereating he went on an eating binge that caused him to balloon to his current size]].
* EvenEvilHasStandards: Parodied in "Mr. Monk Goes to Jail". After inmate Ray Kaspo is murdered, Dale becomes a suspect because of a debt the man owed him -- $1,200. And while Dale may be a conniving, disgusting, manipulative, murderous, and downright awful person, he would ''never'' kill someone over such a trifling amount of money ("I wouldn't bend down to ''pick up'' twelve hundred dollars -- even if I could"). Stottlemeyer retorts that Dale might have arranged the murder as a warning to other prisoners who might cross him, but Biederbeck laughs this off -- he's ''Dale the Whale''; no one needs to be reminded of his power.
* EvilCannotComprehendGood: One of the possible explanations for the situation described in BondVillainStupidity in "Mr. Monk Meets Dale the Whale." Biederbeck is, by his own admission, a horrible, evil human being--so he can't imagine that Glenn Sindell, his personal physician, might want to atone for his crimes by helping to put Dale in prison.
* EvilGenius: Dale's intelligence is about the only thing that equals his weight, to the point where Stottlemeyer (who isn't rattled by anything) feels the need to warn people about just how smart he is. Biederbeck's ability to find secrets and cook up complex plots has put politicians, baseball team owners, and entire city blocks (just to name a few) in his pocket, and he's able to devise extremely complicated plans that can take years to implicate from inside a prison cell.
* EvilGloating: In "Mr. Monk Meets Dale the Whale," Superior Court Judge Catherine Lavinio is murdered in her home. She identifies Biederbeck as her attacker during a 911 call; Dale freely admits to having a motive (Lavinio ruled against him in an expensive antitrust lawsuit); clues at the crime scene indicate that he was there; and an eyewitness even observes a "big, fat man" in Lavinio's house that night. But Dale is the only person who ''couldn't'' have killed her, as he's completely immobile. Monk realizes that Dale is behind the crime, and is using the evidence to mock the police and brag about his inability to be arrested.
* EvilIsPetty: It's not enough for Dale to have billions of dollars and control people's lives with a single phone call--he goes out of his way to be as mean-spirited and nasty as possible just because he can. [[FrivolousLawsuit His suing Trudy and the newspaper she worked for when he fully knew he would never win]] is a prime example (the whole point was to tie the case up in courts to force the Monks to bankruptcy); his murder of a Superior Court Judge who committed the "heinous" crime of ''ruling against him'' is another.
* {{Expy}}: He resembles the character Charles Augustus Milverton from Literature/SherlockHolmes, being a very intelligent and successful criminal who operates as a blackmailer that the main detective finds absolutely repulsive but too devious for even them to normally put away, and who visibly enjoys rubbing his villainy in the nose of said detective as well as his other victims since he knows he usually gets away with it.
* FatBastard: Exaggerated. Dale is ''extremely obese'', weighing at around '''800 pounds''' (and this is after he's been on a diet that's taken off an additional hundred), and is physically immobile due to his massive size (he's five and a half feet, or 66 inches, wide by his own admission); and he's also an all-around mean-spirited, horrible excuse of a human being.
* FauxAffablyEvil: He acts like an overly polite, cheerful man, cracking jokes and being self-deprecating about his weight. This is all for show--he's really a petty, cruel tyrant.
* Fiction500: Dale is one of the richest men in the world; in his premiere episode, he jokes that $210 million is a petty sum for him.
* {{Foil}}: To Monk. Both are exceptionally intelligent; both suffer from compulsive behavior (Monk's rituals, Dale's eating); both had a complete breakdown after the death of a female loved one (Trudy for Monk, his own mother for Dale); and both are forced to live apart from the world (Monk because of his neuroses, Dale because of his immobility). But while Monk recovers and uses his intellect as a positive force, Dale remains a villain.
* FormerlyFat: When the state of California decides to stop paying for Dale's treatment in ''Mr. Monk Gets Even'' as part of a rash of budget cuts, Dale agrees to undergo gastric bypass surgery. It turns out to be an attempt to escape jail.
** He also loses weight during his time in prison, as he's at least able to move around in a wheelchair by "Mr. Monk is On the Run."
* ForTheEvulz: The whole reason Monk hates him. During her time as a newspaper reporter, Trudy wrote a critical piece on Dale, calling him "the Genghis Khan of world finance". Dale decided [[FrivolousLawsuit to sue both her and the paper for libel, knowing full well that he couldn't win the case]]; instead, he simply dragged out the issue long enough to force Adrian and Trudy to sell everything they owned, including their house, to cover court costs. To add insult to injury, he bought said house and used it to store his [[PornStash pornography collection]].
* FrivolousLawsuit: Dale launched a lawsuit he knew fully well he couldn't win against Trudy and the newspaper she worked for after she wrote a critical piece where she called him "the Genghis Khan of world finance". The real purpose of the case was to tie it up in the courts in order to force the Monks to declare bankruptcy and, eventually, sell everything they owned, including their house.
* HateSink: One of the most despicable characters on the show. His only interests in life seem to be making money and ruining lives, and he frequently gets people to work for him or otherwise serve his ends through blackmail or deception. He's also extremely rude and condescending to practically everyone he meets, regarding the vast majority of the human race as idiots beneath his notice, and he's quick to tell people to their face how stupid he thinks they are, with the mild exception of women he finds physically attractive who he merely acts lecherous around.
* IGaveMyWord: In "Mr. Monk Goes to Jail," Dale and Monk strike a bargain: if Monk can solve a murder which Dale has been accused of, then the financier will share everything he knows about Trudy's death. When Monk cracks the case, Dale remarks that "a deal's a deal" and provides Monk with some genuine leads--Trudy, not Monk, was the target of the car bomb that killed her, and a man named Warwick Tennyson, who lives in New York City, was involved.
* InsultBackfire: Dale knows full well that he's a revolting, obese jerk, and any attempts to call him on it result in a snarky comment.
* KavorkaMan: Dale has several beautiful young women on his speed-dial, and they all seemed perfectly willing to date/flirt with him. It's probably more about his limitless cash flow than his looks.
* LuxuryPrisonSuite: Though Dale does end up in prison, he's able to use his cash and connections to spend his time there like a hotel trip: he has a comfortable bed, laptop, books, big-screen TV, access to manicure appointments and a Chinese restaurant that delivers, and even a personal servant in the form of another inmate. Of course, he loses it all when he's implicated in trying to frame Monk for murder, and ends up living alone in a dingy, bare cell.
* NauseaFuel: An in-universe example. Though we never see Dale's body, he remarks that his stomach is sixty-six inches wide; when he lifts his covers to show it to Sharona, she spends at least twelve hours vomiting repeatedly ("HE'S ORCA!").
* NiceJobFixingItVillain: Dale's final appearance on the show, in "Mr. Monk is On The Run," opens the final season. It's revealed that his "helping" Monk back in "Mr. Monk Goes to Jail" was all part of an elaborate scheme to have Monk learn some information about Trudy's death--specifically, that a six-fingered man built the bomb that killed her--which would later implicate Monk himself in the murder of the Governor of California; the Lieutenant Governor was in on the plot and agreed to commute Dale's sentence in exchange for Biederbeck's help in gaining the office. Not only does Monk determine the truth--which results in Dale being found guilty, stripped of his prison privileges, and left to rot alone in a bare cell with no hope for release--he also reviews the notes the six-fingered man left behind and discovers that someone called "the Judge" arranged for Trudy's murder, which proves to be the clue he needs to finally solve the greatest mystery of his life.
* NotMeThisTime: In "Mr Monk Goes To Jail," a death row inmate named Ray Kaspo at the same prison as Dale is murdered forty-five minutes before his execution. Suspicion falls on Dale, as Kaspo owed him twelve hundred dollars. Dale is completely innocent (for his own part, he claims that he "wouldn't bend down to pick up twelve hundred dollars--even if [he] could"), but his status as a suspect means that he can't get a window in his jail cell, which infuriates him enough to ask Monk to solve the case for him.
* NotSoDifferent: Dale deliberately invokes this with Monk, frequently mentioning that they're both trapped in prisons of their own design (Dale's body versus Monk's neuroses) and unable to truly take part in life. One of the most triumphant moments in the series is when Monk walks away from Dale, refusing to listen to him.
* PostStressOvereating: According to Dale's physician Dr. Christiaan Vezza in "Mr. Monk Meets Dale the Whale," Dale was originally "only" 400 pounds and still mobile; when his mother died, though, he went into an uncontrollable depression that he dealt with by binge eating.
* RealityEnsues: At the end of "Mr. Monk Meets Dale the Whale," Monk, Sharona, and the cops are able to prove that Biederbeck is guilty of organizing the murder of the Victim of the Week, and they're even able to get his personal physician (who actually committed the crime) to [[HeelFaceTurn agree to turn states' evidence and put him away]]. A furious Dale, knowing that Monk cracked the case, tries to strangle the detective...and is able to reach about four inches above his head for ten seconds before falling back exhausted. He's an 800-plus-pound man who hasn't left his bed in eleven years--any possible muscle strength and endurance vanished a long time ago.
* ShutUpHannibal: Occurs in all three episodes with Dale:
** In "Mr. Monk Meets Dale the Whale," his role in the murder of a State Superior Court judge is exposed, and he begins to rant about how his lawyers will save him, as "there isn't a prison in this country that can hold me!" Monk interrupts with an insult ("There are few ''shopping malls'' that can hold you") and a promise to see him put away regardless.
** In "Mr. Monk Goes to Jail," Monk snarks at Dale's "poetic" comments about his obese body serving as a personal prison, prompting Biederbeck to being accusing Monk of building a mental cell for himself due to Trudy's death; Monk immediately cuts him off.
** In "Mr. Monk is On the Run," Dale tries to same speech as the one above, boasting that his time in a real prison doesn't compare to Monk's being trapped by his own neuroses; in this case, Monk simply leaves him, prompting Dale to throw a temper tantrum and demanding that the detective come back.
--->'''Dale''': Hey! Come back! ''I'M NOT FINISHED YET!''
--->'''Monk''': Oh yes, you are.
* TheSociopath: Dale only cares about Dale, period. Everyone else is just a pawn to be used and thrown away.
* SympathyForTheDevil: Dale is about as morally bankrupt as they come, but his desperation about getting a window in "Mr. Monk Goes to Jail" elicits a shred of pity. Consider that he was first confined to his own bedroom for eleven years and ''never'' got to go outside, meaning his window was his only connection to the outside world--he snarks to Disher that the view "is really all I have." Then, after being sent to jail, he was completely cut off from ''any'' form of sunlight or fresh air. It's telling that Dale [[OOCIsSeriousBusiness loses all composure and tact]] when he first tells Monk about it--"ADRIAN MONK! I ''want'' my ''window.'' ''GET ME MY'' '''''WINDOW!'''''" Later, Stottlemeyer asks about that fit, Dale sounds downright vulnerable when he answers:
-->'''Stottlemeyer''': Is a window really that important to you?
-->'''Dale''': Try living ''without one.''
* VillainBall: Intelligent though he is, Dale’s petty egotism frequently makes him his own worst enemy. In his first appearance it’s made clear that he has many means to subtly kill or ruin enemies without implicating himself, but instead he sets up a complex scheme that leads directly him to goad the police into ruining themselves trying to solve it - only for it to fall apart simply because his patsy was willing to confess everything when thrown under the bus. Later, he needlessly takes a “frame Monk” revenge plot onto his scheme to get pardoned, leading to the discovery and foiling of a plan that had previously gone completely under the radar.
* VillainWithGoodPublicity: A unique example, in that he's a Villain with ''No'' Publicity. In "Mr. Monk Meets Dale the Whale," Stottlemeyer explains that Biederbeck would rather buy an entire newspaper publishing company rather than have them print a single piece about him. It helps to keep his dealings, illegal and otherwise, secret from the world at large.
* WickedCultured: Dale is evil and completely unscrupulous, but he's also fluent in several languages, reads antique books, follows the international stock markets, and has opera blaring in his massive suite, which is richly decorated in expensive marble, silk, and velvet.
* XanatosGambit: Dale's helping Monk in "Mr. Monk Goes to Jail" turns out to be this: he wants the detective to gather information about Trudy's death, as it will lead to him becoming a suspect in a later crime that, if successful, would ultimately free Dale from prison.
[[/folder]]

!Minor Characters

[[folder:Ambrose Monk]]
!!Ambrose Monk
->Played by: Creator/JohnTurturro

Adrian's older brother. He suffers from agoraphobia (a fear of open spaces) and hasn't left his house in 32 years as of his first appearance in the series. He appears in three episodes - "Mr. Monk and the Three Pies", "Mr. Monk Goes Home Again", and "Mr. Monk's 100th Case".
----
* AllThereInTheManual: It is revealed in the novel ''Mr. Monk on the Road'' that Ambrose's agoraphobia was the result of catching Hong Kong flu as a child.
* AdaptationExpansion: In the novel ''Mr. Monk in Outer Space'', Ambrose is shown to have written several different detailed books about the TV series ''Beyond Earth''. He hence proves useful for Adrian in solving the shootings of show creator Conrad Stipe and new producer Kingston Mills.
* DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment: He comes up with a classic example when talking about the police: "They no longer respond to my complaints because I call them more often than I should. [[CouldSayItBut I'd like to complain to them about it]], but [[BrokenRecord they no longer respond]] [[MadnessMantra to my complaints]]."
* {{Expy}}: Of Mycroft Holmes. He's as good as Adrian when it comes to analyzing minute details, but can't bring himself to expend the effort to confirm or deny his conclusions (since he'd have to leave the house to do so).
* FanCommunityNickname: InUniverse. In the novel ''Mr. Monk in Outer Space'', Ambrose is a big consulting writer of viewing guides and insight on the Franchise/StarTrek-parody ''Beyond Earth''.
* ItsAllMyFault: The reason it took so long for the Adrian and Ambrose to see each other again after Trudy's death was because Ambrose blamed himself for her death - she was picking up medicine for him the fateful day the car bomb took her life, and he believed that if she hadn't been out that day doing so then she would still be alive.
* {{Omniglot}}: He can read and write seven languages and is teaching himself Mandarin Chinese; he writes operator manuals for a living and does every language for each. He also speaks at least one ConLang and has written manuals on it (Dratch, a parody of Klingon) and has been implied to understand Sanskrit. All very impressive for a man who's never left his house in 32 years.
* SharedFamilyQuirks: Adrian and Ambrose are both {{Insufferable Genius}}es, and both are crippled with psychological diseases (Adrian has OCD, Ambrose has agoraphobia). Ambrose, however, can compensate for some of the things Adrian lacks - he's fully capable of living by himself while Adrian has to have Natalie and a shrink. But Adrian is able to go out in the world, and Ambrose has sheltered himself inside his house.
* TrashOfTheTitans: An extremely neat and orderly example. Ambrose has saved and organized every newspaper and piece of mail delivered to the house since 1972, expecting that his father will want to go through the lot when he returns. There are filing cabinets and huge stacks of papers ''everywhere''.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Kevin Dorfman]]
!!Kevin Dorfman
->Played by: Creator/JarradPaul

Kevin Dorfman is one of Monk's neighbors.
----
* BackForTheDead: After a notable absence since his previous appearance, he returns in one of the later episodes and winds up being the murder victim.
* CharacterDeath: Is strangled to death by Karl Torini in "Mr. Monk and the Magician."
* DayInTheLimelight: "Mr. Monk and the Game Show" had Kevin play the part of Monk's sidekick. Meta-wise, this was because the supporting cast members were in contract disputes at the time, so none of the other cast appears apart from Tony Shalhoub.
* InformedJudaism: He's Jewish.
* {{Foil}}: Like Monk, Kevin has an incredible memory but lacks the wisdom to actually do anything useful with it.
* MinorCrimeRevealsMajorPlot: Kevin was killed by Karl Torini because he stumbled upon discrepancies in Torini's books that would have been evidence pointing to drug trafficking - his equipment weighed more when returning to the United States.
* MotorMouth: In "Mr. Monk and the Magician," Monk recalls a time when Kevin had a sore throat and "talked for two and a half hours about how much it hurt him to talk". And at Kevin's funeral, Natalie has a picture of Kevin on display, and though she tells Monk it took her a while to make the photo because she wanted an image where he wasn't talking, she then admits she Photoshopped the picture.
* PhotographicMemory: Kevin can recall ''every single time'' he ate an egg-salad sandwich. And every single subject must be talked about in full detail.
* RichesToRags: In "Mr. Monk and the Paperboy", Kevin won $43 million in the lottery, then his supposed "girlfriend" tried killing him for it. However, in "Mr. Monk and the Game Show," he's lost it all due to bad investments, gold diggers, two wives, and a dishonest accountant.
* SharedFamilyQuirks: The MotorMouth trait is actually genetic. Natalie is visibly disturbed when she meets Kevin's family and finds they all exhibit the same trait.
* TemporarySubstitute: Serves in the assistant role Sharona and later Natalie usually serves in for "Mr. Monk and the Game Show." Meta-wise, this was because the episode was filmed as a filler episode, made after Bitty Schram had departed (the episodes were not filmed in chronological order, so "Mr. Monk Takes His Medicine" was filmed before "Game Show"), and Traylor Howard had not yet been cast as Natalie.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Marci Maven]]
!!Marci Maven
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/sarahsilvermanasmarcimaven_4295.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:Clue hug?]]
->Played by: Creator/SarahSilverman

Monk's obsessed fan. First shows up in "Mr. Monk and the TV Star", where she is an obsessed fan of the ''Crime Lab: SF'' lead Brad Terry, to the point that she takes the rap for him for his killing of his ex-wife. But Monk eventually figures it out, and her obsession of interest changes to Monk.

In "Mr. Monk and His Biggest Fan," Marci's obsession for Monk has reached an extreme: she has plastered his image all over her walls, she's furnished her house with furniture he throws out, she wears his recycled clothing, she appears to be responsible for naming the episode titles. It goes well until her neighbor across the street, Debbie Ringel, is apparently mauled to death by a dog. The police suspect Marci's pet dog Otto, but Otto turns out to have been deceased for three days. Desperate, she turns to Monk for help, willingly breaking a restraining order imposed against her by "buying" Monk at a police bachelor auction. Monk eventually proves that John Ringel was responsible for framing Otto, but after Ringel takes Monk and Marci hostage, in a situation that leads to Marci getting a bullet in her left shoulder, she loses interest in Monk and takes up a new interest in the form of Creator/FMurrayAbraham ("May God have mercy on his soul").
----
* AlliterativeName: The name '''Ma'''rci '''Ma'''ven. She's also played by '''S'''arah '''S'''ilverman.
* AscendedExtra: After her first appearence in "Mr. Monk and the TV Star," Sarah Silverman's career had taken off and there was doubt that she would be able to return to play Marci for "Mr. Monk and His Biggest Fan". But Sarah was able to oblige and return to the role.
* BachelorAuction: Resorts to "buying" Monk at one in "Mr. Monk and His Biggest Fan"
* ContinuityNod: "Mr. Monk and His Biggest Fan" suggests that Marci is responsible for writing episode titles.
* ClingyJealousGirl: Marci's obsession with Monk is almost like the obsessions of some Music/JustinBieber fans.
* {{Fangirl}}: Of the most obsessive variety. She {{stalk|er With A Crush}}s male celebrities, collects memorabilia about them, and even writes {{fan fiction}} about them.
* LeaningOnTheFourthWall: In "Mr. Monk and the TV Star," after being exonerated, Marci becomes a fan of Monk's work. At the end of the episode, she says something about how he's such a great detective "one day you'll get your own TV show." And then she ask him "if you ever do get your own TV show, ''[[TheyChangedItNowItSucks don't change the opening song]]''." When the credits roll, rather than the second season song, they're playing the first season theme.
* OhCrapThereAreFanficsOfUs: Lampshaded. In "Mr. Monk and His Biggest Fan," when Monk and Marci are being held at gunpoint by John Ringel, Marci tells Monk to draw a weapon but Monk protests, "I don't have a gun." She replies, "You did in 'Mr. Monk and the Dragon's Lair!'" Then she remembers that she made that story up.
* OverlyLongGag: That guitar song Marci does in "Mr. Monk and His Biggest Fan", which involves her holding one incredibly long A note. Apparently Sarah Silverman tried to take it as far as she could possibly go, and there were reportedly several takes with Tony Shalhoub and Traylor Howard struggling not to corpse.
* PerkyGoth: Marci counts by personality in "Mr. Monk and His Biggest Fan," even though she wears a white coat that makes her look like an inspector in some scenes and she's wearing Monk's recycled clothing in others
* StalkerWithACrush: Monk and Natalie are somewhat disturbed when they actually get to see just how far Marci's obsession with Monk goes. She's wearing Monk's old pants, she has furnished her house with much of the stuff he throws out, and she has plastered the wall with pictures of him, also even making a bobblehead of him. Also, she has an inaccurate diorama of "Mr. Monk and the Three Pies," and is starting a song about the detective.
* WhoWouldWantToWatchUs: After Brad Terry is arrested in "Mr. Monk and the TV Star":
-->'''Marci Maven:''' ''You'' are the greatest detective in the world! You are the greatest detective in the universe! ''You should have your own show!''
** This is made even greater by the fact that she immediately announces he should "never change his theme song" (a complaint she used against the previous actor she was obsessed with). ''Monk'' had just changed its theme song to one that fans didn't quite like as much and they played the old theme song over the end credits as a TakeThatUs, or self-deprecation.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Karen Stottlemeyer]]
!!Karen Stottlemeyer
->Played by: Creator/GlenneHeadly

Stottlemeyer's first wife up through Season 4.
----
* ComicallyMissingThePoint: She claims Leland doesn't carry a gun on duty (he just hides it from her) and seems to believe police officers shouldn't have guns, apparently not realizing how dangerous an officer's job is.
* DoesNotLikeGuns: Karen hates guns. Monk recalls her once staying home and organized a gun control rally while Leland was away on a hunting trip. Whenever Karen does show up at her husband's office, Leland has to hide his duty pistol in a desk drawer, and he even concealed a stuffed duck trophy.
* ItsAllAboutMe: At her worst, Karen can end up like this. She completely disregards the importance of her husband's job and instead harps on him for not watching her (terrible and boring) documentaries. However, she does slip out of it often enough; in one episode, while doing a documentary on the police department, she ends up filming the commissioner's wig coming off and revealing himself to be bald, which she lets Captain Stottlemeyer use as leverage to get Monk rehired (he was fired by the commissioner earlier for accidentally deleting files).
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: She can be pushy and irritating, but sometimes shows a caring side toward Leland and other characters.
* JerkWithAHeartOfJerk: Other times, she's a through-and-through {{jerkass}} for the reasons under StrawCharacter below. It really depends on the episode.
* StrawCharacter: Karen is one of the worst variety of the type of liberal thinker who is almost a caricature of the majority of this set of people. She is constantly harping on Leland that he needs to be more open-minded and tolerant of other things while never budging one bit from her own position and showing almost zero respect for Leland and simply assuming that her way is the right way. One wonders if that's what caused the marriage to fall apart: her views clashed with the views Leland had to take to be a cop.
* StylisticSuck: Karen makes hilariously terrible documentaries. Her documentary on Miles Holling in "Mr. Monk and the Very, Very Old Man" is so bad that we see Monk and Leland struggling to stay awake to watch it to the end and get an important clue.
* TVDocumentary: Karen specializes in these types of documentaries.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Linda Fusco]]
!!Linda S. Fusco
->Played by: Creator/SharonLawrence

Stottlemeyer's girlfriend in season 5 and early season 6.

Linda Salvato Fusco is introduced in "Mr. Monk, Private Eye" as a realtor. She hires Monk and Natalie to investigate damage done to her Buick. During the investigation, she also runs into Stottlemeyer, and sparks fly very quickly between the two of them, her recognizing him as a divorcee like herself. She even sets up Stottlemeyer with an apartment across the street from her own.

In "Mr. Monk and His Biggest Fan," Linda returns, though her part is minor. Their dates are often interrupted, postponed, or canceled as a result of Stottlemeyer's police duties. This reaches a point where she resorts to "buying" him at a BachelorAuction (this is the same one that Marci Maven "buys" Monk at). Their dinner date is interrupted by Stottlemeyer realizing the solution to the case in the middle of dessert.

In "Mr. Monk and the Bad Girlfriend," Linda has moved to a suburban house in Richmond, and that, plus Stottlemeyer's work hours, force them to limit their dates to webcam dates every night at 6:30 PM. They are planning to go to Hawaii, but before they do, Linda's real estate partner Sean Corcoran is shot and killed while giving an open house tour in Marin County. Monk and Natalie are sent to investigate, but it is only after Monk and Natalie take a single visit to Linda's office that they realize she is the killer: she has the motive, the means, the ability, and opportunity to have committed the murder (a picture of her in her office wielding a shotgun, the very shotgun used as the murder weapon; Sean was planning on starting his own company and would have taken a lot of their clients with him; she matches the killer's description in regards to height, even wearing a certain shade of lipstick that one witness remembers; and she has a house key).

Unfortunately, no one believes Monk and Natalie because Linda was ending her webcam date with Stottlemeyer (which Monk and Natalie had eavesdropped in on at the end) twenty minutes before the shooting, and the time window is not large enough to give her ample time to go from her house to the crime scene and get into her hiding place.

Eventually, Monk finds incriminating evidence against Linda by having Natalie lure her away while he searches her house. Through a sting operation, Monk and Natalie then entrap Linda at her and Stottlemeyer's send-off party. Linda is arrested, and Stottlemeyer is left wondering whether the relationship was legitimate or not.
----
* BachelorAuction: Linda and Marci Maven both go to the same one in "Mr. Monk and His Biggest Fan" - Linda to get Stottlemeyer (which is a no sell as it appears she is the only one who even bids for him), and Marci bids on Monk.
* BrickJoke: In ''Mr. Monk and His Biggest Fan'', Linda Fusco asks Stottlemeyer, "What does a girl have to do to get your attention, captain? Kill someone?" [[HarsherInHindsight Three episodes later, Monk and Natalie suspect Linda of murdering her partner and turn out to be right.]]
* EvilAllAlong: Naturally, Stottlemeyer refuses to believe she's a murderer until she's proven to be one.
* WasItAllALie: Stottlemeyer has to ask himself this question at the end of "Mr. Monk and the Bad Girlfriend," where the stinger is that he has taken Randy to Hawaii instead. He is left wondering whether Linda's relationship with him was 100% legitimate, or if she had always been setting him up so that he would be her alibi when she did commit the murder. Figuring he'll never be able to find out, he then throws away the engagement ring he would have given her.
* WoundedGazelleGambit: Subverted in "Mr. Monk and the Bad Girlfriend". Linda tries to discredit Monk and Natalie by claiming to Stottlemeyer that Monk threatened her that he would have her arrested if she didn't sleep with him. Stottlemeyer, who has known Monk longer than her, immediately realizes that something is up. If anything this could be a VillainBall moment as well, since before that, Linda stated that Stottlemeyer was completely on her side and wouldn't even hear Monk out on the theory. Once Stottlemeyer heard this story, Stottlemeyer starts to get suspicious.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Trudy Jensen]]
!!Trudy K. "T.K." Jensen-Stottlemeyer
->Played by: Creator/VirginiaMadsen

Stottlemeyer's love interest in the second half of Season 8, and eventually his second wife.
----
* OneSteveLimit: Averted; the fact that she shares the same first name with Trudy Monk does not go unmentioned.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Agent Grooms]]
!!Agent Joshua Grooms
->Played by: Creator/JoshStamberg

A federal agent of the ATF and FBI, that Stottlemeyer clashes with. Appears in two episodes, "Mr. Monk and the Sleeping Suspect" and "Mr. Monk Gets Cabin Fever," and is mentioned in several others.
----
* JurisdictionFriction: Grooms clashes with Stottlemeyer in both episodes where he is on screen. Though it's implied they may actually be on friendlier terms on many offscreen. For instance, in "Mr. Monk and the Election," when Monk finds shell casings with Russian markings at the scene of a shooting attempt on Natalie's life, Stottlemeyer tells Randy to call Grooms and pass the casings over to him. And when the police are arresting Jack Whitman, Stottlemeyer discovers Whitman was trying to recover a sheet containing a list of customers he was trafficking arms to and quips that he has a friend in the Bureau waiting for the document, which could be implying that Grooms is going to be relieved.
* HypocriticalHumor: In "Mr. Monk Gets Cabin Fever," when Grooms is the agent in charge of Monk's witness protection, there is a scene where they stop at a convenience store for supplies. Grooms tells the others to not draw too much attention to themselves....while wearing a very attention-grabbing three piece suit.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Mr. and Mrs. Davenport]]
!!Bobby and Peggy Davenport
->Played by: Creator/MichaelCavanaugh and Creator/HollandTaylor

Natalie's wealthy parents. They appear twice, in "Mr. Monk Goes to a Wedding" and "Mr. Monk Is At Your Service".
----
* MeanBoss: Though never mentioned in "Mr. Monk Is At Your Service", [[http://web.archive.org/web/20080516023524/http://www2.usanetwork.com/series/monk/webexclusives/blogs/teeger21.html the USA Network character tie-in blog]] implies that Natalie's parents are this, since Natalie notes "As a child I witnessed more than one household employee leave my own parents' house in tears. Probably for making an unforgivable mistake like putting too much ice in my mom's cocktail."
* RoyaltiesHeir: Because Natalie's entrepreneur grandfather Neville Davenport, a former assistant pharmacist, invented a new toothpaste formula (which, for a while, was laced with sugar, which hastens tooth decay) and went on to found Davenport Toothpaste, which became the thirdlargest toothpaste business, after Colgate and Crest.
* SocialClimber: Of the snob variety. They grew rich on the toothpaste business and snub on "common" people (like Natalie's deceased husband Mitch), wishing Natalie to marry men from "good families", like her high-school StalkerWithACrush [[spoiler:and [[{{patricide}} murderer of]] [[{{matricide}} his parents]]]] next-door neighbour Paul Buchanan.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Lt. Amy Devlin]]
!!Lt. Amy Devlin
The officer who took over for Randy after he moved to New Jersey. A former undercover cop, Devlin is no-nonsense, independent, and not easily impressed. However, she does become a helpful ally.
----
* ActionGirl: As one would expect given that she used to work as an undercover officer, frequently alone, she can take care of herself in a fight. In one scene, she goes from pretending to sleep to reacting to and clobbering one of the perps of the week in a matter of seconds.
* CowboyCop: In ''Mr. Monk On the Couch'', she enlists Natalie's help in a risky operation to trap the perps, and in a later book, she compliments her for a sting she and Monk pulled which caused a lot of property damage.
* TheLadette: Natalie describes her in ''Literature/MrMonkOnTheCouch'' as having no femininity in her demeanor.
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: She can get violently aggressive over fairly small things and she doesn't appreciate Monk and Natalie's "interference". However, she has an unwavering sense of justice, unhesitatingly putting herself on the line to make sure a perp doesn't get away, and even though she doesn't like Monk, when she thinks he's suicidal in ''Literature/MrMonkIsAMess'', she immediately acts to save him.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:'''SPOILER CHARACTER''']]
!!Judge Ethan Rickover
->Played by: Creator/CraigTNelson

The final antagonist of the series. Rickover is a corrupt judge who had impregnated (Monk's future wife) Trudy with a bastard child, way back when he was her law professor in college. Years later, he conspired to have Trudy murdered just so that he could cover up his infidelity. But it's not until the series finale does Monk discover the whole truth about his wife's death.
----
* AmoralAttorney: Well, he's an Amoral Judge who planned a few murders while climbing up his way on the courtroom ladder. He's a terrifyingly extreme example of a [[VillainWithGoodPublicity trusted authority figure who's actually corrupt as all hell]].
* DrivenToSuicide: Knowing that his good reputation and courtroom career would be ended by the revelation of his own guilt in a murder plot, Rickover chooses to shoot himself dead instead of accepting arrest and prosecution for his crimes.
* DyingClue: "Take care of her!", just before he shoots himself with Monk's gun. This leads Monk to discover the illegitimate daughter Rickover had conceived with Trudy was still alive, having been given away for adoption and living totally unaware about the identity of her birth parents.
* FinalBoss: He's the last murderer whom Monk has to confront, investigate, and expose at the end of the series.
* GreaterScopeVillain: Although he only appears in the two-part series finale, he's first hinted at well before then. As the one responsible for Trudy's death and Monk's fall into depression, he's ultimately the GSV for the entire series.
* HeKnowsTooMuch: Killed Wendy Stroud, and hired a hitman to kill Malcolm Nash, to prevent either of them from revealing his affair with Trudy.
* KarmaHoudini: For most of the series, almost nobody was even aware that this man of justice was really a murderous criminal himself. Downplayed later on when Monk successfully exposes Rickover for what a scumbag he really is, however he commits suicide before the police can even get him.
* VillainWithGoodPublicity: He's a highly successful and respected judge on his way to the California Supreme Court... and a horrifyingly arrogant murderer willing to off ''anyone'' standing between himself and his career rise. Heck, if Monk hadn't caught him, it's highly likely he would've eventually ended up on the US Supreme Court!
[[/folder]]

* MonochromeCasting: Tony Shalhoub, though born in America, is Lebanese, but Monk is supposed to be white.

* HollywoodPersonalityDisorders: The way the show portrays OCD is incredibly inaccurate.
** Although the writers seem to realize this, and therefore Monk is explicitly identified as having OCD maybe only once across the entire series, with characters opting to call him simply "weird" or "persnickety" when explaining his disorder to others. It's heavily toted as OCD in promotional material, however.

* JerkWithAHeartOfGold / JerkWithAHeartOfJerk: Depending on the episode, she's either a through-and-through {{jerkass}} for the reasons under StrawCharacter below, or she shows a caring side toward Leland and other characters.

* ClingyJealousGirl / LoonyFan: Marci's obsession with Monk is almost like the obsessions of some Music/JustinBieber fans.

* ArbitrarySkepticism
* BadassMustache: He wears one with such pride that in "Mr. Monk and the Miracle", Monk has trouble recognizing him when he shaves it off and becomes a monk (the only way Monk can identify him is to use the feather on a quill). When Leland is out of action, Randy grows one in response. Monk and Natalie are dumbstruck when they first notice Randy with a beard (though this isn't unusual, as it was said that Randy had a mustache when he lived in Philadelphia). After Leland returns to the force, he gives Randy a safety razor as an implied way of ordering him to shave it off.

* TheCSIEffect: InUniverse, Stottlemeyer says he hates ''Series/{{CSI}}'' and personally wants to punch the person "who had the brilliant idea of doing a show that teaches crooks how to avoid being caught".

Stottlemeyer's right hand partner.

* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}
* CluelessDeputy

* FourTemperamentEnsemble: Sanguine

* IdiotBall: Born with one melded to his hands

* PlayingSick: In "Mr. Monk Goes to a Rock Concert".

* DrivesLikeCrazy: In "Mr. Monk and the Three Julies," Natalie "borrows" Captain Stottlemeyer's brand new Dodge Charger. The first time, she clips off the shotgun mirror, something Stottlemeyer can take in stride. The second time, the car's entire front end is torn up:

** DrivingTestSmashers

* GirlFriday

* BerserkButton: Natalie is mostly amused by Monk's eccentricities. However, a few of them can set her off, has a lot of buttons, a few of which Monk typically triggers on a regular basis, and a few of which are triggered by something else.

* CharacterNameAlias: In "Mr. Monk on Wheels", when knocking on John Kuramoto's door, Monk says, "Hello, Johnny! Open up, it's--it's Literature/EncyclopediaBrown! Sally and I want our blue bike back, and the name of your decorator."

* EvilIsPetty: It's not enough for Dale to have billions of dollars and control people's lives with a single phone call--he goes out of his way to be as mean-spirited and nasty as possible just because he can. His suing Trudy and the newspaper she worked for when he fully knew he would never win is a prime example (the whole point was to tie the case up in courts to force the Monks to bankruptcy); his murder of a Superior Court Judge who committed the "heinous" crime of ''ruling against him'' is another.

* ForTheEvulz: The whole reason Monk hates him. During her time as a newspaper reporter, Trudy wrote a critical piece on Dale, calling him "the Genghis Khan of world finance". Dale decided to sue both her and the paper for libel, knowing full well that he couldn't win the case; instead, he simply dragged out the issue long enough to force Adrian and Trudy to sell everything they owned, including their house, to cover court costs. To add insult to injury, he bought said house and used it to store his pornography collection.

* BadBoss: He frequently insults, manipulates and abuses his staff - even sexually, in his female employee’s case. In his first appearance, this leads [[TheDogBitesBackvto his undoing.]]

** It's particularly apparent in "Mr. Monk Meets Dale the Whale," his first episode. Dale orders Dr. Christaan Vezza, his personal physician, to murder Justice Catherine Lavinio. It turns out that "Vezza" is a disgraced former surgeon named Glen Sindell who operated on a child while under the influence of drugs and jumped bail; Biederbeck learned the truth and essentially enslaved Sindell for years. However, when Monk solves Lavinio's murder and the cops uncover Sindell's real identity, Dale never stops to consider that the doctor might turn against him and provide evidence to put the financier away...which is exactly what happens. Heck, the main reason the police are onto him at all is because he forced Vezza to make it look like he, Dale, was the actual culprit when due to his size he never could be, purely to show off how smart and untouchable he is- had he killed her more discreetly, he might have barely been a suspect.