History Fridge / Monk

** And that you can't just chuck psych meds- if you pan on going off of psych meds, there's a slow reduction in dosage you have to go through. Going off of them cold turkey can cause severe withdrawal symptoms, and in some severe occasions death.

* Throughout the series, Sharona and Natalie have to juggle their responsibilities to Monk with their responsibilities to their children, and while Monk is frequently whiny and demands far too much from both of them, every time Benjy/Julie has to be picked up from school or has an event or need that will take Sharona/Natalie away from Monk, there's never any question of them missing those events and Monk lets them leave whenever they need to attend to their children (an unusual situation for American employment, and especially notable with just how needy Monk is). We've seen that Monk had a very difficult relationship with his own emotionally-distant mother; apart from genuinely caring about Benjy and Julie, he's fascinated by Sharona's and Natalie's examples of affectionate, loving motherhood and won't stand in the way of their care for their children.

* In "Mr. Monk and the Red-headed Stranger", stottelmeyer tells Monk his suspects come down to two people: (A) the blind woman with no motive or (B) the [[TitleDrop Red-headed stranger]]. Monk chooses [[TakeAThirdOption (C)]], even though ''he'' doesn't know what "C" is yet. In a sense, there ''was'' a "C": the the [[ObfuscatingDisability not-so-blind]] woman who ''did'' have a motive.

* At first the reveal of Trudy's killer and his motive seemed to come out of nowhere, but in hindsight the point was that in the end [[spoiler:Rickover]] was really no different from all the other guys Monk imprisoned. He was just a petty individual who killed for petty reasons.

** Or because in "Mr. Monk and the Naked Man", we learn Monk's memory is so good that [[spoiler: his bias towards naked people stemmed from [[NoInfantileAmnesia the memory of his own birth]] ]]. Who can say his fear of milk doesn't stem from, say, [[spoiler: the memory of his mother nursing him?]]

* In "Mr. Monk Goes Home Again", Paul Gilstrap is dressed up as [[spoiler: Frankenstein's Monster for Halloween. This becomes surprisingly fitting when you consider that in the book, the monster committed premeditated murder as well.]] Ironically, [[spoiler: Frankenstein's monster managed to kill his creator's wife, whilst Gilstrap failed to even kill his own wife.]]

* In "Mr. Monk and the Bully", Monk ultimately [[spoiler: complains that he's getting the shorter end of the stick than his bully Roderick Brody. But if he opens his eyes, on three levels, things turned out for the better.]]
** For one, [[spoiler: Monk saved his bully's kindly wife, comparable to saving [[TheLostLenore Trudy]], from her evil twin.]]
** It's better that Monk [[spoiler: never got revenge on Roderick Brody ''by wrongfully convicting him'' because even he admit [[HeWhoFightsMonsters he felt like a ghoul]] for celebrating Roderick's wrongful conviction. Besides, if he had gone through with it, then a killer (the evil twin sister) would be [[KarmaHoudini walking free and enjoying the wealth she upended from her sister and brother-in-law.]]]]
** And if that doesn't satisfy, then think about this: [[spoiler: Roderick paid Monk to solve an infidelity case that never really happened, and Monk's actions may have prevented Roderick and his innocent wife from dying.]]

* Fridge-Heartwarming: [[spoiler: In "Mr. Monk in Group Therepy", Harold reveals that he sees Monk as a friend, even if [[JerkWithAHeartOfGold he's not good at showing it]]. It's possible that in "Mr. Monk fights City Hall", Harold might've convinced the council to name the playground after Trudy (even though she died in a hospital) in order to give Monk [[PetTheDog a consolation]] for losing the parking garage.]]
* In "Mr. Monk and the Red-headed Stranger", stottelmeyer tells Monk his suspects come down to two people: (A) the blind woman with no motive or (B) the [[TitleDrop Red-headed stranger]]. Monk chooses [[TakeAThirdOption (C)]], even though ''he'' doesn't know what "C" is yet. [[spoiler: In a sense, there ''was'' a "C": the the [[ObfuscatingDisability not-so-blind]] woman who ''did'' have a motive.]]

* Monk mentions a number of times that he and Trudy talked about having children and that she wanted a baby. [[spoiler:It's revealed in the finale that she had a child when she was younger and was told the child only lived for nine minutes. So it makes sense that she'd want to try again in order to have the life she was denied with her first child.]]

* Some people found it satisfying that the clue to Trudy's murder was [[spoiler:inside the last Christmas present Trudy gave him before her death]], but it's actually quite disturbing when you think about it. If Monk had [[spoiler:watched that video]] years ago, not only would he have solved the murder much sooner, but he would in fact have ''prevented [[spoiler:Rickover]] from being able to hire Joey Kazarinski to kill Dr. Malcolm Nash''.

* From "Mr. Monk and the Secret Santa": When Stottlemeyer opens the bottle of port, Randy comments how much he likes port, clearly hoping Stottlemeyer will give it to him. [[spoiler:Alice's]] plan came incredibly close to taking out Randy instead of the intended target.

* How was the killer in "Mr. Monk and the Miracle" not found out? [[spoiler:Only one person noticed him standing around painting on people's front doors? How was wife his able to watch that fountain round the clock for any customers who might come by? Wouldn't people notice that they didn't feel better after drinking from the fountain until they took their medicine? Also not one person or doctor noticed that it was only the customers of that pharmacy whose prescriptions weren't working?]]
** These all have potential explanations. [[spoiler:Yes, only one person noticed, or at the very least, [[FridgeHorror only one person noticed who got far enough away to alert his buddies]]. He had his wife watch, sure, but he also probably assumed that everyone he painted on the door of would go to the fountain and would just casually bring it up in conversation to see if they mention going to it. It's less that people didn't feel better until they took their medication, and more that they didn't feel better until the next morning, at which point there are plenty of things one could've done the previous day that would've helped, and "supposedly magical fountain water" stands out above "medication that hasn't worked yet". As for the last point, maybe it didn't get mentioned just under the assumption patients who didn't try the fountain would quietly change pharmacies or not bring it up.]]

* The murderer of the week in "Mr. Monk Goes Home Again," Paul Gilstrap, becomes one when you realize that his scheme to kill his wife involved poisoning her through a candy bar tainted with tetrachlorodrine, and to cover up his involvement, he tampered with numerous other candy bars with the intention that other victims would die and his wife's death would look like the work of a very anonymous serial killer. But imagine the potential that some of these would-be-victims could have been, especially since this episode takes place on Halloween, aka the day of the year where the most likely people eating those candy bars ''would have been children''. He could have ended up inadvertently killing a bunch of kids while using the anonymous serial killer scheme to cover up his involvement in his wife's death had the scheme gone off without a hitch.

In "Mr. Monk and the Critic," the men's room attendant is attacked by the Critic and is taken to the ER. We never hear about him for the rest of the episode. As a result, we don't know if he survives.

* The murderer of the week in "Mr. Monk Goes Home Again," Paul Gilstrap, becomes one when you realize that his scheme to kill his wife involved poisoning her through a candy bar tainted with tetrachlorodrine, and to cover up his involvement, he tampered with numerous other candy bars with the intention that other victims would die and his wife's death would look like the work of a very anonymous serial killer. But imagine the potential that some of these would-be-victims could have been children, especially since this episode takes place on Halloween, aka the day of the year where the most likely people eating those candy bars ''would have been children''. He could have ended up inadvertently killing a bunch of kids while using the anonymous serial killer scheme to cover up his involvement in his wife's death had the scheme gone off without a hitch.
** What could make this even worse is that we don't even know ''why'' he wants to kill his wife. Sure, most of the time on ''Monk'', people kill their spouse so they can be with a lover/have their spouse's money without needing a divorce. For all we know in this case, Paul may just be killing his wife and dragging whoever else eats those candy bars down with her ''purely out of spite''.

* In "Mr. Monk Goes to a Wedding," Lieutenant Bristo comments that he's "glad he's on our team" after Monk makes a particularly impressive deduction. What if Monk ''wasn't'' on their team? Any villain with Monk in their pocket could probably get away with any crime they cared to commit.

* In “Mr. Monk land the Twelfth Man”, Monk is after someone who murdered TWELVE people. You would think such a premise belongs on a gritty crime drama like the “Law and Order” franchise, but here it is on a comedic detective show.

* In “Mr. Monk land the Twelfth Man”, Monk is after someone murdered TWELVE people. You would think such a premise belongs on a gritty crime drama like the “Law and Order” franchise, but here it is on a comedic detective show.

* In “Mr. Monk land the Twelfth Man”, Monk is after someone murdered ELEVEN people. You would think such a premise belongs on a gritty crime drama like the “Law and Order” franchise, but here it is on a comedic detective show.