History YMMV / Monk

** Monk being mysophobic and scared of getting sick became this when Tony Shalhoub revealed that he and his wife contracted COVID-19 in 2020, albeit a mild form and they are recovering nicely.

** [[FatBastard Dale J. Biederbeck III]], a.k.a. Dale "the Whale", is an overweight, wealthy sociopath who serves as Adrian Monk's [[ArchEnemy most personal, recurring foe]]. So rich that he sacrifices millions in exchange for ruining the lives of others just for spite and fun, Dale's [[Recap/MonkS1E3MrMonkMeetsDaleTheWhale first appearance]] sees him orchestrate the murder of a judge who crossed him in the past via beating her to death with a baseball bat. Though put in prison for this crime, Dale [[Recap/MonkS2E16MrMonkGoesToJail later]] kills one of his own partners and frames Monk for it, then [[Recap/MonkS6E15MrMonkIsOnTheRun schemes]] to bomb a parade and kill the Governor of California so as to facilitate his release, uncaring of the innocents who will die in the bombing. Dale returns one last time in the novel ''Literature/MrMonkGetsEven'', where Dale uses an [[MonsterFangirl acolyte fangirl]] to cause a horrific traffic accident that kills four people and leaves dozens in critical condition before having her kill herself in his name, all as part of an elaborate attempt to escape custody. Dale never passes on a chance to psychologically torture and sadistically mock anyone vulnerable he can, and [[CardCarryingVillain happily embraces]] being called an "odious, gluttonous, putrid freak of nature."

** Creator/RayPorter, the third actor for Dale the Whale, went on to voice ComicBook/{{Darkseid}} in ''Film/ZackSnydersJusticeLeague''.

* WhatAnIdiot: In ''Mr. Monk Is On Board'', Natalie goes to a support group for struggling businesses, and one of them is the owner of a site called [=AmishMingle.com=]. Really? Someone had actually created an Internet dating service for the world’s Amish population, a religious sect that doesn’t even use electricity, much less Wi-Fi.

** Dale J. Biederbeck III, aka [[FatBastard Dale "the Whale"]], is an overweight, wealthy sociopath who serves as Adrian Monk's [[ArchEnemy most personal, recurring foe]]. So rich that he sacrifices millions in exchange for ruining the lives of others just for spite and fun, Dale's [[Recap/MonkS1E3MrMonkMeetsDaleTheWhale first appearance]] sees him orchestrate the murder of a judge who crossed him in the past via beating her to death with a baseball bat. Though put in prison for this crime, Dale [[Recap/MonkS2E16MrMonkGoesToJail later]] kills one of his own partners and frames Monk for it, then [[Recap/MonkS6E15MrMonkIsOnTheRun schemes]] to bomb a parade and kill the Governor of California so as to facilitate his release, uncaring of the innocents who will die in the bombing. Dale returns one final time in the novel ''Literature/MrMonkGetsEven'', where Dale uses an [[MonsterFangirl acolyte fangirl]] to cause a horrific traffic accident that kills four people and leaves dozens in critical condition before having her kill herself in his name, all as part of an elaborate attempt to escape custody. Dale never passes on a chance to psychologically torture and sadistically mock anyone vulnerable he can, and [[CardCarryingVillain happily embraces]] being called an "odious, gluttonous, putrid freak of nature."

** In ''Mr. Monk Is Cleaned Out'', Lee Goldberg has FunWithPalindromes in Bob Sebes, an Expy of the original Bernard Madoff.

* HollywoodHomely: When discussing the possibility that the younger man who married Randy's mother could really love her Randy pulls out a picture and the other characters' reactions imply that she must be hideous (Randy even suggests he loves his mother but doesn't know how anyone else could). When the character later turns up (in the same episode, so this is not a case of a retcon) she looks like a perfectly normal woman.

* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot: In ''Mr. Monk Takes the Stand'', they make it seem like Monk is going to take on Harrison Powell by recognizing his "curveball", making a nice MeaningfulEcho to Dr. Bell's story about learning from failure earlier in the episode. [[UnderStatement That doesn't happen]].
* UnintentionallyUnsympathetic: In "Mr. Monk and the Red-Headed Stranger," it's revealed that the blind woman Mrs. Mass killed Jason "Sonny" Cross and falsely implicated Willie Nelson for the crime. It's also established that her motive was getting even with Sonny because he killed her parents in a DUI crash in the 1980s and got a light sentence for it. Where the trope comes into play is that Mrs. Mass's actions were worse than anything Sonny Cross did. It is clear that Cross's actions were stupid, irresponsible and criminal, and the outcome of his actions was a tragedy, but he didn't intentionally go out and murder anyone. He wasn't even in his right mind, and we don't know anything about the trial. He may have pleaded guilty or no contest to two counts of vehicular manslaughter. Mrs. Mass, on the other hand, committed premeditated murder and then allowed an innocent man to be blamed (and perhaps even would have allowed him to be convicted) for her crime. She wasn't proclaiming Willie Nelson's innocence. She claimed that she "heard" Willie Nelson's voice during the murder of Jason Cross. That's not justice. That's a crime in its own right. In fact, she should have gotten ''more time'' for giving false evidence and trying to convict an innocent man of murder instead of the "extenuating circumstances" that Stottlemeyer was talking about. However, this is arguably mitigated by the heavy implication that Sonny Cross didn't regret his actions one bit (especially since he was also a career embezzler), not to mention that the only "leniency" she requests is simply to serve her sentence in a private, windowed cell (though trying to frame Nelson was still a jerk move).

* TheWoobie: Monk's cringing and general pitifulness when being confronted with one of his phobias generate an instant oh-the-poor-thing factor and tend to put one in mind of a small child or bewildered dog; on top of that, cruel minor characters unacquainted with Monk are always around to mock him, stare at him, or try to forcibly make him "get over" his fears. It's almost painful to watch, even when played for laughs as it usually is. ([[PoorCommunicationKills For some reason]], neither Monk nor Natalie/Sharona ever bother to explain Monk's OCD, instead describing him as being "particular" or something similarly vague; thus, the other characters are rarely sympathetic to or accommodating of his problems.)

** In "Mr. Monk Goes To A Fashion Show," Monk is revealed to send letters of praise to his favorite clothing inspector, who happens to be a mother who wants to clear her son's name, and she even happily frames and mounts the letters he sends her.

** In "Mr. Monk Goes To A Fashion Show," Monk is revealed to send letters of praise to his favorite clothing inspector people. One of them, a mother who wants to clear her son's name, even happily frames and mounts the letters he sends her.

* AntiClimax: Considering Trudy's death is ThatOneCase for Monk, the fact that it was [[spoiler:caused by Trudy's [[TheDogWasTheMastermind previously never mentioned or hinted at]] college professor turned judge, who was trying to save his job]] is kind of a letdown, as it means that Monk's nemesis [[ArchEnemy Dale]] [[FatBastard the Whale]] turns out to be a RedHerring, plus Monk doesn't even get a chance to bring the killer to justice as [[spoiler: he kills himself rather than go to prison.]] Then again, having it be Dale the Whale would have been an anti-climax in itself since he is a known criminal with means and motive to hurt Trudy.

** "[[Recap/MonkS4E2MrMonkGoesHomeAgain Mr. Monk Goes Home Again]]": Paul Gilstrap is a lab technician seeking to [[TilMurderDoUsPart poison his wife]]. Knowing she enjoys Neptune Bars before bed, Gilstrap not only [[TamperingWithFoodAndDrink poisons one]] but, [[SerialKillingsSpecificTarget to make it look like she was randomly victimized by a serial killer]], poisons multiple other candy bars and distributes them throughout a store to kill many other people. Caught putting the poison at work back, Gilchrist tries to take the bars before seeing one man had eaten one and murdering him with a gun to deflect suspicion from the poison in the autopsy.

** ''Literature/MrMonkAndTheTwoAssistants'': [[MadArtist Ian Ludlow]] is a {{narcissist}}ic crime novelist who gets "inspiration" for his books by befriending his fans, murdering them, then participating in the ensuing investigations so as to [[FrameUp frame]] "the least likely suspect" for the crimes. Ludlow has killed at least five people over the years, always pinning the murders on total innocents and getting them locked away, and continues his spree in the present as he kills another fan by bashing her skull in. After murdering another man by ripping him apart while drowning him, Ludlow tries to frame Monk's closest friends and assistants, Sharona and Natalie, as the killers just to torment Monk and make a more interesting "twist" for the book he plans to write.

** Creator/JenniferLawrence plays the Cougars mascot girl in "Mr. Monk and the Big Game". This was actually her first SAG credited role. She's said in an interview that she thought that she was going to be one of the girls on the team, and was kind of disappointed that she was going to be in the mascot suit for most of her scenes. They didn't even give her character a name, so Natalie just called her Jen in the locker room scene.

* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot: In ''Mr. Monk Takes the Stand'', we could've seen Monk take one of Harrison Powell's slick cross-examination questions ("Are you an expert in this thing, you clearly aren't?") and asked a question that revealed the fallacy in it ("Are ''you''?"), making a nice MeaningfulEcho to Dr. Bell's story about learning from failure and recognizing your opponent's "curveball".

** Monk, OCD notwithstanding, can occasionally cross the line such as in "Mr. Monk and the Garbage Strike," where he's willing to rule an obvious murder as a suicide just to get striking sanitation workers back to the table or even mailing his garbage to his therapist's address just he won't have it in his house.

** On the show itself, Monk's germophobia is tolerated, with Natalie getting wipes for him and disliking the one time he got sick. During a 2020 reunion video for Peacock, titled "Monk in Quarantine," Stottlemeyer admits that Monk had the right idea because he was cleaning his hands and sterilizing everything long before the pandemic. To add to the icing on the cake, Monk asks Natalie for a wipe and she points out that she's at home and can't give him one; Monk also reveals he has seven cases of hand sanitizer that he stored before COVID.

* CrazyAwesome: "It's a gift... and a curse." In "Mr. Monk and the Red Herring", Monk goes to a museum and sees the body of a caveman that supposedly froze to death. Monk determines that he was actually murdered and actually figured out what happened. We never actually get to hear it, but suffice it to say Monk is a really good detective to solve a 30,000 year old murder.

** Monk prevents Kevin Dorfman from being killed in "Mr. Monk and the Paperboy" but his effort turns out to be in vain when Kevin is later murdered in "Mr. Monk and the Magician".

* SuccessThroughInsanity: The premise is that Adrian Monk's obsessive-compulsive disorder allows him to notice details that normal people would miss, allowing him to solve crimes that stump the police.

* UnintentionallySympathetic: Some of Monk's OCD tendencies, such as wiping after a handshake and cleaning obsessively, have become this in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. It even gets lampshaded in "Monk in Quarantine."

** In "Mr. Monk Goes To A Fashion Show," Monk is revealed to send letters of praise to his favorite dry-cleaning people. One of them, a mother who wants to clear her son's name, even happily frames and mounts the letters he sends her.

* UnintentionallySympathetic:
** Some of Monk's OCD tendencies, such as wiping after a handshake and cleaning obsessively, have become this in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. It even gets lampshaded in "Monk in Quarantine."
* UnintentionallyUnsympathetic:
** In "Mr. Monk and the Red-Headed Stranger," it's revealed that the blind woman Mrs. Mass killed Jason "Sonny" Cross and falsely implicated Willie Nelson for the crime. It's also established that her motive was getting even with Sonny because he killed her parents in a DUI crash in the 1980s and got a light sentence for it. Where the trope comes into play is that Mrs. Mass's actions were worse than anything Sonny Cross did. It is clear that Cross's actions were stupid, irresponsible and criminal, and the outcome of his actions was a tragedy, but he didn't intentionally go out and murder anyone. He wasn't even in his right mind, and we don't know anything about the trial. He may have pleaded guilty or no contest to two counts of vehicular manslaughter. Mrs. Mass, on the other hand, committed premeditated murder and then allowed an innocent man to be blamed (and perhaps even would have allowed him to be convicted) for her crime. She wasn't proclaiming Willie Nelson's innocence. She claimed that she "heard" Willie Nelson's voice during the murder of Jason Cross. That's not justice. That's a crime in its own right. In fact, she should have gotten ''more time'' for giving false evidence and trying to convict an innocent man of murder instead of the "extenuating circumstances" that Stottlemeyer was talking about. However, this is arguably mitigated by the heavy implication that Sonny Cross didn't regret his actions one bit (especially since he was also a career embezzler), not to mention that the only "leniency" she requests is simply to serve her sentence in a private, windowed cell (though trying to frame Nelson was still a jerk move).

* {{Adorkable}}: Monk gets adorably gleeful in "Mr. Monk and the Badge" after it sinks in that he's been accepted back onto the force.

CompleteMonster:

** Some of the deaths count as this, such as "Mr. Monk Goes Back to School", "Mr. Monk and the Employee of the Month", and "Mr. Monk and the Class Reunion", as well as the attempted death in the opening scene from "Mr. Monk and the Captain's Marriage".

** ''Literature/MrMonkOnTheRoad'': [[SiblingsInCrime The Zarkin sisters]], Bessie, Gertie and Mabel, are a trio of life-loving, quirky [[EvilOldFolks old women]] who have been traveling along the United States. In reality, the Zarkin sisters [[ThrillSeeker have as much zeal for death as life]], having murdered people across the country for years while Bessie [[TheFamilyThatSlaysTogether uses her son as a proxy]] to regularly commit hit-and-runs states away. The Zarkin sisters have the highest body count of any killer Adrian has ever put away, with dozens of [[CreepySouvenir knickknacks]] seen in their trailer, each a trophy from an individual victim.

** Some of Monk's OCD tendencies, such as wiping after a handshake and cleaning obsessively, have become this in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. It even gest lampshaded in "Monk in Quarantine."