History YMMV / Monk

* AmbiguousDisorder: While Adrian Monk does have several symptoms of OCD (germaphobia, compulsive behaviors), he also exhibits symptoms of other mental and behavioral disorders, like autism, that don't necessarily fit with OCD. When Natalie explains Monk's odd behavior to others, she occasionally describes him as "persnickity".

* In "Mr. Monk and Little Monk", the camera zooms in on Monk's junior high school photo; the episode goes on to show that Monk developed his abilities as a detective at an early age. The name of his next classmate in alphabetical order? "Robert Mueller."

** 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 [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4W2xmqjvx4 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.

* InformedWrongness: In "Mr. Monk is Someone Else," Monk is apparently supposed to be in the wrong for rudely dismissing and pushing away Harold Krenshaw, while undercover as a hit man right in front of the men who hired him, which nearly blew his cover.

** The combined DVD boxsets for a show about a guy with SuperOCD have [[https://i.imgur.com/q76GLjc.jpg one with a different design from the others.]] Probably intentional, as people who have the same SuperOCD as Monk himself will either laugh or cry.

* BigLippedAlligatorMoment: Alice Cooper's cameo in "Mr. Monk and the Garbage Strike"

** ''Literature/MrMonkOnTheCouch'': Rico Ramirez is [[AxCrazy a savage animal of a thug]] responsible for a series of violent assaults years ago to get away with a couch full of diamonds. Released on bail from his initial imprisonment, Ramirez rampages in an effort to track the diamonds down, unnecessarily and brutally murdering two people who had bought the couch. Ramirez then tracks down his old girlfriend and tortures her to death, working at her with a knife and cigarettes before finally asphyxiating her. Ramirez is finally interrupted in the process of a furious attempted fourth murder.

** [[CorruptCorporateExecutive 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/MonkS6E15MrMonkIsOnTheRun later]] kills one of his own partners and frames Monk for it, then 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 happily embraces being called an "odious, gluttonous, putrid freak of nature."
** "[[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, Gilstrap 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.
** "[[Recap/MonkS4E7MrMonkGoesToAWedding Mr. Monk Goes to a Wedding]]": "Theresa Scott" is a BlackWidow murderer trying to marry into Natalie's family via her brother Jonathan. In truth, Theresa has a habit of marrying wealthy men, murdering them, and vanishing, with at least three prior victims. When a photographer notices something awry, Theresa knocks him over the head and leaves him to drown in a mudbath before trying to kill a private eye who was working a previous husband's case. Finally caught, she tries to hold a knife to Jonathan's throat to make good on her escape.
** ''Literature/MrMonkAndTheTwoAssistants'': [[MadArtist Ian Ludlow]] is a {{narcissist}} 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.

* IdiotPlot:
** "Mr. Monk and the Foreign Man" relies on everyone being a complete idiot, even for the character development Monk gets. The crime in question goes like this: restaurant owner Kenneth Nichols drunk dials a friend of his who happens to be on vacation while he's driving. However, said friend left his cell phone at home, so the housekeeper answered. Nichols runs over a visiting Nigerian woman while he's talking, so he then proceeds to drive over to the friend's house and kill the housekeeper to cover up evidence of vehicular manslaughter. Where it becomes an idiot plot is this:
*** The fact that Nichols runs over a woman in his delivery van, that has the name of his business "Le Poisson Bleu" on it in great big letters at 8:15 PM, while recklessly driving down a busy street (and under the influence of alcohol) and he thinks nobody is going to notice. More so, he thinks the broken headlight is going to be the dead giveaway, as opposed to, say, the words "La Poisson Bleu" written in big ass letters so conspicuous that even a stoned slacker sees them.
*** That says nothing of the unseen Sergeant Kramer who was in charge of the hit and run investigation and failed to find that the tire tracks were made by a van or the shattered headlight glass left in the street, or failed to realize that there was a gas station nearby with potential witnesses and security cameras.
*** Plus the fact that Ansara Waingaya steps into the crosswalk the moment the cross street's light turns red, when common sense dictates that you should look both ways before crossing to make sure that traffic on the cross street actually stops, or at the very least, notices you.

** [[CorruptCorporateExecutive 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 happily embraces being called an "odious, gluttonous, putrid freak of nature."

** "[[Recap/MonkS3E6MrMonkAndTheGirlWhoCriedWolf Mr. Monk and the Girl who Cried Wolf]]": Creative writing teacher Meredith Preminger conspires with her lover to kill her husband for the insurance money, which is mundane in itself. But she gets the method from a story that Sharona wrote. In order to discredit Sharona, the couple {{gaslight|ing}} her by making her think she's seeing a dead man, a scheme that relies on painful memories Sharona shared with Preminger in a personal essay for class.

** In ''Mr. Monk and the Game Show'', the killer game show host is played by Creator/JohnMichaelHiggins. Fast forward to 2018 and he is hosting a game show on the Game Show Network called ''America Says''.

** Monk, OCD notwithstanding, can occasionally cross the line. Monk's more unsympathetic moments also generally tend to come during a particularly trying period of psychological strain for him (the former moments come during a major garbage strike which is shown to be close to hell for a phobic OCD patient like Monk), thus offering at least some mitigation.

** 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. Though in that episode they make it clear that Monk's behavior is unacceptable, with Natalie and Dr. Kroger both calling him out. Monk's more unsympathetic moments also generally tend to come during a particularly trying period of psychological strain for him (the former moments come during a major garbage strike which is shown to be close to hell for a phobic OCD patient like Monk), thus offering at least some mitigation.

** 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. Though in that episode they make it clear that Monk's behavior is unacceptable, with Natalie and Dr. Kroger both calling him out.

** How many of Monk's oddities stem from mental conditions, and how many are brought about as a result of past trauma? His mother is shown to be standoffish and stern in flashbacks (preferring a handshake to a hug), his father left early on, and Leland mentions Monk's fears weren't nearly as bad as now while Trudy was alive.

** "[[Recap/MonkS2E9MrMonkAndThe12thMan Mr. Monk and the 12th Man]]":Stewart Babcock murders his first wife 6 years before the episode is set. A couple of years after that he gets sued by a roofer who fell from his house. The court case gets a jury which visits his house and when a juror finds Stewart's murdered wife he starts blackmailing Stewart. Over time the jurors demands become excessive so Stewart decides to murder the entire jury since he doesn't know which one is blackmailing him. His methods include shooting,strangling and even DRAGGING a victim to death. By the time his spree is over Stewart has killed a total of 12 people.

** "
[[Recap/MonkS2E9MrMonkAndThe12thMan Mr. Monk and the 12th Man]]":Stewart Babcock murders his first wife 6 years before the episode is set. A couple of years after that he gets sued by a roofer who fell from his house. The court case gets a jury which visits his house and when a juror finds Stewart's murdered wife he starts blackmailing Stewart. Over time the jurors demands become excessive so Stewart decides to murder the entire jury since he doesn't know which one is blackmailing him. His methods include shooting,strangling and even DRAGGING a victim to death. By the time his spree is over Stewart has killed a total of 12 people.

** "[[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, Gilstrap 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.

*** The same episode features Mary Mouser, who starred in a [[Series/CobraKai different]] franchise about [[TheKarateKid]].