List of Monk characters

This is a list of characters in the USA Network original comedy-drama TV series, Monk.

Except for a few changes during the series, the principal cast remained consistent. For the first three seasons Sharona Fleming was Monk's assistant. She left to re-marry her ex-husband. The following season, she was replaced by Natalie Teeger, who was Monk's assistant for the remainder of the series. Also, the first actor (Stanley Kamel) who portrayed Monk's therapist—Dr. Charles Kroger—died of a heart attack in April 2008 during the production hiatus in between seasons six and seven. That character was replaced by Dr. Neven Bell (Hector Elizondo), who remained for the final two seasons.

Despite their names seen in the opening credits, Ted Levine and Jason Gray-Stanford had occasional absences in a few episodes of the series. Subsequently, this means that Tony Shalhoub is the only cast member to appear in all 125 episodes.

Main characters

Name	Portrayed by	Occupation/Status	Seasons
			1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
Adrian Monk	Tony Shalhoub	SFPD police detective; now private consultant	Main
Sharona Fleming	Bitty Schram	Monk's former nurse and assistant (1998–2004)	Main			N/A				Recurring
Natalie Teeger	Traylor Howard	Monk's personal assistant	N/A		Main
Captain Leland Stottlemeyer	Ted Levine	SFPD police captain: Robbery and Homicide Division	Main
Lieutenant Randall "Randy" Disher	Jason Gray-Stanford	SFPD police lieutenant: Robbery and Homicide Division (until 2009)	Main

Secondary characters

Julie Teeger

Julie Teeger
First appearance	"Mr. Monk and the Red Herring"
Last appearance	"Mr. Monk and the End - Part I" "Mr. Monk and the End - Part II" (flashback only)
Portrayed by	Emmy Clarke (2005–2009)
Information
Gender	Female
Family	Natalie Teeger (mother) Mitch Teeger (father; deceased)

Julie Teeger (played by Emmy Clarke) is Natalie's teenage daughter. Julie, like her mother, was introduced to the show during the season three episode "Mr. Monk and the Red Herring", where Julie bonds with Monk after he rescues her pet fish, Mr. Henry, dubbed "the world's oldest marble fish". Natalie and Julie fill the gap left when Sharona left Monk and went with Benjy to remarry her ex-husband. In that episode, Julie is 11 years old. Since then, Julie has appeared in many episodes of the show, usually in minor roles, with a few exceptions:

In the season four episode "Mr. Monk Goes to a Fashion Show", Julian Hodge (Malcolm McDowell) invites Julie to participate in his fashion show, despite Monk discovering that Hodge murdered models Clea Vance and Natasia Zorelle.

In the season five episode "Mr. Monk and the Big Game", Julie and her friends on the high school basketball team hire Monk to investigate when their basketball coach, Lynn Hayden is found electrocuted to death in the locker room following a practice. They (correctly) suspect that this was no accident. Natalie temporarily coaches the team with Monk as the assistant coach.

Julie plays a critical role in the season six episode "Mr. Monk and the Birds and the Bees", in which Monk has to give her "the talk" when she starts dating Clay Bridges, who then reveals that he was paid by Julie's (fictitious) Aunt Karen to go out with her. "Karen" is revealed to be the girlfriend of sports agent Rob Sherman, who killed his wife and a career burglar named Dewey Jordan in a staged break-in. He had his girlfriend pose as Julie's aunt because it turns out that Sherman saw a T-shirt with a photo of Julie and her previous boyfriend Tim Sussman, in which he and Dewey are conversing in the background. The episode makes Julie have an even more integral role.

In the season six episode "Mr. Monk and the Three Julies", it is revealed that Julie has received her driver's license. After two other women with the name 'Julie Teeger' are killed, Natalie's Julie is the only person with this name within 1,000 miles. In the same episode, it is revealed that Julie was named for Mitch's aunt, who was a war correspondant in Vietnam.

In the season seven episode "Mr. Monk is Underwater", it is stated that her age is seventeen.

She is later shown to be trying to become an actress, with the beautiful voice of her performance being the key to proving that theater critic John Hannigan snuck out and killed his girlfriend Callie Esterhaus during a theater performance in the season eight episode "Mr. Monk and the Critic".

In "Mr. Monk and the End, Part One" it is revealed that she is going to the University of California at Berkeley to study Theatre Arts, and that even though she will only be a half-hour away from San Francisco, she will not stay living at home.

Julie also appears in the tie-in series of novels by Lee Goldberg. Her role in the books is minor, but occasionally sometimes (whether knowingly or not) gives Monk crucial information that is key to solving a murder case:

• In Mr. Monk Goes to the Firehouse, when a firehouse dog named Sparky is murdered, Julie hires Monk to investigate pro bono.
• In Mr. Monk and the Blue Flu, Julie is shown to be a brand-savvy girl. Her attention to brands and fashion styles gives Monk a crucial clue in tracking down a serial killer.
• In Mr. Monk and the Two Assistants, Julie breaks her wrist during a soccer game and is taken to the hospital. She subsequently pays to have a local pizzeria advertise on her cast, which Monk uses to prove that mystery writer Ian Ludlow killed a local shoe salesman and tried to frame Natalie for it.

Charles Kroger

Dr. Charles Kroger
First appearance	"Mr. Monk and the Candidate (Part One)"
Last appearance	"Mr. Monk Paints His Masterpiece" "Mr. Monk and the End - Part II" (flashback only)
Portrayed by	Stanley Kamel (2002–2008)
Information
Occupation	Psychiatrist
Spouse(s)	Madeline Kroger
Children	Troy Kroger

Dr. Charles Kroger (played by Stanley Kamel) is Monk's psychiatrist from the first six seasons. (Stanley Kamel died at the age of 65 in 2008 after suffering a heart attack, while Monk was on hiatus.)

Dr. Kroger serves as the closest thing to a rock for Monk. While he does engage in routine talk therapy, he does not prescribe an SSRI medication—which is a method used by most psychiatrists to treat OCD in normal people—because Adrian doesn't like to take drugs, and when he does, it can have unintended consequences. Case in point: in the episode "Mr. Monk Takes His Medicine", Dr. Kroger prescribes for Monk a new medication called Dioxynl, which while relieving him of his phobias also impairs his detective skills.

Dr. Kroger is instrumental in trying to get Monk reinstated as a detective, while discussing his problems and progress as a person. In the novel Mr. Monk and the Blue Flu, Natalie describes Dr. Kroger as being very relaxed towards everything (she notes that she could easily walk into his office with a monkey on her head and a ratchet in her chest and he wouldn't be the least bit disturbed).

Most of Dr. Kroger's scenes help move Monk's character forward. Similarly, Dr. Kroger has also (usually unintentionally) helped Monk solve several cases. In the season five episode "Mr. Monk Gets a New Shrink", he temporarily retires when Teresa Mueller, his cleaning lady, is found stabbed to death in his office, especially since the police believe that one of his patients was responsible. However, Monk soon finds that the cleaning lady was killed by drug trafficker Francis Merrigan, who also owns an office in Dr. Kroger's building.

Dr. Kroger is also the subject of an ongoing feud between Monk and Harold Krenshaw, another patient with similar problems. While very forgiving, even Dr. Kroger gets fed up with Monk from time to time, most heavily demonstrated in "Mr. Monk and the Sleeping Suspect", where Dr. Kroger comes back from vacation in Costa Rica and sees Monk standing outside his home. Dr. Kroger simply instructs the cab driver to just keep driving and he keeps his head low to avoid Monk. On another occasion, in the season five episode "Mr. Monk and the Garbage Strike", when the city stops collecting garbage, a desperate Monk sends his garbage to Dr. Kroger's house. When questioned about it, Monk denies it until Dr. Kroger tells him that this garbage has his handwriting on the label and has been sorted according to color and food groups.

On the other hand, there have also been several cases in which Dr. Kroger has been the only person capable of getting through to Monk during difficult situations, such as when Monk was brainwashed by Ralph Roberts (Howie Mandel) in the season 6 episode "Mr. Monk Joins a Cult".

It was revealed in the season three episode "Mr. Monk and the Election" that Dr. Kroger is married and has children (a son) and is Jewish (Stanley Kamel also happens to be Jewish). In the first episode of the season five, "Mr. Monk and the Actor", Monk wants to take up the entire week with therapy sessions. Dr. Kroger says he does not like working on the weekends so he can spend time with his wife and kids. In "Mr. Monk Gets a New Shrink", it is revealed that he has a wife, Madeline, and a rebellious adolescent son, Troy, who denies that he is their child.

Note: The season seven episode "Mr. Monk Buys a House" was dedicated to Stanley Kamel's memory.

Troy Kroger

Troy Kroger (portrayed by Cody McCains) is the son of Dr. Kroger, with whom he has a stormy relationship. The season five episode "Mr. Monk Gets a New Shrink" reveals that Charles has been forced to take a paternity test three times at the "request" of his son. Troy calls his parents by their first names and has been arrested by Lieutenant Disher at least once before (when Randy asks Troy if he has kept out of trouble, Troy says "no").

Troy later appears in the season six episode "Mr. Monk and the Buried Treasure", in which, while skateboarding with his friends Ridley and Pez, one of their skateboards hits the side of a parked car. When they go to apologize to Tony Gamelobo, the driver, they find him dead of a heart attack, and also find a map in the back of his car that leads to what they think is buried treasure. He and his friends ask Monk to help them, saying it is a school project. Monk agrees to help them, and they eventually find it at a quarry. Monk, however, later discovers he's been tricked when he learns that Tony Gamelobo was one of the bank robbers in a robbery that happened the day before he was discovered. When he and Troy go back out to the quarry in question, a bulldozer driven by crooked bank manager Steven Connolly buries them alive, and Monk and Troy nearly get suffocated. After they are rescued, it becomes clear that Troy has a better relationship with his father, and is planning to follow his father and study psychology in college. While buried alive, Troy also keeps Monk calm while they wait for help.

Neven Bell

Neven Bell
First appearance	"Mr. Monk Buys a House"
Last appearance	"Mr. Monk and the End - Part II"
Portrayed by	Héctor Elizondo (2008–2009)
Information
Gender	Male
Occupation	Therapist

Dr. Neven Bell (portrayed by Héctor Elizondo) is Monk's new therapist beginning in the season seven premiere "Mr. Monk Buys a House". His part was created to replace the role of Dr. Kroger, due to Stanley Kamel's death from a heart attack.

Though Monk is skeptical of his new therapist at first, Dr. Bell is able to win his confidence though several small gestures: he begins the appointment at the exact second it was scheduled and has Monk's favorite bottled water available, a supply of wipes handy during their introductory handshake, and a painting in his office which previously belonged to the late Dr. Kroger.

Additionally, before the first session, Natalie points out that Dr. Bell's first name (Neven) is a palindrome (the name doesn't change even when spelled backwards) as a comfort to Monk. Monk, however, points out that it isn't a "perfect" palindrome (the first "N" is capitalized). Dr. Bell also uses his past baseball experiences when talking with Monk.^[1]

In "Mr. Monk Buys a House", Natalie describes Dr. Bell as a psychiatric genius, and mentions that he has written five books and teaches at Stanford University. Later, in "Mr. Monk Gets Lotto Fever", when Monk confides how he loathes Natalie getting more attention than him, Dr. Bell is forced to admit that he became a bit of a diva when he wrote a book on body language. The episode "Mr. Monk Fights City Hall" reveals that he served on the city council in Tulsa, Oklahoma, but got bored with the job and started sending his secretary as his proxy.

Dale "The Whale" Biederbeck

Dale J. Biederbeck III
Adam Arkin as Dale the Whale
First appearance	"Mr. Monk Meets Dale the Whale"
Last appearance	"Mr. Monk Is On the Run (Part Two)"
Portrayed by	Adam Arkin (2002) Tim Curry (2004) Ray Porter (2008)
Information
Aliases	Dale "The Whale" Biederbeck
Occupation	Financier

Dale J. Biederbeck III, better known as Dale "The Whale", is a recurring villain, appearing in three episodes. In the first season, he is played by Adam Arkin, in the second by Tim Curry, and in the sixth by Ray Porter, all of them wearing fat suits.

Dale is a very rich and well-connected financier, who is arrogant, brilliant, and ruthless. Monk claims that Biederbeck owns "half the city" of San Francisco, and has an option on the other half. He gets his nickname from his morbid obesity.

In "Mr. Monk Meets Dale the Whale", Dr. Christiaan Vezza, Dale's physician, gives a general idea of how Dale got to be where he is: it seems that when he first moved into his apartment, he weighed 400 pounds, and on a good day, he could still see his toes. But after his mother died, he started binging, ordering everything on restaurant menus. He eventually topped out at 900 pounds about 11 years before the events of the episode, and has been bedridden ever since. In his first and second appearances, he weighs upwards of 800 pounds, or 360 kilograms, and is unable to leave his bed. By the time of his third appearance in "Mr. Monk Is On The Run, Part II", he has lost enough weight to get around in a wheelchair.

In his first appearance, "Mr. Monk Meets Dale the Whale", Biederbeck is the primary suspect in the slaying of Catherine Lavinio, a superior court judge who issued a costly antitrust ruling against him. Several clues point to him being the killer, but it seems impossible because he is incapable of leaving his bedroom (he's basically a ship in a bottle). It turns out instead that he ordered his private doctor, Dr. Christaan Vezza/Glenn Sindell, to murder the judge and make the evidence point to Biederbeck. It is also revealed in this episode that Monk harbors a severe hatred of Biederbeck, who sued Trudy and her newspaper after she wrote an unflattering article about him in which he was referred to as "the Genghis Khan of world finance".

In sharp contrast to many rich men, Biederbeck goes to extreme lengths to avoid publicity (he even buys newspapers just so that they won't print his name), and the first twenty numbers on his speed-dial are all lawyers. He sued Trudy and the paper that published the article in a drawn-out libel suit that he knew he couldn't win, just to torment her. The legal costs forced the Monks to sell their first home, which Biederbeck snapped up and which he now claims to use to store his collection of pornography. Because Trudy was killed a short time later, Monk feels that Biederbeck stole one of the last years of her life.

Biederbeck reappears in the season two finale "Mr. Monk Goes to Jail". Although he's been convicted of murder, he is adjusting to life in prison quite easily. He has an inmate to act as his personal servant, luxurious furniture, a TV, and just about everything one would not normally find in a prison environment — except a window. After condemned prisoner Ray Kaspo is poisoned less than an hour before his execution, suspicion falls on Biederbeck, to whom Kaspo owed $1,200. Both he and Monk know that Biederbeck wouldn't kill anyone over such a petty sum (as he says with a laugh, "I wouldn't bend down to pick up $1,200, even if I could"), but until the killer is caught, the prison is refusing to install a window in Dale's cell. He offers Monk a deal: find the killer, and Biederbeck will share what he knows about Trudy's murder.

Even though Sharona tells him not to, Monk takes the case on the off-chance that Dale is telling the truth. After Monk finds that the prison librarian Sylvia Fairborn killed Kaspo, Dale reveals that Trudy was, contrary to Monk's belief, indeed the intended victim of the car bomb. He also states that Monk should look for a man named Warrick Tennyson who can be found in Manhattan, New York. This gives Monk his first real lead on Trudy's death. The episode ends on an ominous note, as Biederbeck watches Monk's plane depart for New York through his newly installed window and smiles, "Bon voyage, Mr. Monk."

In the third season premiere, Monk finds Tennyson, who confesses to being hired to kill Trudy, and identifies the man who hired him as having a six-fingered hand. To Sharona's, and even Monk's surprise, it's evident that Biederbeck was telling the truth after all.

The reason becomes clear in the two-part episode "Mr. Monk Is On The Run", when Monk is framed for murder of Frank Nunn, the six-fingered man who hired Tennyson. Dale is revealed to be the mastermind of the plot, and of a simultaneous plot to assassinate the state governor. The lieutenant governor, who is on Dale's payroll, would then pardon Dale, completing Dale's revenge by setting him free and putting Monk in jail. But Monk foils Dale's plan, and John Rollins, the Angel County sheriff that Dale recruited to frame Monk, turns state's evidence. As a result, all of Dale's privileges are revoked. His custom bed, telephone, and laptop are confiscated, and his window is removed. His special meal deliveries and manicure appointments are cancelled, and he is reduced to sleeping in a cramped bunk bed, with only a wheelchair to move around in, and eating prison food in the prison cafeteria with the other inmates.

Biederbeck also makes a brief appearance in the 2008 novel Mr. Monk Goes to Germany by Lee Goldberg. Monk telephones Biederbeck from Germany when he suspects that one of Dr. Kroger's colleagues, a psychiatrist with a six-fingered hand named Dr. Martin Rahner, is the man who killed Trudy. Since the doctor was giving a lecture at Berkeley around the same time that Trudy was killed, thanks to a grant from one of Biederbeck's foundations, Monk suspects Biederbeck of being the killer. Biederbeck smugly refuses to confirm or deny Monk's suspicions, but later Monk proves that the doctor is not Trudy's killer (keep in mind that the novel was written before, but published after, the airing of "Mr. Monk Is On The Run", and Goldberg's foreword acknowledged the discontinuity).

Dale "The Whale" is frequently compared to Professor Moriarty, Sherlock Holmes's nemesis, even including his nickname ("The Genghis Khan of World Finance" for Dale, and "The Napoleon of Crime" for Moriarty).

Benjy Fleming

Benjy Fleming
First appearance	"Mr. Monk and the Candidate"
Last appearance	"Mr. Monk and the Employee of the Month" (episode) "Mr. Monk and the Two Assistants" (book)
Portrayed by	Max Morrow (2002) Kane Ritchotte (2002–2004)
Information
Family	Sharona Fleming (mother) Trevor Howe (father) Douglas Fleming (maternal grandfather; deceased) Cheryl Fleming (maternal grandmother) Gail Fleming (maternal aunt)

Benjamin "Benjy" Fleming is the son of Sharona Fleming. He is played by Kane Ritchotte in the pilot and season two, and by Max Morrow in the rest of the season one. It was necessary to have two actors play the role because Ritchotte lives on the west coast, where the pilot was filmed (in Vancouver) and the second and third season (in Los Angeles), while Morrow lives on the east coast, where the remainder of season one was filmed (in Toronto).

Over the course of Benjy's tenure on the series, Monk bonds with him but has his problems in relating since he never did most of the things that we normally associate with kids growing up. As a result, he is most utterly clueless in giving Benjy a pep talk about baseball in "Mr. Monk Goes to the Ballgame", since Benjy has to show him how to hold a bat. In "Mr. Monk Meets the Playboy", when Sharona tells him of her less than reputable past which was about to be revealed by playboy Dexter Larsen if Monk persisted in his current homicide investigation, even though she knew Benjy would be open to ridicule and perhaps even lose respect for her, Benjy reassures her that he could handle it.

He is in little league in "Mr. Monk Goes to the Ballgame". He is a sixth-grader and wants to be a writer in "Mr. Monk Takes a Vacation", in which he witnesses the cleaning maids murdering one of their own while pulling off an insider trading scheme.

He eventually returned to New Jersey with his mother to reunite with his father Trevor.

His first appearance in any Monk-related material after he and Sharona left the television show was in the Lee Goldberg novel Mr. Monk and the Two Assistants, where Sharona returns to San Francisco because Trevor has been accused of murder. Since Sharona is working as a nurse, Benjy is living with her sister Gail. Over the course of the novel, Benjy develops a friendship with Julie Teeger. Benjy and his mother were mentioned in "Mr. Monk Is On The Run, Part 2", having sent flowers for the "deceased" Monk and flying in to attend his "funeral".

In the season eight episode "Mr. Monk and Sharona", Sharona mentions that Benjy is making plans on attending college, and plans on using the money from her lawsuit against a country club for the death of her uncle, Howard Fleming, on doing so. However, Monk thinks that Howard's death was foul play, irritating Sharona (who would like to see the money). But at the end of the episode, Sharona trips and breaks her arm on one of the country club's steps, meaning that she will get the money after all.

Trudy Monk

Trudy Monk
First appearance	"Mr. Monk and the Candidate"
Last appearance	"Mr. Monk and the End - Part II"
Portrayed by	Stellina Rusich (2002–2003) Lindy Newton (2006 college flashbacks) Melora Hardin (2004–2009)
Information
Gender	Female
Occupation	Journalist
Family	Dwight Ellison (father) Marcia Ellison (mother) Jack Monk, Sr. (father-in-law) Ambrose Monk (brother-in-law) Jack Monk, Jr. (half-brother-in-law) Molly Evans (daughter)
Spouse(s)	Adrian Monk (married at time of death)

Trudy Anne Ellison Monk (played by Stellina Rusich in the first two seasons and Melora Hardin after the third season) is Adrian's beloved deceased wife. Adrian's attempt to solve the case of her murder is the show's longest-running plot arc. Melora Hardin has performed the part of Trudy from seasons three to eight. She has formerly been played by Stellina Rusich during the first and second seasons. In the season five episode "Mr. Monk and the Class Reunion", a younger Trudy is portrayed in a flashback by Lindy Newton.

Trudy Monk was born in Los Angeles in 1962^[2] to Dwight and Marcia Ellison. She attended the Ashton Preparatory School and graduated valedictorian in 1977 at the age of 15. She did not date very much while there, expecting to know who the right man would be once she found him.^[3] The episode "Mr. Monk and the Class Reunion" shows that Trudy first met Adrian during his senior year at UC Berkeley. They married on August 8, 1990.

In 1993, Trudy was involved in a lawsuit with the financier Dale "The Whale" Biederbeck because she referred to him as the "Genghis Khan of Finance". Dale was unable to win the lawsuit, but the Monks were forced to sell their house paying for their lawyer. Adrian harbors an intense hatred for Dale because of the pain he caused Trudy, saying that he stole a year of her life. Dale remains an important adversary of Adrian's, especially when it is revealed that he had a role in Trudy's death.

In Adrian's words, Trudy "enjoyed poetry, was often barefoot, and kept every promise she ever made". In "Mr. Monk Takes Manhattan", Adrian offers a glimpse into her mindset by turning Warrick Tennyson's morphine back on after he had turned it off claiming Trudy would have wanted him to.

Trudy Monk was murdered on a snowy^[4] December 14, 1997^[5] with a car bomb, made of approximately three pounds of plastic explosives, powered by ten 20 volt magnesium batteries that was planted under the front seat and remotely detonated by a cell phone,^[6] while she was on an errand to get cough medicine for Adrian's brother Ambrose.^[7] Ambrose blames himself for Trudy's death, and his guilt led to a 7-year rift between the brothers.

In the season five episode "Mr. Monk Can't See a Thing", while having a temporary relapse, Adrian mentions that Trudy lived for 20 minutes after the bomb went off. Her last words to a paramedic were "bread and butter", a message to Adrian meaning that she would never leave him, as this was something she always told her husband when they had to temporarily let go of each other for some reason or another.

The bomb was built by Warrick Tennyson. In "Mr. Monk Takes Manhattan", Tennyson mentions that he didn't recognize the man who hired him, but remembers that there were six fingers on his right hand. From the time of Trudy's death until the end of the season two, Monk believes all along that he was the intended target, with Trudy being an innocent victim. The intense guilt contributed to and intensified his nervous breakdown, his obsessive-compulsive manifestations, and his bizarre phobias.

In "Mr. Monk Goes to Jail", Dale reveals that the car bomb was actually intended for her, not him. Discovering that Trudy was the true target, Adrian is seen to be visibly affected by this piece of news.

In "Mr. Monk Bumps His Head", Adrian attempts to find this six-fingered man by purchasing a picture of him. The picture turns out to be doctored, leading to Teddy Mulligan, the seller, knocking Monk unconscious and sending him to a town in Wyoming, in turn causing Monk to uncover the murder of a waitress while forgetting his own name.

In "Mr. Monk and Mrs. Monk", Natalie overhears a woman who looks like Trudy say that she faked her own death to protect Adrian. Adrian begins to believe this might be true, but in the end, it turns out that this woman is an actress who has attempted to pass herself off as the real Trudy in order to get the key to Trudy's old storage unit.^[8]

In "Mr. Monk Is Up All Night", Adrian sees a Brazilian woman named Maria Cordova, whom he chases for several blocks for no apparent reason. At the end of the episode, it is revealed that the reason he was drawn to her is that she received a cornea transplant from an organ donor, who turned out to be Trudy.

During the season six finale, "Mr. Monk Is On The Run", Adrian finds the six-fingered man, named Frank Nunn, but unfortunately he is shot and killed by John Rollins, a corrupt Angel County sheriff recruited by Dale in a plot to incriminate Adrian. By the end of the episode, Adrian confronts Dale, telling him that the police searched Nunn's house after he died and discovered some old letters in which Nunn talked about killing Trudy and mentioned that he was hired by a man named "The Judge". Adrian believes Dale knows the identity of "The Judge", but so far, Dale had not revealed any further information.

In "Mr. Monk and the End Part 1", Monk discovers that Trudy had left him a videotape, containing a message stating that she wanted him to watch in case harm were to befall her. In "Part 2", Monk and Natalie watch the videotape, which reveals that 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 9 minutes after birth. Later in the episode, Monk learns that, in fact, Rickover had saved the baby girl who is now a 26 year old movie critic named Molly who he re-connects with and grows to love Molly.

Harold Krenshaw

Harold Krenshaw
First appearance	"Mr. Monk and the Girl Who Cried Wolf"
Last appearance	"Mr. Monk Goes to Group Therapy" "Mr. Monk and the End - Part II (flashback only)
Portrayed by	Tim Bagley (2004–2009)
Information
Gender	Male
Occupation	School Board Member, City Council Member
Family	Cousin Joey (Cousin) Mrs. Krenshaw (Wife) Jimmy Krenshaw (Son)

Harold J. Krenshaw (Tim Bagley) is another patient of Dr. Kroger and later Dr. Bell who also suffers from obsessive-compulsive disorder. Despite sharing the same disorder, Monk and Harold are constantly at odds, mostly over which of them is liked better by Dr. Kroger, or which of them have made more progress in overcoming their various problems. Even then, Monk has made clear that Harold has more psychological problems than him: both of them have OCD, but Harold also suffers from acute paranoia and narcissism (in "Mr. Monk and the Daredevil," Monk notes that Harold went vertigo when Dr. Kroger put thicker carpet in his office). As a result, he deludes himself that everyone is out to get him, either because of his importance in the scheme of things, or because he inspires outrageous jealousy in everyone else. He often takes great pleasure in "getting" other people before they get him, especially Monk. Harold is married and has a son, Jimmy.

Harold's first appearance was brief, in a scene in the season three episode "Mr. Monk and the Girl Who Cried Wolf" when he and Monk bicker over the arrangement of magazines in Dr. Kroger's waiting room. Monk prefers the magazines to be arranged in two vertical rows of three. Harold prefers the horizontal top row to have three, the middle row have two, and the bottom row have one (in an arrangement similar to the style of bowling pins), and wants them arranged by type, instead of in alphabetical order.

In "Mr. Monk and the Election", Harold wins against Natalie Teeger to become a member of Julie's school board.

In the season five episode "Mr. Monk Gets a New Shrink", when Adrian and Dr. Kroger are being held hostage in the back of Francis Merrigan's truck, Harold is the one who alerts the police to their whereabouts. When Merrigan fires at Dr. Kroger, Harold takes a bullet in the shoulder to save Kroger's life, much to Adrian's dismay.

In the season six episode "Mr. Monk and the Daredevil", Harold eclipses a jealous Monk in fame when the public at large believes him to be a notorious human fly known only as The Frisco Fly. In reality, Harold was dropped into the role by his cousin Joey who was trying to kill him over an inheritance from their dying uncle. Unaware of the murder plot, Harold went along with the charade because he loved the public attention, getting a golden opportunity to infuriate Monk, and gaining new respect and admiration from his son. In truth, the real Frisco Fly was a man named Victor Grajna, who died several days earlier in a car accident which Joey Krenshaw discovered. Joey burned Grajna's car and got rid of the real Frisco Fly forever. Then Joey drugged Harold, took him up to the top of a high-rise building, and let Harold fall to what should have been his death had he not hit an awning and flagpole.

In "Mr. Monk and the Buried Treasure", Monk agrees to help Dr. Kroger's son Troy decipher what appears to be a treasure map (actually a map to a dead bank robber's body) in an attempt to once more outdo Harold, whom has just given Dr. Kroger a wristwatch.

In the season six episode "Mr. Monk Joins a Cult", Dr. Kroger mentions that the Siblings of the Sun at one point tried to recruit Harold. According to Dr. Kroger, Harold was too smart for them.

In the season seven episode "Mr. Monk Gets Hypnotized", Harold tries hypnotic regression therapy with Dr. Lawrence Climan (Richard Schiff) which at first seems to cure him of his OCD. While investigating the "abduction" of actress Sally Larkin, Harold shows up at the crime scene and tells Monk about his new therapist and also gives him Dr. Climan's business card. Seeing Harold so happy, Monk cannot concentrate on the case, so he decides to ignore the risks. He goes to Dr. Climan and comes out acting like a six year old. Though Monk eventually is able to snap himself out of his hypnotic state, hypnotherapy backfires on Harold when his feelings of euphoria lead him to take off all of his clothes in public, causing him to get arrested for indecent exposure (an incident that Monk witnesses).

Harold makes a brief cameo appearance in "Mr. Monk's 100th Case", for a small interview on a television special commemorating Monk's solving of his 100th case, which Harold derides. He also says that he thinks his new therapist is better than Monk's.

Harold also appears in the season seven finale, "Mr. Monk Fights City Hall". Now serving on the San Francisco City Council, Harold gleefully votes against Adrian's motion to preserve the parking garage where Trudy was murdered, instead of demolishing it to build a children's playground. At first, Monk sways the a majority of the council to vote in his favor, but inadvertently tips the vote when he insults one of the other council members while exposing reporter Paul Crawford as a murderer. Harold also (thanks to an inadvertent slip from Natalie) learns the name of Monk's new therapist, Dr. Bell, whom Adrian has been bragging about, and announces that he will also be seeing Dr. Bell in the future.

Harold has a cameo appearance in the season eight episode, "Mr. Monk is Someone Else", when Monk goes to Los Angeles masquerading as a mob hit man by the name of Frank DePalma. When Monk is having lunch at an outdoor cafe with Lenny Barlowe and Tommy G., a rollarblading Harold calls out to "Adrian". By a stroke of luck, Monk stays in character and tells Harold that he's made a mistake and if he isn't careful, he'll be in Section D of the next day's paper (the obituary section). Then Monk happens to shove Harold away, who then apologizes saying that he thought "Adrian" was someone else.

In his final appearance, "Mr. Monk Goes to Group Therapy", Monk finds himself sharing group therapy sessions with Harold when his HMO refuses to compensate him for any more individual sessions with Dr. Bell. The two butt heads constantly, even to the point that when two of their other group members are killed under mysterious circumstances, Harold accuses Monk of being the killer. Both men are ultimately kidnapped by Xavier Danko, the real killer, and thrown into a car trunk together, where they both break down with claustrophobia and finally become friends: Harold admits that he has greatly exaggerated his own progress to goad Adrian, while Adrian admits that he envies Harold's relative success in going on with his life despite his many fears. The two men realize that they share many of the same problems, and even overcome their claustrophobia together when Monk convinces Harold to see the trunk as a protective space rather than a trap.

Afterwards, in an extraordinary gesture, Harold voluntarily transfers to another psychiatrist, to let Monk's "group sessions" with Dr. Bell be individual sessions after all.

Ambrose Monk

Ambrose Monk
First appearance	"Mr. Monk and the Three Pies"
Last appearance	"Mr. Monk's 100th Case" "Mr. Monk and the End - Part II (flashback only)
Portrayed by	John Turturro (2004, 2005, 2008)
Information
Gender	Male
Occupation	Technical writer of instruction manuals and language dictionaries
Family	Jack Monk, Sr. (father) Adrian Monk (brother) Jack Monk, Jr. (half-brother) Trudy Monk (sister-in-law; deceased)

Ambrose Monk, played by John Turturro, is Adrian Monk's brother. He suffers from agoraphobia. As stated by Adrian in "Mr. Monk and the Three Pies", Ambrose has not left the house since 1972, spending 32 years in the house. It is also revealed by Adrian that he and their mother were in a state of catatonia after their father left. Ambrose did not even leave his room for an unspecified amount of time.

He can be seen in person in three episodes: "Mr. Monk and the Three Pies", "Mr. Monk Goes Home Again" and "Mr. Monk's 100th Case", as well as in home movies he spliced together himself during "Mr. Monk Is on the Air". He has a romantic interest in Natalie Teeger, Adrian's second assistant. Ambrose writes owner's manuals for many different consumer products in multiple languages which he taught himself (7 and 1/2 as of "Mr. Monk and the Three Pies"). The house is cluttered with his work, piles of newspapers (every single day for the past 32+ years), and filing cabinets which are stuffed with his father's mail spanning the entirety of his father's absence.

He blames himself for the death of Trudy. At Ambrose's request, Trudy was out buying him cough medicine when she was murdered by a bomb planted under the front seat of her car. Guilt-ridden, Ambrose avoided all contact with Adrian for seven years after the incident.

Ever since their father left, Ambrose has been obsessed with the idea of his return, even to the point of preparing a dinner plate for him every night, just in case. Adrian feels differently, believing his father will never return. However, their father shows up at Ambrose's doorstep to leave a note. Adrian and Ambrose, who are in an ambulance at the time due to the fact that they think he has been poisoned by a Neptune candy bar, miss their father's appearance but the note congratulates Ambrose on leaving the house. Ambrose has left the house three times: the first two times are in "Mr. Monk and the Three Pies", the first being when his next-door neighbor Pat van Ranken sets the house on fire, and the second to visit Trudy's grave, and the third one mentioned above in "Mr. Monk Goes Home Again".

In "Mr. Monk's 100th Case", he appears in a documentary about Adrian, and says his brother held the family together after Jack Monk left them. Both he and his mother became unable to deal with the outside world, and Adrian saved them. He greatly respects his brother's ability to cope with the outside world.

Even though Ambrose's last television appearance was in 2008, he continued to appear in the Monk novel series by Lee Goldberg. In Mr. Monk in Outer Space, he is shown to be a fan of the science fiction series Beyond Earth, and has even written a number of books about the series itself. It is also revealed that he is a good lip-reader, as he can read what a shooter on a surveillance tape is saying. Ambrose is also shown to have learned Pig Latin and the Dratch constructed language of Beyond Earth, and hence he plays a big part in helping Adrian's investigation into the murder of Beyond Earth creator Conrad Stipe and later executive producer Kingston Mills. He identifies Mills's killer by reading his lips and creating a written translation.

He later appeared in the novel Mr. Monk Is Cleaned Out, when Adrian briefly moves in after he gets evicted from his apartment. This novel reveals that Ambrose wrote the instruction manual for the Triax tracking device that is utilized by alleged Ponzi schemer Bob Sebes, whom Adrian suspects as having killed three government witnesses about to testify against him for their parts in the scheme.

In the novel, Mr. Monk On the Road, Adrian, having found a balance in the world, knocks Ambrose out by drugging him with a sleeping pill placed in his birthday cake, then (with aid from Natalie) puts Ambrose in an RV. The novel serves to allow Adrian to help Ambrose get over his agoraphobia. At the end, Ambrose buys the RV that Adrian and Natalie rented for the trip. The novel also reveals that Ambrose became agoraphobic after he caught Hong Kong flu.

Kevin Dorfman

Kevin Dorfman
First appearance	"Mr. Monk and the Paperboy"
Last appearance	"Mr. Monk and the Magician" "Mr. Monk and the End - Part II (flashback only)
Portrayed by	Jarrad Paul (2004, 2005, 2007, 2009)
Information
Gender	Male
Occupation	Accountant, Amateur Magician
Family	Shiela (aunt) Lou (uncle) Vicky Salinas (ex-wife) Sy Dorfman (uncle)

Kevin Dorfman (Jarrad Paul) is Monk's annoying, talkative upstairs neighbor, who according to Monk "one time [he] had a sore throat and he talked for two and a half hours about how much it hurt him to talk", though this appears to be a family trait. This continues so until he was killed in "Mr. Monk and the Magician".

Kevin first appears in "Mr. Monk and the Paperboy", where he wins $43 million in the lottery, although his "girlfriend" Vicki Salinas tries to hide it from him with the object of eventually getting it all. Vicki tried killing him by stopping their car on the railroad tracks at a grade crossing and drugging him. Monk and Sharona save him by throwing a switch to shift the approaching train to the other track, just in the nick of time.

Although Kevin gets his money back, he later loses it all to a number of serious misfortunes, including (but not limited to) bad investments, gold diggers, two wives, and a dishonest accountant (who probably wasn't certified). A CPA, he had two sisters and could recall all eight times he ate egg salad sandwiches. Kevin worked in a coffee shop in Aspen, Colorado and in "Mr. Monk and the Game Show" accompanied Monk when Adrian's father-in-law, Dwight Ellison, asked him to investigate a cheating problem on his game show Treasure Chest, which Dwight produces. Dwight is shown to suspect that TV host Roddy Lankman is feeding champion Val Birch the answers. According to Kevin, a pencil with Roddy's chew marks on it is a "collectible."

In "Mr. Monk Is On the Air", when Monk is preparing to face Max Hudson on the radio, Kevin gives him some of his uncle's jokes for use as Monk prepares to accuse Max of murdering his wife Jeanette. It is also revealed that he had an uncle, Sy Dorfman, who worked a lot of the same venues as the historical Uncle Miltie.

An amateur magician, Kevin is strangled to death by professional magician and mentor Karl Torini (Steve Valentine) on the night of his professional debut in the episode "Mr. Monk and the Magician", after having unknowingly stumbled onto Torini's drug trafficking operation (Kevin had discovered that the equipment Torini took with him on his overseas tours weighed significantly more when he returned to the United States than it did when he left; Kevin mistook this discrepancy in Torini's airline receipts as meaning that the airlines were ripping him off).

Despite the fact that Monk was always shown to be annoyed by Kevin, he is seen crying after Kevin's murder, hinting a possible friendship they had.

Recurring Characters and Special Appearances

Jack Monk, Jr.

Jack Monk, Jr.
First appearance	"Mr. Monk Meets His Dad" (mentioned only)
Last appearance	"Mr. Monk's Other Brother"
Portrayed by	Steve Zahn (2009)
Information
Gender	Male
Family	Adrian Monk (half-brother) Ambrose Monk (half-brother) Jack Monk, Sr. (father) Trudy Monk (sister-in-law; deceased)

Jack Monk Jr. (Steve Zahn) is Adrian's half-brother. Jack Monk, Sr. left him and his mother Darlene after 10 years when their family was together.

Jack Jr. meets Adrian after he is arrested and imprisoned for attempting to sell cars that aren't even his. He escapes from prison, but is framed for murdering Lindsey Bishop, one of the social workers at the prison, right afterwards. Jack goes to Adrian in hopes that Adrian can clear his name. Jack Jr. appears to be a pathological liar, and often swears "hand to God" that he is telling the truth when in reality he is not.

He also has an unusual obsession with the country of Paraguay. Adrian doesn't know what this may mean until he mentions this to Dr. Bell. Dr. Bell tells Adrian that Jack's obsession with Paraguay is because of their new extradition laws (they won't extradite you unless you have been indicted for murder). Adrian confronts Jack in front of Natalie, just as Jack is conning her into signing a check for an orphanage in Quebec.

Eventually, Adrian finds that Jack was framed by Daniel Reese, a guard at the prison who was Lindsey's boyfriend and the real killer, and Jack is able to overcome Reese by running him over with Natalie's car. He goes back to prison, though Randy's handcuff key "went missing". He is mentioned in "Mr. Monk Meets His Dad". In that episode, the people at Tiger Bay happen to confuse Adrian for Jack Jr., because they don't know about Adrian and Ambrose, the other two sons of Jack Sr.

Even then, Adrian enjoys bonding with Jack, and even goes so far as to protect him by giving him the phony name of Jack Gretzky and claiming that Jack is his penpal (despite the name, Adrian has to tell others that Jack is not related to Canadian hockey player Wayne Gretzky).

Marci Maven

Marci Maven
First appearance	"Mr. Monk and the TV Star"
Last appearance	"Mr. Monk's 100th Case"
Portrayed by	Sarah Silverman (2004, 2007, 2008)
Information
Gender	Female
Occupation	President of the Monk-o-Philes club

Marci Maven (Sarah Silverman) is Monk's biggest fan, and made three appearances on the series.

Marci first appears in "Mr. Monk and the TV Star" as a fan of Brad Terry, the star of the crime drama television series Crime Lab S.F.. As Monk and Sharona are first investigating the murder of Brad Terry's ex-wife Susan Malloy, Marci hands an envelope to Sharona, saying that it's a petition to get the old theme song back, since quite a lot of people hate the new theme song of Crime Lab S.F. However, Marci also dislikes the now-deceased Susan Malloy, since Susan only made one movie, called Frat Party Massacre, which Marci has watched several times. This makes Marci a primary suspect, and she is finally cornered by Stottlemeyer and Disher at the Crime Lab S.F. 100th episode cast party. At first, she confesses to murdering Brad's ex-wife, and Monk is convinced. But when Monk sees the renowned TV star lie to one of his scriptwriter about her script, he is convinced that Brad Terry is guilty. He confronts Marci about the matter, stating that she's protecting Brad because she knows he killed his ex-wife. After Brad is arrested, Marci is released from jail. A few nights later, Marci shows up at Monk's door convincing him that if he ever gets his own show, he should never change the theme song. (The theme song controversy surrounding Crime Lab S.F. is a parody of the controversy around the replacement of the original instrumental theme song for Monk with It's a Jungle Out There.)

Marci returns in "Mr. Monk and His Biggest Fan". In this episode, she has started a website about Monk, and we see her digitally replacing Natalie's head with her own. But then the police show up, asking if Marci owns a dog named Otto, who apparently attacked and mauled to death Debbie Ringel, the wife of Marci's neighbor John Ringel. Marci shows them Otto's grave. When she shows up at Monk's apartment the next day, Natalie is able to shoo Marci out, but Marci doesn't give up there.

As Linda Fusco bids for Stottlemeyer at the San Francisco Police Department's Bachelor Auction, Marci bids for Monk, resulting in a bidding match between her and Natalie which Marci wins after Natalie runs out of money. The next day, Marci shows Monk how much she loves him, wearing his old pants, serving his drink in his old glass, even showing him a diorama of them based on the season two episode "Mr. Monk and the Three Pies", while singing him a song on her guitar about him. She has even written fan-fiction centered around Monk, including one story entitled "Mr. Monk and the Dragon's Lair". Then Marci explains the problem she is dealing with: she knows Otto died three days before Mrs. Ringel was apparently "mauled", and the teeth marks on her body match Otto. Monk finds many clues that suggest that Otto was framed, and so Monk, Natalie and Marci go to several lumberyards in the area. At John Ringel's lumberyard, they find clues that explain Otto's day long disappearance of about two weeks earlier, the simple explanation being that Ringel made a pruning-type device that could make dog tooth marks on his wife's body after he murdered her.

Marci loses interest in Monk when Ringel shoots her during a hostage situation at his lumberyard. Although she has only been hit in the shoulder, she decides she is no longer interested in pursuing her interest in him. At the end of the episode she gives Monk a package holding all his stuff she took, saying her new obsession, F. Murray Abraham ("May God have mercy on his soul," Monk tells Natalie) "wouldn't understand." However, she reappears in "Mr. Monk's 100th Case", interviewed in a television show, reverting once again to her obsession with Monk. At one point in "Mr. Monk and His Biggest Fan", she stated, "I'm not crazy, just a fan." By a strange coincidence, Monk says the exact line to actress Christine Rapp (of The Cooper Clan) in "Mr. Monk's Favorite Show".

Jack Monk, Sr.

Jack Monk
First appearance	"Mr. Monk Meets His Dad"
Last appearance	"Mr. Monk and the End - Part II" (flashback only)
Portrayed by	Dan Hedaya (2006)
Information
Gender	Male
Occupation	Truck driver
Family	Trudy Monk (daughter-in-law; deceased)
Children	Adrian Monk (son) Ambrose Monk (son) Jack Monk, Jr. (son)

Jack Monk, Sr., played by Dan Hedaya, is Monk's father. He appears in the episode entitled "Mr. Monk Meets His Dad". Jack, the father of both Ambrose and Adrian Monk, abandoned his young family while running to pick up an order of Chinese food. Adrian was only eight years old and his father's abandonment is seemingly the catalyst for both Adrian and Ambrose's psychological illnesses. After leaving, Jack isn't heard from for over forty years. During that time he fathered yet another son, 31 year old Jack Jr. whom Jack proudly brags about to his co-workers as a genius doctor, but later admits to Adrian's surprise that Jack Jr. is an unemployed buffoon who smokes marijuana all day and steals money from his wallet. Jack also makes an appearance—albeit an unnoticed one ("Mr. Monk Goes Home Again")—at Ambrose's door to leave him a congratulatory note on Ambrose's exit from the house (though this was because he was being driven to the hospital in an ambulance at the time, having eaten what he thought was a poisoned candy bar).

Very little is known about Jack Monk's personal history. It is established by Adrian in the above-mentioned episode that Jack wrote school textbooks as his career of choice, similar to Ambrose, and indicating some level of education. Not much explanation is provided for how he ends up in the state explored in "Mr. Monk Meets His Dad".

When Jack finally shows up in person, he is working for the Midland, Texas-based Tiger Bay Trucking Company and had been stopped in San Francisco for running a red light. He is arrested and was placed in jail because he shoved a cop and resisted arrest. Initially, Adrian's reception to his father is icy and uninviting, but the two later reconcile over a road trip, where they suspiciously travel by the longer back roads (later revealed to be because Ben Glazer, Jack's boss, was trying to destroy evidence that would link him to the death of Kenneth Woods, his partner). The novel Mr. Monk in Outer Space reveals that Jack stopped to visit Ambrose after coming back to San Francisco.

Although the elder Monk is portrayed as eccentric, unpleasant, and erratic, he is also apparently quite intelligent, possibly implying that Ambrose and Adrian inherited at least some of their prodigious mental abilities from their father.

He has a step-granddaughter named Molly Evans. Molly Evans is his granddaughter by marriage because his son Adrian's wife Trudy had a daughter before she met Adrian.

Gail Fleming

Gail Fleming (Amy Sedaris) is Sharona's younger sister and an actress. She first appeared in "Mr. Monk and the Earthquake", where Sharona, Benjy and Monk stay at her house after a magnitude 6.0 earthquake. Her second appearance was in "Mr. Monk Goes to the Theater". In this episode, she is framed by her understudy Jenna Ryan for stabbing actor Hal Duncan in a performance of the play Blood on the Moon during a preview performance prior to it heading to New York City. In "Earthquake" she remarks to Sharona that she thinks Sharona copies her by moving to San Francisco, buying the same purse, etc. Gail also makes an appearance in the novel Mr. Monk and the Two Assistants, where it is revealed that she is dating an accountant.

Cheryl Fleming

Cheryl Fleming (Betty Buckley) is Sharona's and Gail's mother. When her husband, Douglas, died, she was left to raise her daughters alone. She visits Sharona in "Mr. Monk Goes to the Theater", just when Gail is framed for murder. She then begs Monk to take the case, which he eventually does, though reluctantly. For some unusual and never explained reason, she thinks that Sharona is the detective and Monk is the assistant and not the other way around.

Linda Fusco

Linda Salvato Fusco (Sharon Lawrence) is Captain Stottlemeyer's girlfriend and a real estate dealer during season five and the beginning of the season six. The two began dating shortly after she hires Monk and Natalie to investigate damages to her car in "Mr. Monk, Private Eye", and she even sets Stottlemeyer up with a new apartment across the way from her own. The two continue to see one another, but their dates are often interrupted, postponed or canceled as a result of Stottlemeyer's duties. For instance, in the episode "Mr. Monk and His Biggest Fan", Linda resorts to bidding on a date with Stottlemeyer at a bachelor auction just to get him alone as Marci Maven resorts to bidding on a date with Monk. However, their date is interrupted when Stottlemeyer realizes that John Ringel is a murder suspect and framed Marci's dead dog.

In "Mr. Monk and the Bad Girlfriend", Stottlemeyer's duties, and the fact that Linda has moved uptown to Richmond, means that she can only talk to him at 6:30 PM each night on webcam dates. They are planning on going to Hawaii. However, just before they leave for Hawaii, Monk and Natalie expose Linda as responsible for murdering her former partner Sean Corcoran and using her webcam date as an alibi (essentially, she built a duplicate of her bedroom in the back of a box rental truck). Stottlemeyer is left asking himself if the relationship was real or merely something she'd planned from the beginning so she could have a perfect alibi. At the end of the episode, he tosses something into the ocean. When Randy asks him what he just threw, Stottlemeyer replies "It's just a rock," suggesting that he was going to propose to Linda while in Hawaii.

Trevor Howe

Trevor Howe (Frank John Hughes and David Lee Russek) is Sharona's ex-husband and Benjy's father from New Jersey. He appears in the episodes "Mr. Monk and the Sleeping Suspect" and "Mr. Monk and the Girl Who Cried Wolf". In "Mr. Monk and the Sleeping Suspect", he shows up at Sharona's house for Benjy's birthday, seemingly a "different man." Benjy is happy to have a father, which is one of the reasons Sharona decides to quit being Monk's assistant and move back to New Jersey with Trevor. She later discovers, however, that he got plane tickets to Detroit, where his rich uncle lives. Trevor admits to her that his reason for wanting to get back together with her was because his rich uncle had cut him off when he got divorced, and he wanted to get back together so that he would have access to his fortune. In his second appearance in the season three episode "Mr. Monk and the Girl Who Cried Wolf", Sharona asks Trevor to take Benjy when she becomes afraid she is losing her sanity, and hence crying wolf. In "Mr. Monk and the Red Herring", it is revealed that he has re-married Sharona. In the episode "Mr. Monk and Sharona", though, Sharona reveals that they have broken up for good.

Trevor also reappears in the novel Mr. Monk and the Two Assistants, having been framed for murder by the Los Angeles Police Department's private consultant Ian Ludlow, who frames five other people in addition to Natalie and Sharona for the murders he commits so that he can write his novels and meet his deadlines.

Trudy "T. K." Jensen

Trudy "T. K." Jensen Stottlemeyer (Virginia Madsen) is Captain Stottlemeyer's love interest in season eight. She initially appears in a three-episode story arc beginning with "Happy Birthday, Mr. Monk". She works for a magazine similar to Consumer Reports and is covering the debut of the new LaserVac self-cleaning vaccum. Throughout the episode, Leland tries to figure out what her nickname T.K. stands for, but when he finds out that her first name is Trudy, he takes concern and suggests that they stick with calling her T.K. In the episode "Mr. Monk is the Best Man", she marries Stottlemeyer after they have been dating for six months, although their wedding is almost thwarted by T.K.'s maid of honor Stephanie Briggs, a former ecoterrorist who makes several threats against them, but later turns out to have been trying to retrieve a gun she used to kill fellow ecoterrorist Martin Kettering. Monk is shown to have been fine with T.K.'s name, believing that everyone should have a Trudy in their life.

Karen Stottlemeyer

Karen Stottlemeyer (Glenne Headly) is Leland Stottlemeyer's environmentally conscious wife during the first four seasons and the mother of their two children, Jared and Max. She spends much of her time filming unscripted documentaries. She first appeared in "Mr. Monk and the Very Very Old Man", where she begs Leland to investigate the death of Miles Holling, the oldest man in the world. Karen's documentary about Miles Holling, Miles Holling: The Human Time Machine, provides several clues about the man's death. She later appears in "Mr. Monk and the Captain's Wife", where she is temporarily put in a coma when Evan Coker, trying to get a gun out of his repossessed car, shoots the driver of the tow truck carrying the car, causing the truck to swerve into Karen's van. In "Mr. Monk Gets Fired", Karen is seen filming a documentary of life in the San Francisco Police Department's Homicide Division, including many moments of Commissioner Brooks's anger and Paul Harley's arrest. In "Mr. Monk and the Captain's Marriage", Sergeant Ryan Sharkey, Jr. claims to Leland that he is having an affair with Karen, provoking Leland into punching him. To find the truth, Leland sends Monk and Natalie to stalk Karen. They find that while Karen is seeing someone, it isn't Ryan Sharkey, but rather a divorce lawyer. It is also mentioned that she has a sister.

Karen is mentioned, but does not appear, in "Mr. Monk Goes to a Rock Concert", when she calls Leland saying that Jared has skipped school and most likely has gone to a rock concert where Kris Kedder is performing, leading Leland, Monk and Natalie to go to the San Francisco Band Jam.

Mitch Teeger

Lieutenant Commander Mitch Teeger is Natalie's late husband who was a fighter pilot in the United States Navy. He died in 1998 in the Kosovo War and he allegedly abandoned his men and took their supplies, but, as revealed by Natalie in "Mr. Monk and the Election", she doesn't believe the reports. Much of what is known about Mitch is known through the Monk novel series by Lee Goldberg.

In the novel Mr. Monk Goes to Hawaii, Natalie reveals that Mitch died two days before his 27th birthday (which would make him twelve years younger than Monk if he were still alive). The two of them also once traveled to Mexico to elope (much to the horror of Natalie's parents). It is also mentioned in Mr. Monk Goes to the Firehouse and elaborated upon in Mr. Monk is Miserable that Natalie and Mitch eloped to Paris. When Natalie sees Paris in that novel, she claims that it is a different Paris from the one she and Mitch had gone to.

In the season eight episode "Mr. Monk and the Voodoo Curse", it is revealed that Natalie's superstitions about voodoo have come as a result of the fact that when she and Mitch lived on a military base in South Carolina, she met a voodoo priestess who predicted Mitch's death a few days before it actually happened.

The episode "Mr. Monk and the Red Herring" establishes that he always wanted to be an astronaut, and that he'd received a letter from NASA about being accepted into their training program a few days after he died.

The episode "Mr. Monk and the Three Julies" and the novel Mr. Monk and the Dirty Cop establish that Mitch taught Natalie how to shoot a gun (however, Natalie's skill in the use of firearms is called into question in the episode "Mr. Monk on Wheels", since when Natalie grabs biotechnician Sarah Longson's Walther PPK handgun to force her to surrender, she whirls around so quickly that she accidentally discharges a bullet into Monk's right leg), something Natalie brings up in Mr. Monk and the Dirty Cop when holding crooked Intertect CEO Nick Slade up at gunpoint.

In the season five episode "Mr. Monk and the Class Reunion", when Monk is mentioning that he thinks he can handle his 25th college reunion on his own, Natalie suggests that she should accompany him, considering how he last met many of these students when he was with Trudy, and she remembers how she missed Mitch the most when going to parties or visiting friends after his death.

In the season seven premiere "Mr. Monk Buys a House", it is presumed that Mitch also taught Natalie how to use Morse code. When Monk, Natalie, Stottlemeyer and Disher visit Cassie Drake's house and Stottlemeyer and Disher start tapping messages to each other in Morse code on the door, Natalie says, "That's not the way I heard it. My husband was in the Navy. Remember?" which subtly hints that Mitch taught her Morse code, and she knows it better than Stottlemeyer and Disher know it. Later in the episode, when Monk and Natalie are taken hostage by "Honest" Jake Phillips (Brad Garrett), Natalie sends up smoke signals in Morse code through the fireplace to call for help, due to a lack of other forms of available communication.

In Mr. Monk and the Two Assistants, Natalie mentions that she and Monk actually have a lot in common, e.g. the fact that both have lost spouses to violent deaths (Trudy to a car bomb, Mitch to a plane crash) and in both cases they were affected heavily and only saved thanks to someone else (in Monk's case, him hiring Sharona and Stottlemeyer hiring him as a consultant; in Natalie's case, Julie saved her).

The choice of Mitch as the first name of Natalie's late husband is a possible in-joke reference to the 1998 film Dirty Work: in that film, Traylor Howard (who plays Natalie on Monk) plays the love interest of protagonist Mitch Weaver (Norm Macdonald). Coincidentally, it is said in "Mr. Monk and the Election" that Mitch Teeger died in 1998, the same year that the film came out.

It should be noted that although Mitch is said to have died in the Kosovo War, in reality, the United States didn't have any fatalities at all, either as the result of military combat or accidents (although in the Monk-world, it might be possible that the U.S. did have fatalities).

Steven Albright

Lieutenant Steven Albright (Casper Van Dien) is a lieutenant in the United States Navy and Mitch Teeger's oldest friend. In the season seven episode "Mr. Monk is Underwater", where he is introduced, he asks for Monk's help with the murder of Lieutenant Commander Jason Pierce while serving aboard the U.S.S. Seattle, a Los Angeles-class submarine. Though he and Natalie are strongly attracted to each other, she is hesitant because of her lingering feelings for Mitch. He also saves the two from being drowned by Commander Nathan Whitaker, the person who killed Pierce. However, Steven reappears in the series finale, "Mr. Monk and the End", in which he and Natalie have been dating for a long time, and Natalie is planning to introduce him to Julie.

Warrick Tennyson

Warrick Tennyson
First appearance	"Mr. Monk Goes to Jail" (Mentioned Only)
Last appearance	"Mr. Monk Takes Manhattan"
Portrayed by	Frank Collison (2004)
Information
Gender	Male

Warrick Tennyson was a career criminal and explosives expert who was hired to build the bomb in 1997 which killed Trudy (Monk's wife).

Dale the Whale tells Monk that Tennyson was involved in the murder in "Mr. Monk Goes to Jail" and tells Monk he can find Tennyson in New York. Monk goes to New York in the next episode, "Mr. Monk Takes Manhattan", in hope of answers, but finds that Tennyson is dying of heart disease and kidney failure. Because he’s being questioned in connection with a Federal racketeering case, the District Attorney is not letting anyone else see him. The only way for Monk to get access to Tennyson is to solve the recent murder of the Latvian Ambassador.

Having cracked the case, Monk's party is allowed to visit Tennyson (Collison) on his deathbed. Tennyson remembers being hired by a man to build the bomb that killed Trudy. When asked, he says he doesn’t know the name or the description of the man that hired him, since it was dark when they met, and it looks like Tennyson is a dead end. But Tennyson remembers one vital clue: the man had six fingers on his right hand.

Monk asks for a few moments alone with Tennyson. When the others are gone, Tennyson asks for forgiveness, but Monk cannot bring himself to give it. He turns off Tennyson's morphine drip. But a few tense moments later, he says, "[T]his is Trudy, the woman you killed, turning it back on," and does.

The gang prepare to leave New York, having gotten at least one step further in solving Monk’s most important case.

Frank Nunn

Frank Nunn
First appearance	"Mr. Monk Takes Manhattan" (Mentioned Only)
Last appearance	"Mr. Monk Is On The Run (Part One)" "Mr. Monk and the End" (Flashback Only)
Portrayed by	Courtney Gains (2008)
Information
Gender	Male

Frank Nunn was a career criminal who was hired by a mysterious figure known as "The Judge" to assassinate Trudy Monk. Nunn hired Warrick Tennyson, an explosives expert, to build and plant the bomb, while Nunn detonated it with a cellular phone.

Twelve years later, he was hired to build another bomb, as part of a scheme by Dale Biederbeck, and plant it in the back of a car meant to be ridden by the Governor of California and his wife during his hometown's bicentennial parade.

Unknown to Monk, Nunn is also a pawn in a related scheme to frame him for murder and incapacitate him.

In "Mr. Monk Takes Manhattan", Warrick Tennyson tells Monk that he was hired to build the bomb which killed Trudy, by a six-fingered man. This six-fingered man detonated the bomb from a distance with a cellular phone.

Over two years pass without Monk getting any closer to finding the people responsible for killing his wife.

The season six finale "Mr. Monk Is On The Run" continues the investigation when Monk and Natalie are called to the scene of an electronics store robbery. Several items have been stolen that when combined, can be used to build a bomb, and a crowbar dropped by the thief bears fingerprints from a man with six fingers on his right hand. Monk believes this to be the same man who murdered Trudy.

A note is also left behind which reads: "To Force Heaven Mars Shall Have A New Angel". When Monk decodes the message as saying "247 Marshall Avenue, Angel, California", he goes there alone, taking along his old police-issue pistol. There, he meets Frank Nunn, who recognizes Monk as "the cop with the wife." Frank Nunn shows no remorse and in rage, Monk lunges at him and the two engage in a violent brawl, during which Monk repeatedly kicks and punches Nunn before drawing his pistol and demanding to know who hired him. Before Nunn can answer, he is shot dead by a corrupt local sheriff, John Rollins.

Later though he appears to be some use as the police find papers in Frank Nunn's apartment connecting Trudy's murder with a mysterious figure known as "The Judge".

Judge Ethan Rickover

Judge Ethan Rickover (Craig T. Nelson) was a respectful former college professor turned federal judge. Prior to his appointment as a judge, and Trudy meeting Adrian, Rickover has an extramarital affair with Trudy. The affair results in Trudy becoming pregnant with his child. After the baby was born, Rickover covers up the illegitimate child by telling Wendy Stroud, the midwife, to tell Trudy that her baby died about nine minutes after birth and to put the child up for adoption.

Fourteen years later, in 1997, Rickover is nominated as federal judge, and when Stroud finds out about this, she finds religion, and blackmails Rickover, threatening to tell the press about his and Trudy's illegitimate child, and ruining his chances. Rickover realizes any information regarding these events could be potentially damaging to his political career and has Stroud killed as damage control, burying her body in his backyard.

Around the same time, Rickover hires bomber Frank Nunn to plant a bomb in Trudy's car. Trudy has already suspected that Rickover was involved in Wendy Stroud's death (having read about it in the newspaper). When Trudy is subsequently killed, it is impossible to connect either her death or Stroud's death to Rickover, allowing him to have a prosperous career as a judge. Twelve years later, in 2009, Rickover has come far in his career, having been recently nominated for the California Supreme Court, although he still lives in the same house, because he still knows that Wendy Stroud's body is buried in the yard (it's marked by a sundial).

At this time, Dr. Malcolm Nash (Ed Begley Jr.), the director of the clinic that Stroud worked for (and coincidentally, who was being questioned by Monk and Stottlemeyer when they got the call that Trudy had been killed), discovers the truth about Trudy's child while digitizing the records, moving them from old paper records to computer files. He subsequently calls Rickover, blackmailing him for information. Panicking, Rickover hires a different professional hit man, Joey Kazarinski, to kill Dr. Nash.

Monk gets involved in the investigation following Dr. Nash's death and is able to uncover evidence at the crime scene linking back to Kazarinski. Rickover finds out about this when Stottlemeyer comes over to his house to sign a warrant to search Kazarinki's premises. Fearing that Monk's involvement in the investigation may ultimately lead back to him, Rickover orders Kazarinski to kill Monk as well. Kazarinski poisons Monk's wipes with ricin, a deady synthetic toxin that will kill him in a period of two or three days. When Kazarinksi gets hit by a train and dies while being chased by Stottlemeyer through a yard, Rickover thinks himself to be cleared of any suspicion, but unbeknownst to him, he has failed to find out that the day before Trudy was killed, she made a video message to Adrian about how Rickover wanted to meet her in that parking garage, and also mentioned the secret affair.

Having just found out about the video, Monk confronts Rickover and informs him that he knows he was behind Trudy's death, although he has no other evidence to back this up. Eventually, Monk realizes why Rickover refused to move away from his longtime house and confronts Rickover again in his yard as he is returning home, forcing Rickover at gunpoint to dig up Wendy Stroud's body. The body is eventually found, with both Monk and the police present at the scene, and Rickover confesses to the murders of Wendy Stroud and Trudy. Deciding not to kill Rickover, Monk puts the gun on the sundial in Rickover's garden which Rickover then picks up and holds to his own head, saying "Take care of her," before pulling the trigger and shooting himself. Because he is the only person left to know that Trudy's child was still alive, no one is able to figure out what exactly he meant by this at first. But eventually, Monk finds an article dated the same day that Trudy's illegitimate child was born, about Wendy Stroud saving a child, and hence he is able to locate his stepdaughter. Rickover first appeared in "Mr. Monk and the End - Part I" and later in "Mr. Monk and the End - Part II".

Molly Evans

Molly Evans (Alona Tal) is the illegitimate daughter that Trudy had in her affair with Rickover. She was born January 2, 1983, but was taken from her mother immediately after birth by Wendy Stroud, the midwife, at the behest of Rickover, and telling Trudy that the baby had died nine minutes after birth.

Stroud then claimed to have found Molly abandoned and takes her to an orphanage. She is eventually adopted into a family and becomes a movie critic for the fictional East Bay Chronicle. Monk initially thinks Molly to be dead based on the information given to him by Trudy in her video to him. But after finding evidence to suggest otherwise (Rickover's last words, "Take care of her," as well as some old newspaper clippings), Monk eventually discovers that she is still alive. Monk decides to meet Molly, the two of them quickly bonding and forming a friendship. According to Monk, Molly seems to be similar to Trudy not only in appearance, but also in her mannerisms. With Molly filling the void that Trudy's death left in his life, Monk initially decides to retire from detective work. However, when Molly reminds Monk that there are other people out there who are going through the same things that he's gone through and that they need his help, he decides to resume his career as a detective. Molly first (and last) appeared in "Mr. Monk and the End - Part II".

Jared Stottlemeyer

Jared Stottlemeyer is Leland's eldest son who appears in four episodes, always played by different actors. In his first appearance, in "Mr. Monk Goes to the Ballgame", Sharona gets angry at Leland because he is too old to be in a little league, something Leland is forced to admit. It is known that he had to repeat a grade. He was portrayed by Cameron Cush in this episode.

In "Mr. Monk and the Captain's Wife", Monk is forced to take Jared and his brother to lunch because his mother is in the hospital (having been rendered comatose after her car collided with a tow truck), and his father is working. The relationship between Leland and Jared was a little difficult after the events of "Mr. Monk and the Captain's Marriage", when he and Karen divorced. Actor In this episode, he was portrayed by Jesse James.

Jared is portrayed by Jon Kyle Hansen in the season five episode "Mr. Monk Goes to a Rock Concert". In this episode, he skips school to attend a music festival that is in town, forcing Leland to head there to find him, with Monk and Natalie accompanying him. Leland's and Jared's relationship is evidently strained, since the only photo Leland has for the security guards at the main entrance to the grounds is an old photo from a trip to Cabo. Of course, wherever Monk goes, someone always gets killed—in this case, Stork Murray, a roadie that Monk and Natalie discover in one of the port-a-potties. Assisted by roadie Kendra Frank (Tamara Feldman), a close friend of the victim, Monk and Natalie investigate and eventually find out that the killer is rock singer Kris Kedder (Brad Hunt), whom it turns out Jared had come to see perform. As they move to capture an incriminating beachball with air from Kedder's asthma inhaler, the ball lands in the scaffolding for a loudspeaker, and Jared is about to throw it to his father when Kedder comes up, leaving Jared with the split-decision to either let a killer get away or have justice served. He decides to throw the ball to Leland, and Kedder is arrested. At the end of the episode, Jared and Leland stop at a photo booth so that Leland will have updated photos for the next time he takes off.

He makes a brief appearance in "Mr. Monk Is the Best Man", but his actor is not credited.

References

1. ^ "Mr. Monk Takes the Stand"
2. ^ "Mr. Monk and the Game Show"
3. ^ "Mr. Monk Goes Back to School"
4. ^ "Mr. Monk and the Secret Santa"
5. ^ "Mr. Monk is Up All Night"
6. ^ "Mr. Monk Goes to the Theater"
7. ^ "Mr. Monk and the Three Pies"
8. ^ "Mr. Monk and Mrs. Monk"