Adrian Monk

Adrian Monk is the protagonist of the television series Monk, portrayed by Tony Shalhoub. A legendary former homicide detective in the San Francisco Police Department, his obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), severely intensified by the death of his wife, interfered with his job and resulted in his current suspension from the department.

Character history

Adrian Monk, portrayed by Tony Shalhoub, on the cover of the Monk Season 5 DVD box

Monk is believed to be born in or around the year 1959 because in the episode "Mr. Monk and the Class Reunion," which originally aired on August 11, 2006 it is revealed that he graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in 1981. In the episode "Mr. Monk and Little Monk" he was in 8th grade in April of 1972. This would further suggest that he was born in or around 1959. Monk is still mourning his wife Trudy, who was killed by a car bomb in 1997. He has not yet fully solved the case, although he has discovered that the car bomb was built by Warrick Tennyson for a six-fingered male. Monk has devoted the last nine years of his life to finding the man who killed his wife, and to consulting with San Francisco police detectives on various cases. Viewers are led to believe that she faked her own death in one episode, but this was actually a con set up to gain access to a storage locker in her co-worker's possession. At the end of that episode, the impostor Trudy is caught in between a gunfight and mortally wounded. The impostor dies in Monk's arms. He has 312 phobias, including germs, heights, frogs, crowds, milk, and glaciers. Besides dealing with his OCD, Monk's assistants also appear to have a hands-on role in organizing his consultancy work. His former assistant, Sharona Fleming (Bitty Schram), quit after several years of loyal service to her boss to go back to New Jersey and remarry her ex-husband. He suffered depression following her departure, but rebounded upon the arrival of her replacement, Natalie Teeger (Traylor Howard). While his obsessive attention to minute detail cripples him socially, it makes him a gifted detective and profiler; he has an uncanny ability to reconstruct entire crimes based on little more than scraps of detail that seem unimportant (if noticed at all) by his colleagues. Although he may appear defenseless, he has on more than one occasion been able to physically stand up for himself against his enemies, when provoked into a fight. Though it is stated in the pilot that his obsessive compulsive disorder was intensified as a result of his wife's murder, he still shows signs of it in flashbacks where he is with Trudy or before he met her, even as a child. His parents were very strict and over-protective, which is strongly hinted at as a contribution to his disorder. It appears that Monk had his symptoms mostly under control for much of his life, but lost control of his OCD after Trudy's death.

Family

Monk has a brother, Ambrose (played by John Turturro), who has only left his house twice in the last 10 years due to his extreme agoraphobia. (In the episode where the house caught fire, "Mr. Monk and the Three Pies", Monk mentions that Ambrose had not left the house in 32 years.) Monk and Ambrose were estranged after Trudy's death because Ambrose never called Monk after her death. Monk didn't understand until Ambrose admits that he believed he caused Trudy's death -- Trudy was getting cough medicine for Ambrose and was in the store's garage when she was killed. After this admission, they started to bond again. Their father, Jack Monk (originally from New Hope, Pennsylvania), abandoned the family when they were children, which had a profound effect on their respective illnesses; the chaos and emotional instability brought about by their father's sudden absence created in them a pathological need for order and self-control. Ambrose still believes in their father's return, even to the point of setting an extra plate at the dinner table and keeping postal mail in a filing cabinet in case he comes back. Monk's mother died in 1994, though it is unknown how, but in "Mr. Monk and the Big Game", as he talks to Natalie in front of the school's trophy case, it is implied that his mother died of cancer. His father disappeared when Monk was eight years old. Adrian and Ambrose never hear from him until the episode "Mr. Monk Goes Home Again", where he leaves a note on Ambrose's door, saying he is proud of Ambrose for leaving the house. Monk's father returned to San Francisco in 2006, where he was arrested for running a red light and resisting arrest. He was bailed out by Adrian, who did not forgive him for leaving at first, but after solving a murder involving Jack's boss, they bonded again, his father even taught Adrian how to ride a bike, since he was never there to teach him as a child. The senior Mr. Monk was played by Dan Hedaya. Monk has a half-brother, Jack Jr., who lives in his father's basement, and whom he has never met (and was only mentioned by his father).

Monk's phobias

Monk has several phobias which have been revealed throughout the series. In the sixth season episode "Mr. Monk and the Daredevil" Adrian reveals that he has 312 fears. According to Monk in the second season episode "Mr. Monk and the Very Very Old Man", his fears in order of priority are:

1. Germs (mysophobia)
2. Needles (trypanophobia)
3. Milk (galactophobia)
4. Death (necrophobia)
5. Snakes (ophidiophobia)
6. Mushrooms (mycophobia)
7. Heights (acrophobia)
8. Crowds (demophobia or enochlophobia)
9. Elevators
10. Disorder (ataxophobia)
11. Dark (nyctophobia)
12. Enclosed spaces (claustrophobia)
13. Dirt (molysmophobia or rupophobia)
14. Spiders (arachnophobia)
15. Driving
16. Bullies
17. Fire (pyrophobia)
18. Puppets (pupaphobia)
19. Tap Water (hydrophobia)
20. Noises (ligyrophobia)
21. Touching (aphephobia)
22. Feet
23. Flying (aviatophobia)
24. Beautiful women (gynophobia) (except for Trudy)
25. Imperfection (atelophobia)
26. Dogs (cynophobia)
27. Cats (ailurophobia)
28. Rabbits
29. Monkeys
30. Bridges (gephyrophobia)
31. Public Speaking (Glossophobia) - Despite this he has been seen to talk in public, such as during the episode Mr. Monk Goes to a Wedding
32. Flies (entomophobia)
33. Slime (blennophobia or myxophobia)
34. Tetracycline (not actually a phobia, but a severe allergy, as revealed in Mr. Monk Goes to the Hospital)
35. Rivers (potamophobia)
36. Tunnels
37. Caves

Monk has called his fear of dentists (dentophobia) one of his fears that are so far above his other fears that they are in a class of their own, outside of his "top ten" fears. One of his other top fears is darkness (nyctophobia). His other fears include:

• Airplanes (Aerophobia)
• Beards (Pogonophobia)
• Bees (Apiphobia)
• He "may be developing" a fear of blankets
• Bullfrogs
• Clowns (Coulrophobia)
• Chickens (Alektorophobia)
• Childbirth (Tokophobia)
• Children (Depending on age) (Pedophobia)
• Disorder or untidiness (Ataxophobia)
• Drowning (Aquaphobia)
• Earthquakes
• Frogs (ranidaphobia)^[1]
• Ferris Wheel
• Garbage
• Glaciers (Megalopagophobia)
• Hailstones^[1]
• Harmonicas
• Illnesses (Pathophobia)
• Ladybugs (Entomophobia)
• Lepers (Leprophobia)
• Lightning (Astraphobia)
• Mice (Muriphobia or Suriphobia)
• Nudity (Gymnophobia) (In the episode Mr. Monk and the Naked Man, he is shown to get over his fear of nudity.
• Possums^[1]
• Reproduction (Genophobia) and the female reproductive system (Koplophobia)
• Risk
• Rodeos
• Sand
• Smells (Olfactophobia)
• Sidewalk cracks
• Soccer riots^[1]
• Wind (Anemophobia)
• A fear of the food on his plate touching (sauces, beans, etc.)
• A fear of sitting in the back of any automobile
• It has been noted that Adrian has a fear of bodily fluids such as semen, blood, and saliva. It was mentioned in the episode Mr. Monk Takes a Vacation when the Security Guard shines an ultraviolet light in Adrian's hotel room.

Trivia

Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines. The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.

• Adrian Monk's first assistant, Sharona Flemming, referred to him as 'Adrian', (excluding the pilot, when she called him 'Monk'. His second assistant, Natalie Teeger, refers to him as 'Mr Monk'. Leland Stottlemeyer and Randy Disher refer to him as 'Monk'.
• In the episode Mr. Monk Meets His Dad Monk is 47 years old
• According to the episode Mr. Monk and the Big Game, Monk has solved 104 murders since the start of his career. This is every case he has ever worked on, not counting his wife's. It is also mentioned during the episode that Monk only spent 1 year in high school.
• Monk was nicknamed "Captain Cool" in college, for defrosting the dorm refrigerator every weekend according to the episode Mr. Monk and the Class Reunion.
• Monk refuses to drink tap water, or any bottled water except the 'Sierra Springs' brand; in the episode Mr. Monk Goes to Mexico, he nearly dehydrates because he does not have access to this brand in Mexico (Monk stated in the episode that he had had nothing to drink for 36 hours). However, in the episode Mr. Monk and the Class Reunion, he drinks a cup of non-branded water given to him by a bartender at the reception. This is probably a goof, although he is shown to dislike the water. In the fourth-season episode Mr. Monk Bumps His Head he suffers amnesia, telling a waitress that he has a favorite brand but can't remember which it is, so she gives him an (at the time) unspecified brand that becomes his "new favorite." However, at the start of the sixth season, in the episode Mr. Monk and His Biggest Fan, Marci reports that Monk has changed his favorite brand of water to 'Summit Creek'.
• Monk plays the clarinet, as shown in Mr. Monk and the Red-Headed Stranger and Mr. Monk and Little Monk. However, he can't play at all if someone has already put their mouth on the mouthpiece before he does.
• The name "Adrian Monk" has ten letters, which is Monk's favorite number. This obsession with 10 was the catalyst for a USA ad promoting Monk and Psych, with Monk and Shawn Spencer arguing over time-slots (with Shawn "trying" to keep his 10:00 timeslot and convince Monk that 9:00 is just as good as 10:00 — "nine is three threes.")
• In Mr. Monk and the Kid, Monk bonds with a toddler named Tommy, and was about to adopt him (the child previously having lived with a woman who was arrested for murder), but Monk realized he couldn't adopt the child, as his mental health issues prevented him from providing the attention and care the child needed. In Mr. Monk vs. the Cobra, Monk experiences a hallucinatory vision of Trudy that they should have had children during their time together, before his degeneration which was hastened by Trudy's death.
• Monk has said that he does not drink alcohol, though he did have a sip of wine in Mr. Monk Gets Drunk on his and Trudy's anniversary. This is probably because it was Trudy's favorite wine and he was at the place they stayed for their honeymoon. He was able to get 'buzzed' after one sip, complete with a hangover the next morning.
• Monk's OCD is almost never described on-air as such (the exception being in Mr. Monk and the Other Woman), even when a direct question is asked. He has been described as 'very particular' and 'very persnickety', among other things such as 'near sighted' in Mr. Monk Takes Manhattan when he closely examines a suspects ear. Natalie, however, did make mention of it in Mr. Monk and His Biggest Fan as she angrily left him alone with Marci. It is mainly named in promotional materials such as commercials.
• Monk's favorite comic is Marmaduke. He has used the comic as an ice breaker in the episode Mr. Monk Gets Fired, and reads a comic aloud in Mr. Monk and the Paperboy.
• In the episode Mr. Monk and the Naked Man, Monk actually remembers his own birth.
• In the episode Mr. Monk and the Blackout, Monk purchased a pair of AN/PVS-7Bs.

References