Sharona Fleming

Sharona Fleming
Bitty Schram as Sharona Fleming
First appearance	Mr. Monk and the Candidate
Last appearance	Mr. Monk Takes His Medicine (episode) Mr. Monk and the Two Assistants (book)
Portrayed by	Bitty Schram
Information
Gender	Female
Occupation	nurse
Family	Gail (sister) Trevor Howe (ex-husband) Douglas (father) Cheryl (mother)
Children	Benjy (son)

Sharona Fleming was a fictional character in the award-winning series Monk. Sharona is a divorced practical nurse from New Jersey and a single mother with a young son named Benjy. She was played by Bitty Schram.

Overview

Sharona's childhood is only mentioned in one episode. Her father, Douglas, owned a hardware store and died when she was a child. This left her mother, Cheryl, to raise Sharona and her younger sister, Gail, who is an actress and appeared in two episodes.

Appearance on Monk

Monk was in a catatonic state for multiple years until Sharona began taking care of him. Monk was able to resume detective work and remarked, "She found me when I was drowning and saved my life." The series started a while after she took the assistant's job, and just how she got it and what their early relationship was are never explained, although it is revealed that Captain Leland Stottlemeyer originally engaged her as a nurse for Monk. When Monk becomes a consulting detective, Sharona helps out, sometimes doing independent investigations and sometimes even using her sex appeal to get information that Monk cannot. She also does all kinds of things that Monk's OCD and phobias prevent him from doing as she has few such reservations herself. It was revealed in the episode "Mr. Monk Goes to the Circus," however, that she has a fear of elephants, due to seeing a girl falling into an elephant pit when she was seven years old. She has 'quit' her job as Monk's assistant at least twice; in the episode "Mr. Monk and the Candidate" and "Mr. Monk and the Billionaire Mugger" (this was due to a pay dispute; she temporarily got a job at a lamp store). Sharona's 'quitting' became a running gag in the show, until she finally left in 2004. Sharona often treated Adrian the same as everyone else, probably in a hope to help him through his many phobias, something Natalie, Sharona's 'replacement' does not do.

Contract dispute

Schram left the show halfway through the third season due to a contract dispute. It was explained in the show that her character had moved back to New Jersey and remarried her ex-husband, Trevor Howe.

Mr. Monk and the Two Assistants

The Lee Goldberg novel "Mr. Monk and the Two Assistants" has Sharona returning to San Francisco after her husband, Trevor, was arrested for murder. She planned to return to work with Monk and thus clashed with Natalie. Eventually, Monk discovered that Sharona's husband had been framed for the murder and after exonerating him (and Sharona and Natalie who had also been framed by the real killer), she went back to Trevor. By this point, she and Natalie had become friends and Sharona was sure Monk was in good hands, thus serving more closure than on the TV series. It should be noted that in the book, Monk incorrectly refers to Trevor as "Trevor Fleming," falsely implying Sharona kept her name after the divorce.

Trivia

• Sharona is notorious for dating dishonest men, most of whom are eventually exposed by Adrian Monk.
• Sharona seems to have a soft spot for animals, eg - the murderer's dog in 'Mr Monk and the Captain's Wife' and Darwin, the chimpanzee in 'Mr Monk and the Panic Room.'
• Sharona and Randy often flirted on set and had a certain attraction to each other, but covered it up with long-winded and childish fights and arguments.