Adrian Monk
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Adrian Monk is the protagonist of the television series Monk, portrayed by Tony Shalhoub. A former legendary 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, resulting in a still-current suspension from the department.
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. However, in the episode "Mr. Monk and Little Monk" he was in 8th grade in April of 1972. This would suggest he was born around 1958.
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 several phobias, including germs, heights, 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 is 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. It is strongly hinted that his parents were very strict and over-protective, which may also have contributed 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.
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[edit] Family
Monk has a brother, Ambrose (played by John Turturro), who has only left his house twice in his life due to his extreme agoraphobia. Their father, Jack Monk, (originally from New Hope, Pennsylvania) abandoned the family when they were children, which had a profound impact 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. While Ambrose still believes in their father's return (to the point of setting an extra plate at the dinner table in case he comes back), Adrian has refused to forgive him.
Monk's mother passed away in 1994, though it is unknown why. 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. The senior Mr. Monk was played by Dan Hedaya.
[edit] Monk's phobias
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Monk has several phobias which have been revealed throughout the series.
According to Monk in the second season episode "Mr. Monk and the Very Very Old Man", his top nine fears in order of priority are:
- Germs (mysophobia)
- Needles (trypanophobia)
- Milk
- Death (necrophobia)
- Snakes (ophidiophobia)
- Mushrooms
- Heights (acrophobia)
- Crowds
- Elevators
- ... (Captain Stottlemeyer cut him off before he could finish the list.)
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:
- Beards
- Bees (Apiphobia)
- He "may be developing" a fear of blankets
- Bridges
- Clowns (Coulrophobia)
- Chickens (Alektorophobia)
- Childbirth (Tokophobia)
- Children (Pedophobia)
- Disorder or untidiness
- Dogs (Cynophobia)
- Driving
- Enclosed spaces, including caves and tunnels (Claustrophobia)
- Drowning (Aquaphobia)
- Earthquakes
- Flying (Aviophobia)
- Frogs[1]
- Garbage
- Glaciers
- Hailstones[1]
- Illnesses
- Lepers
- Lightning (Astraphobia)
- Mice
- Nudity (Gymnophobia)
- Possums[1]
- Public speaking (Glossophobia) - Despite this he has been seen to talk in public, such as during the episode Mr. Monk Goes to a Wedding
- Reproduction and the female reproductive system
- Risk
- Rodeos
- Smells (Olfactophobia)
- Soccer riots[1]
- Spiders (Arachnophobia)
- Wind
- 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 a infrared light in Adrian's hotel room.
[edit] Trivia
- 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 105 murders since the start of his career. This is every case he has ever worked on, barring his wife's.
- Monk was nicknamed "Captain Cool" in college, for defrosting the dorm refrigerator all the time 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).
- Monk plays the clarinet.
- The name "Adrian Monk" has 10 letters, which is Monk's favorite number.
- In the Season 3 episode "Mr. Monk and the Kid", Monk bonded 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 prevent(ed) him from providing the attention and care a child needs. In the Season 3 episode, "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 began with Trudy's death.
- It has been said by Monk 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 on location of 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 Monk Takes Manhattan when he closely examines a suspects ear. It is named in promotional materials such as commercials, however.
[edit] References
| MONK | |
| Current Main Characters | Adrian Monk | Natalie Teeger | Captain Leland Stottlemeyer | Lieutenant Randy Disher |
| Secondary Characters | Charles Kroger | Trudy Monk | Ambrose Monk | Dale "The Whale" Biederbeck | Julie Teeger |
| Former Characters | Sharona Fleming | Benjy Fleming |
| Related Articles | Episode List | Monk soundtrack | Mr. Monk Goes to the Firehouse | Mr. Monk Goes to Hawaii | Mr. Monk and the Blue Flu |
| Official Website | Official site |
