Julie Teeger Julie Teeger (played by Emmy Clarke) is Natalie's teenage daughter. She appears in many episodes of the show, usually in minor roles. Like her mother, Julie is introduced during the season three episode "
Mr. Monk and the Red Herring". Julie bonds with Monk after he rescues her pet fish. In that episode, Julie is 11 years old. Julie plays a key role in the season four episode "Mr. Monk Goes to a Fashion Show", when Julian Hodge (
Malcolm McDowell) invites her to participate in his fashion show, despite her young age. Natalie is reluctant at first but then gives in. When Monk discovers that Hodge murdered models Clea Vance and Natasia Zorelle, Natalie forbids her daughter to participate in the show, causing Julie to run away from home to be in the show. In the season five episode "Mr. Monk and the Really, Really Dead Guy", Julie teaches Monk how to use her computer. When he brings it to the station while the FBI is trying to trace a call from a killer, he plugs it in along with the other computers. In the middle of the meeting, Monk intercepts an email from one of Julie's friends, and responds to it. Wires get crossed, resulting in the SWAT team storming a slumber party of innocent teens, including Julie. 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 the death of their basketball coach, Lynn Hayden, after she is found electrocuted and killed in the locker room. Natalie temporarily coaches the team with Monk as her assistant. Julie plays another critical role in season six episode "Mr. Monk and the Birds and the Bees", in which Monk gives her "the talk" after she starts dating Clay Bridges. Clay later 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 career burglar Dewey Jordan in a staged break-in. He has his girlfriend pose as Julie's aunt because he saw a T-shirt with a photo of Julie and her previous boyfriend Tim Sussman, in which he and Dewey converse in the background. The episode gives Julie an integral role. In the season six episode "Mr. Monk and the Three Julies", Julie receives her driver's license. After two other women with the name Julie Teeger are killed, Natalie's Julie becomes the only person with this name within 1,000 miles. In the same episode, it is revealed that Julie was named after Mitch's aunt, who was one of the first female
war correspondents in
Vietnam. Julie is seventeen years old by the time of the season seven episode "Mr. Monk Is Underwater". Trying to become an actress during the season eight episode "Mr. Monk and the Critic", Julie's beautiful voice is the key to proving that theater critic John Hannigan snuck out and killed his girlfriend Callie Esterhaus during a theater performance. In "
Mr. Monk and the End, Part One", Julie moves away from home to enter the
University of California at Berkeley to study theatre arts. In real life, Emmy Clarke studied communication and media studies at
Fordham University.
Novels During the first few novels, Julie's role is minimal, but she occasionally, 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's attention to brands and fashion designs gives Monk a crucial clue to the Golden Gate Strangler's profile. In
Mr. Monk and the Two Assistants, Julie breaks her wrist during a soccer game and subsequently spends most of the novel with her arm in a cast. She pays to have a local pizzeria called Sorrento's advertise on it. The advertising on her cast is a clue Monk utilizes to prove that mystery writer Ian Ludlow killed a local shoe salesman and tried to frame Natalie for it. In the novel
Mr. Monk Gets Even, Julie becomes a principal character, as she temporarily becomes Monk's assistant while Natalie is temporarily serving on the police force in
Summit, New Jersey. She strikes up an unusual friendship with Randy's replacement in the SFPD, Lieutenant Amy Devlin. Over the first half of the story, Julie's behavior assisting Monk is different from Natalie's when it comes to helping him focus. For instance, when Monk finds himself unable to go up to the apartment of a man who fell off his balcony, Julie solves the situation by using her iPad and
FaceTime while having Devlin use the application to give Monk a virtual tour of the apartment. She helps Monk investigate a series of murders that are made to look like accidents, which Monk ties to computer magnate Cleve Dobbs. Julie also initially helps Monk out when Dale "the Whale" Biederbeck apparently escapes from police custody while at SF General Hospital undergoing a bypass surgery. She accompanies Monk and Stottlemeyer to question Dale's girlfriend Stella Chaze, but considers quitting the job after Stella attempts to kill the three by suicide-bombing her house. She confides her troubles to Natalie, who, guilt-ridden, immediately catches the first flight home to San Francisco. When Stottlemeyer is later suspended on suspicion of helping Dale escape (due to offshore money being wired into his account within hours of his escape), Julie grows a dislike of SFPD deputy chief Harlan Fellows, the one ordering Stottlemeyer's suspension. Whereas Devlin wills herself to tolerate Fellows getting on their backs, Julie doubts that Fellows is even qualified for the job, believing that no deputy chief could be so thick-headed as to immediately suspect that Stottlemeyer is on the take despite all the evidence to the contrary without being very incompetent. Julie begins researching information on Fellows after Natalie returns to San Francisco to re-take her position as Monk's assistant. In the end, after Monk captures Dale, Julie discovers that Fellows never had a criminology degree at all, and his whole career is based on a lie. Stottlemeyer uses this as his leverage to get Fellows to resign and erase his own suspension from the record book.
Charles Kroger Dr. Charles Kroger (played by
Stanley Kamel) is Monk's
psychiatrist for the first six seasons. Dr. Kroger serves as a critical pillar of emotional support for Monk. While he engages in routine talk therapy, he does not prescribe medication, since Monk reacts badly whenever he takes medicine. In "
Mr. Monk Takes His Medicine", Dr. Kroger prescribes "Dioxynl", which successfully relieves Monk's phobias while also impairing his detective skills. Dr. Kroger is instrumental in trying to get Monk reinstated as a detective, all while discussing his problems and progress as a person. In the novel
Mr. Monk and the Blue Flu, Natalie describes Dr. Kroger as relaxed towards everything, to an unnatural extent. Most of Dr. Kroger's scenes help move Monk's character forward. Similarly, Dr. Kroger also (usually unintentionally) helps Monk find something that solves his current case. In the season five episode "
Mr. Monk Gets a New Shrink", Dr. Kroger finds his cleaning lady Teresa Mueller stabbed and killed in his office. He retires out of guilt as the police believe that one of his patients is responsible. However, Monk discovers that the cleaning lady was killed by drug trafficker Francis Merrigan, another tenant in Dr. Kroger's building. Dr. Kroger is the subject of an ongoing feud between Monk and Harold Krenshaw, a patient with similar problems. While very forgiving, even he gets fed up with Monk from time to time, most heavily demonstrated in "
Mr. Monk and the Sleeping Suspect", when Dr. Kroger returns from vacationing in
Costa Rica and sees Monk standing outside his home. Dr. Kroger instructs the cab driver to keep driving and keeps his head low to avoid Monk. In "
Mr. Monk and the Garbage Strike", when the city stops collecting garbage, Monk mails his garbage to Dr. Kroger's house. In several cases, the doctor is the only person capable of getting through to Monk during difficult situations, such as when Monk is brainwashed by Ralph Roberts in the season six episode "
Mr. Monk Joins a Cult". It is revealed in the season three episode "
Mr. Monk and the Election" that Dr. Kroger is married, had a first wife, has children, and is
Jewish. In the first episode of season five, "
Mr. Monk and the Actor", Monk wants to take up the entire week with therapy, but Dr. Kroger says he does not like working on the weekends so he can spend time with family. 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, has made his father take a DNA test three times, and has been detained by Randy on a previous occasion. When Randy asks Troy if he is staying out of trouble, Troy says no. In April 2008, Stanley Kamel died of a heart attack during a production hiatus between seasons 6 and 7. Rather than recast the role, the writers wrote Dr. Kroger out of the show by having him also die of a heart attack, and cast
Héctor Elizondo in the replacement role of Dr. Neven Bell, who is a friend and colleague of Dr. Kroger's, and as such, can sympathize with Monk's feeling of loss. The end credits to the first episode aired after Kamel's death, "Mr. Monk Buys a House", begin with a dedication to Kamel's memory.
Neven Bell Dr. Neven Bell (portrayed by
Héctor Elizondo) becomes Monk's therapist in the season seven premiere "
Mr. Monk Buys a House", replacing Dr. Kroger. Though Monk is initially skeptical, Dr. Bell wins his confidence through several small gestures: he begins the appointment at the exact second it is scheduled, supplies Monk with his current favorite bottled water, "Summit Creek," wipes during their introductory handshake, and displays 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 is a
palindrome as a comfort to Monk. Monk points out that it is not a "perfect" palindrome because the first N is capitalized. Dr. Bell also uses his past baseball experiences when talking with Monk in "Mr. Monk Takes the Stand". Dr. Bell's character has a considerably constructed background, in sharp contrast to Dr. Kroger. 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 for getting more attention than him, Dr. Bell is forced to admit to being a diva after writing an unsuccessful book on body language. The episode "Mr. Monk Fights City Hall" reveals that Dr. Bell served on the city council in
Tulsa, Oklahoma, but he got bored with the job and started sending his secretary as his proxy.
Dale "The Whale" Biederbeck Dale J. Biederbeck III, better known as Dale "The Whale" because of his
morbid obesity, his practice of working through both public avenues and the criminal underworld (much as a whale, being an
aquatic mammal, must spend time both underwater and above water), and the convenient fact that "whale" rhymes with his first name, 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 rich and well-connected financier who is arrogant, brilliant, and ruthless. He has a biting and sarcastic personality, often insulting his employees and the police without fear of repercussion. Monk claims that Biederbeck owns "half the city" of
San Francisco and has an option on the other half. Biederbeck sued Trudy and her newspaper for
libel after her article profiled him as "the
Genghis Khan of world finance". Knowing he couldn't win, Biederbeck did everything possible to draw the lawsuit out to torment her. It took over a year to resolve, and the legal costs forced the Monks to sell their first home, which Biederbeck then purchased and used to store his collection of
pornography. Monk feels that Biederbeck stole one of the last years of Trudy's life, resulting in him having a hatred of the man. In "
Mr. Monk Meets Dale the Whale", Dr. Christiaan Vezza, Dale's physician, reveals that when Dale moved into his apartment, he weighed 422 pounds (191 kilograms) and could occasionally see his toes. After his mother died, he started bingeing. He topped out at 927 pounds about 11 years before the events of the episode and has been bedridden ever since. In his first and second appearances, he weighs about 800 pounds (363 kilograms) and is unable to leave his bed. By his third appearance in "
Mr. Monk Is on the Run (Part Two)", he has lost just 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, but his involvement is thought to be impossible because he is incapable of leaving his bedroom. Monk discovers that he ordered Vezza to murder the judge and implicate Biederbeck. "Vezza" is revealed to be Glen Q. Syndell, a doctor who skipped bail on a manslaughter charge for killing a tender-aged patient while intoxicated; Biederbeck discovered this and blackmailed the doctor into his employ. Biederbeck goes to extreme lengths to avoid publicity, buying newspaper companies just so that they won't print his name. The first twenty numbers on his speed-dial are lawyers. In the season two finale, "
Mr. Monk Goes to Jail", Biederbeck is in prison, implied to be the result of a never-told Monk adventure. He has an inmate as his personal servant, luxurious furniture, and a TV but no cell 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. Monk knows that Biederbeck would not kill anyone over such a petty sum. Nevertheless, until the killer is caught, the prison refuses 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. After Monk finds that prison librarian Sylvia Fairborn killed Kaspo, Dale reveals that Trudy was, contrary to Monk's belief, the intended victim of the car bomb. He also states that Monk should look for a man named Warrick Tennyson in
Manhattan, New York. In the two-part episode "
Mr. Monk Is on the Run", Monk is framed for the 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
governor of California, who had previously refused to commute his sentence. The
lieutenant governor, who is on Dale's payroll, would then
pardon Dale, completing Dale's revenge by going free and returning to his comfortable lifestyle while Monk goes to prison for Nunn's murder. Monk foils Dale's plan, and John Rollins, the LA County sheriff whom Dale recruited to frame Monk, turns state's evidence in the hopes of lightening his own sentence. As a result, all of Dale's privileges are revoked: his furniture, custom bed, telephone, and laptop are confiscated, his window is blocked up, his special meal deliveries and manicure appointments are cancelled, and he is reduced to eating in the prison cafeteria and sleeping in a cramped bunk bed.
Novels Biederbeck 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 Rahner 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. Dale plays an important part of the second of two intertwined plotlines in the novel
Mr. Monk Gets Even, released in late 2012. Since the events of "
Mr. Monk Is on the Run", all of Dale's assets have been tied up in various lawsuits, thus forcing the state of California to front the bill for his medical costs. However, due to the recent fiscal crisis, the state has no money left to pay for Dale's medical treatment. Dale consents to undergo a
gastric bypass operation so that he can be integrated into the regular prison system. The day of the operation, Monk, Julie and Stottlemeyer meet the motorcade bringing Dale to
San Francisco General Hospital. He is one of three patients operated on that day, the others being men named Frank Cannon and Jason McCabe. Even before the operation, Monk believes Dale will try to use this as an opportunity to escape. Indeed, the next day, there is a major accident when a moving truck driving down Powell Street loses its brakes, careens down the hill into
Union Square, and smashes into a
MUNI bus and a cable car, leaving four people dead and dozens critically injured. Observing the rescue efforts from afar, Monk belatedly realizes Dale arranged it and has made his move. Monk, Julie, Stottlemeyer and Devlin rush to the hospital, but in the chaos, it seems Dale has escaped by being snuck out in a body bag by an accomplice driving a stolen hearse. Eventually, Monk, Julie and Stottlemeyer discover that Dale has a girlfriend, a graphic designer named Stella Chaze. They question Stella at her house, and Monk determines from the fact that she has a Band-Aid on her from an IV injection that she is the accomplice who staged the truck accident. However, any chance of figuring out where Dale is through her ends when she tries to kill the three by suicide-bombing her house (the three survive, though Stottlemeyer breaks his right arm when the resulting fireball throws him through the air and he lands the wrong way). The next day, in a surprise turn of events, Stottlemeyer is ordered suspended by deputy chief Harlan Fellows after it is revealed that $100,000 from an offshore account was deposited into Stottlemeyer's bank account hours after the escape. A few days later, Monk, Natalie and Devlin find a dead body floating in the water, apparently ripped up by boat propellers. However, Monk determines that it was a murder and uses the body to solve the case. He concludes that the dead body is actually that of Jason McCabe, one of the other two patients operated on the day Dale's surgery was performed. Stella had staged the truck crash, as Monk suspected, then infiltrated the hospital, but she did not take Dale out of the hospital. Rather, she moved Dale into McCabe's place, killed McCabe, and removed his body from the hospital. Dale's escape did not involve an actual escape but would involve him changing his identity. To make sure this happened, he had set up arrangements so that the doctor who did his surgery was sent away to Hawaii right after the operation, and a new doctor who had never met Dale, McCabe, or Cannon, would oversee his recovery. Also, McCabe was a homeless person, as Monk has deduced from the state of his teeth, whose surgery had been paid for by Dale and represented by Stella Chaze, who had been posing as an outreach person. He was the perfect patsy because Dale needed to switch places with someone who had no family or friends who would visit or miss him. Sure enough, when Monk and the others go to the hospital and pull back "McCabe's" curtain, they find Dale, who is arrested and stopped, presumably for good now.
Benjy Fleming Benjamin "Benjy" Fleming is Sharona's son. He is played by Kane Ritchotte in the pilot, season two, and the first half of season three, and by
Max Morrow in the rest of season one. It was necessary to have two actors play the role because Ritchotte lives on the West Coast, while the pilot was filmed in
Vancouver and seasons two and three in Los Angeles. Morrow lives on the East Coast, where the remainder of season one was filmed (in
Toronto). Benjy eventually returns to
New Jersey with his mother to reunite with his father, Trevor. Over Benjy's tenure, Monk bonds with him but has his problems in relating since he never did most of the things that kids do while growing up. As a result, he is clueless in giving Benjy a pep talk about baseball in "
Mr. Monk Goes to the Ballgame", as Benjy has to show him how to hold a bat. In "
Mr. Monk Meets the Playboy", Sharona tells him of her less than reputable past. This is nearly revealed by playboy Dexter Larsen if Monk had persisted in his current homicide investigation. She confesses, knowing Benjy would be open to ridicule and perhaps lose respect for her. Benjy reassures her that he can 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 cleaning maids murdering one of their own while pulling off an
insider trading scheme. His first appearance in any
Monk-related material after he and Sharona left the television show is 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. However, in the novel, Benjy's first name is misspelled as "Benji" whenever he is mentioned. Benjy and his mother are mentioned in "
Mr. Monk Is on the Run (Part Two)", 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 to attend college, and he plans on using money from her lawsuit against a country club for the death of her uncle, Howard Fleming. However, Monk thinks that Howard's death was
foul play, irritating cash-strapped Sharona. At the end of the episode, Sharona trips and breaks her arm on one of the country club's steps, meaning she will get the money after all.
Trudy Monk Trudy Anne Ellison Monk is Adrian's beloved deceased wife, played by Stellina Rusich in the first two seasons and
Melora Hardin after the third season. In the season five episode "
Mr. Monk and the Class Reunion", a younger Trudy is portrayed in a flashback by Lindy Newton. Adrian's attempt to solve the case of her murder is the show's longest-running plot arc. Trudy Monk was born in Los Angeles in 1962 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. Trudy and Adrian met during his senior year at
UC Berkeley (episode "
Mr. Monk and the Class Reunion"). 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 was hiding something he knew about Trudy's death. In Adrian's words, Trudy "enjoyed
poetry, was often
barefoot, and kept every promise she ever made". Adrian offers a glimpse into her mindset (in "
Mr. Monk Takes Manhattan") 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 December 14, 1997 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. She was on an errand to get
cough medicine for Adrian's brother, Ambrose. Ambrose blames himself for Trudy's death, and his guilt led to a seven-year rift between the brothers. While having a temporary relapse (in "
Mr. Monk Can't See a Thing"), 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. Tennyson mentions (in "
Mr. Monk Takes Manhattan") that he did not 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 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. Dale reveals (in "
Mr. Monk Goes to Jail") 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. False leads include (in "
Mr. Monk Bumps His Head") a man who attempts to sell a faked picture of the six-fingered man and (in "
Mr. Monk and Mrs. Monk") a lookalike who pretends to be Trudy come back after having
faked her own death. Adrian (in "
Mr. Monk Is Up All Night") sees a Brazilian woman whom he chases for several blocks for no apparent reason. It is later revealed that the reason he was drawn to her is that she literally has Trudy's eyes, received via a post mortem
cornea transplant. During the season six finale ("
Mr. Monk Is on the Run"), Adrian finds the six-fingered man, named Frank Nunn, who is soon 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. The police discovered some old letters in which Nunn talked about killing Trudy and also 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. Monk discovers (in "
Mr. Monk and the End Part 1") that Trudy had left him a videotape, containing a message stating that she wanted him to watch in case harm were to befall her. Later, 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 nine minutes after birth. Then, Monk learns that, in fact, Rickover had saved the baby girl who is now a 26-year-old movie critic named Molly with whom he connects and grows to love.
Harold Krenshaw Harold J. Krenshaw (
Tim Bagley) is another patient of
Dr. Kroger and later
Dr. Bell who also has
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 Dr. Bell, or which of them have made more progress in overcoming their various problems. Monk frequently comments that Harold has more psychological problems than does Monk himself; while Monk has just OCD, Harold also has acute
paranoia and
narcissism (in "Mr. Monk and the Daredevil," for example, Monk recalls that Harold was stricken by an attack of
vertigo when Dr. Kroger reupholstered his office with thicker carpet. Later, when talking to some Frisco Fly fans, Monk claims that Harold was a bed wetter until he was 34 and he has to be hypnotized just to get a haircut). 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 defeats Natalie Teeger in an election to become a member of
Julie Teeger's school board. In the season five episode "
Mr. Monk Gets a New Shrink", Harold again plays a very prominent role, as he is with Monk and Dr. Kroger when they find the body of Dr. Kroger's cleaning lady Teresa Mueller in Dr. Kroger's office. Later, when Monk and Dr. Kroger are being held hostage in the back of Francis Merrigan's truck, Harold, who has followed the truck, is the one who alerts the police to their whereabouts. When Merrigan shoots at Dr. Kroger with a pistol, Harold takes a bullet in the chest to save Dr. Kroger's life, telling Adrian to "beat that." In the season six episode "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, who has just given Dr. Kroger a wristwatch. 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. The real Frisco Fly was a man named Victor Grajna, who died several days earlier in a
car accident which Joey discovered. Joey burned Grajna's car to torch any evidence that Grajna was the Frisco Fly, and stole Grajna's outfit. Then Joey drugged Harold, took him up to the top of a high-rise building, outfitted him in the daredevil costume, and let Harold fall to what should have been his death had not an awning and a flagpole broken his fall. Unaware of the murder plot, Harold plays along with the charade because he loves the public attention, getting a golden opportunity to infuriate Monk, and gaining new respect and admiration from his own son, Jimmy. In the season six episode "Mr. Monk Joins a Cult", Dr. Kroger mentions that the Siblings of the Sun cult tried to recruit Harold a few years prior, but he was too smart for them. In the season seven episode "
Mr. Monk Gets Hypnotized", Harold has tried out
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, that he is over their feud, 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, 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 by looking at a reflection of himself, 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 (which Monk happens to witness). 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. Due to the fact that "Mr. Monk Gets Hypnotized" is the episode that aired immediately after this one, it is implied that Harold is referring to Dr. Climan. Harold also appears in the season seven finale, "Mr. Monk Fights City Hall". Now serving on the
San Francisco City Council, Harold initially 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 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, 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 rollerblading Harold calls out to "Adrian". By a stroke of luck, Monk manages to avoid breaking character and tells Harold that he has made a mistake, and threatens to kill him if he does not back away. Then Monk shows himself off as a "tough guy" by shoving Harold away, who then apologizes. 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 Monk and Harold are ultimately kidnapped by Xavier Danko, the real killer, and thrown into the trunk of his car 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, played by
John Turturro, is Adrian's older
agoraphobic brother. Ambrose has both more severe problems than Adrian and more acute powers of observation. (Echoing the relationship between
Sherlock Holmes and his more cerebral but sedentary brother
Mycroft). As stated by Adrian in "
Mr. Monk and the Three Pies", Ambrose has not left his house for 32 years, having last set foot outside in 1972. Adrian also reveals that Ambrose and their mother were in a state of
catatonia after their father left. In fact, 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 (seven and a half, as of "
Mr. Monk and the Three Pies"; the half is for his ongoing study of Mandarin Chinese). The house is cluttered with his work, piles of newspapers (every single day since Ambrose last left the house), and filing cabinets that are stuffed with his father's mail spanning the entirety of his father's absence. Ambrose blames himself for Trudy's death. When she was killed by the bomb planted under her car, she had gone on an errand to buy Ambrose some cough medicine at his request. Guilt-ridden, Ambrose avoided all contact with Adrian for seven years after that 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 miss their father's appearance while in an ambulance because they think he has been poisoned by a Neptune candy bar. Their father leaves a note, congratulating 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. 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. In 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. Starting in
Mr. Monk On the Couch, Ambrose has a live-in assistant, Yuki Nakamura, introduced in
Mr. Monk on the Road. In the book
Mr. Monk Gets Even, they get married.
Kevin Dorfman Kevin Dorfman (
Jarrad Paul) is Monk's talkative upstairs neighbor. He appears in five episodes, his last appearance being the season seven episode, "
Mr. Monk and the Magician". Kevin has a motor mouth, and every topic must be discussed in full detail. In "Mr. Monk and the Magician," Monk recalls a time when Kevin had a sore throat, then "talked for two and a half hours about how much it hurt him to talk". As Monk and Natalie observe at Kevin's wake, this trait actually appears to be genetic. Natalie has a photo of Kevin on display, which she at first claims took over two hours to take because she wanted one where he was not talking, but upon noticing a skeptical look from Monk, admits to having used
Photoshop. Kevin first appears in "
Mr. Monk and the Paperboy", where he wins a $43 million lottery, although his "girlfriend" Vicki Salinas (
Nicole DeHuff), a clerk at the nearby Stop-N-Go convenience store, tries to hide it from him with the objective of eventually getting it all. Her accomplice, the store's night manager, kills paperboy Nestor Alvarez while trying to steal newspapers that they think are Kevin's (they are actually Monk's papers). Later, Vicki kills the accomplice by stabbing him with a cream soda bottle while he is making the store's night deposit. Vicki then tries killing Kevin by stopping their car at a certain point in the road and drugging him - which happens to be on a grade crossing right as the lights begin to flash and the gates begin to lower. Monk and Sharona arrive, having followed him thanks to a travel brochure, and after a struggle with Vicki, throw the
switch at the crossover to shift the approaching train to the other track, just in the nick of time, sparing Kevin. Although Kevin gets his money back, by the time he makes his next appearance in "Mr. Monk and the Game Show," he has lost it all to a number of serious misfortunes, including gambling losses, two greedy wives, and a dishonest accountant. A
CPA, he has two sisters, can recall every time he has eaten an egg salad sandwich in his life (eight altogether), and once worked for two non-consecutive summers at a coffee shop in
Aspen, Colorado. In "Mr. Monk and the Game Show", he accompanies Monk on a trip to Los Angeles when Trudy's father, Dwight Ellison, asks Monk to investigate possible cheating on a game show that he produces. Kevin steals a pencil that the host had been chewing on, claiming it as a "collectible"; later in the episode, he and Monk find a pencil with identical chew marks at the reigning champion's house and conclude that he and the host have colluded to rig the game. Kevin is mentioned briefly in the season four episode "Mr. Monk Gets Drunk", and while he does not make a personal appearance in the story, it is revealed that Monk entrusted Kevin to pick up his mail for him while he and Natalie drove out to Napa Valley to visit his and Trudy's honeymoon retreat. Kevin also makes a short appearance in the season four episode, "Mr. Monk and Mrs. Monk", where he and Monk are shown in the kitchen, preparing food and happily chatting together, while Natalie broods over the impossible notion that Trudy might still be alive. In the season five episode "Mr. Monk Is On the Air", Kevin and Natalie are shown one of Monk's old home videos, where Kevin lightheartedly comments that seeing his friends' old home videos 'always makes him feel better about his own family', and later that night, 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 who was a comedian that knew
Uncle Miltie. During the radio broadcast, Kevin calls in as a fan to compliment Hudson, but he actually called in just to support Monk. Kevin is mentioned once more in the season seven episode "
Mr. Monk Takes a Punch", when Monk, after learning that he has to pass a physical fitness test to continue his work as a consultant for the police, shows up at a track field dressed in a purple jogging suit. When Natalie asks where he got the suit, Monk reveals that Kevin lent it to him. By the beginning of the penultimate season seven episode, "Mr. Monk and the Magician," Kevin is working as an accountant for professional magician, mentor, and 'supposedly' close friend, Karl Torini (
Steve Valentine). He is also revealed to be an amateur magician himself. While doing Torini's books, Kevin notices that the airlines are probably overcharging Torini, as for whatever reason, his receipts show that his equipment seems to weigh more when he comes back to the United States than it does when he leaves. Unknown to Kevin, Torini is secretly trafficking heroin for an Asian drug cartel. Fearing he might be caught, Torini and his assistant Tanya Adams come up with a plot to kill Kevin on the night of his debut. After checking into their hotel in
Reno, Nevada, Torini drives back to the Magic Castle Theater and sneaks in posing as a repairman. Torini and Tanya then stage a phone call to make it seem like they are both in Reno at the time (when Torini is actually hiding in the basement of the theater). After the show, Torini strangles and kills Kevin in his dressing room with a piece of piano wire, then leaves the building disguised as a repairman. Unfortunately, he is spotted by Monk (who is looking for Kevin) and accidentally gives himself away when he gestures in the direction of the dressing rooms with his middle two fingers together (Monk concludes that Torini was the so-called "maintenance man" when Torini makes a similar gesture at Kevin's funeral). Monk opens the door to the dressing room minutes later to find Kevin's dead body. Despite the fact that Monk is always shown to be annoyed by Kevin, he is seen crying after Kevin's murder, hinting at a possible friendship they had. As difficult as it is for Monk to take upon the case of a victim he knows, he accepts it with the determination of seeing to it that Torini is caught. Torini and Tanya both feign innocence when Monk and Natalie question them at their loft apartment. In the same scene, Monk is also forced to endure a blatant insult to Kevin's memory when Torini writes down a phony confession that he is responsible for Kevin's murder on a piece of paper, which he folds and places in Monk's hand. Seconds later, it blows up in flames, and Torini jeers: "Abracadabra, Mr. Monk." After Torini's arrest, Monk and Natalie watch a video will that Kevin had made, and despite his tendency to ramble about various things, Monk lets the video play. == Recurring characters and special appearances ==