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| Credit: IMDB |
Running on USA Network for seven seasons, Monk was a TV show
with a slight whiff of serialization about a San Francisco police detective
(Tony Shalhoub) with massive OCD who had a mental breakdown upon the death of
his wife, and got kicked off the force. Throughout the duration of the series,
Adrian Monk is exiled from the force so he’s got that chip on his shoulder. On
the other hand, he gets to solve pretty much every murder in Bay Area as a
“consultant” so the show really has its cake and eats it too.
The show won eight Emmys (three for Tony Shalhoub) but was
generally considered more niche viewing than prestige TV. It was the de facto
flagship for the USA network which replicated the outsider savant formula with
Psyche, Burn Notice and Necessary Roughness.
I watched several episodes over the past week and here are
some notes:
1.. Monk’s detective abilities are similar to the way that Batman puts the
Gotham police department out of business. It’s also worth pointing out that
with all the murders going around town, it almost feels like San Francisco is
up there as one of the murderiest cities in the US, even if it’s exponentially
larger than Cabot
Cove. And not only that but Monk is often personally connected to the
murder like whether it’s his childhood crush’s ex-husband, his dentist, the
newscaster assigned to report on his story, or his captain’s girlfriend. And
that’s not counting all the murder scenes he happens to wander into. It’s like
Batman’s penchant for wandering onto muggings in Gotham city.
However, instead of mindless thugs, the criminals Monk encounters are white
collar dudes with highly Rube-Goldberg-like ways of killing their immediate
family members or collecting insurance payouts. One episode even had an man
attempt to escape alimony by robbing a house and defacing a painting so that
his ex-wife would have a meet cute with her art appraiser former high school boyfriend.
Wouldn’t it have been easier to just call him up and tip him off that his
former girlfriend is single and ready to mingle?
2. Monk is defined by his rigidity but my pet theory is that
he’s likeable because many episodes shows that he’s capable of changing his
habits on a dime. Static characters are rarely protagonists because who wants
to build a show around a comic character (typically defined by their
deficiencies) who doesn’t change at all. Who wants to be around such a person
in real life? But Monk does actually do a fill 180 on his intrinsic nature
quite often. In one episode, he goes to a bachelor party in Las Vegas and you
expect that we’re going to see someone who’s no fun, but he develops a brief
gambling addiction. In another episode, Monk abandons his lifelong pursuit of
justice to try being a full-time butler. Monk’s a loner who won’t stop brooding
about his long-dead wife, but in one episode he comes close to asking out his
childhood crush on a date and believes that he could find romantic happiness.
In another episode, Monk agonizes about getting a best friend (Andy Richter).
In the famous Sara Silverman episode, Monk not only lets down his defenses for
a woman who actively stalks him, he briefly hires her as his assistant. And
that’s just in the dozen or so episodes I’ve seen.
3. I hate to say this but Monk’s asexuality and his relationship to Trudy are
never really well-defined. His attachment to Trudy strikes me as some crutch
for his asexuality and asocial tendencies which initially made me wonder if
Trudy was some sort of beard, before I watched flashback scenes that show that
Trump and Trudy were really an item.
In an episode centering around Monk’s class reunion, it’s revealed how much of
a sad sack Monk is, when he converses with an old classmate (played by Family
Matters’ Reginald van Johnson) about their late wives. The classmate says
“well, you move on” and Monk replies “no, you don’t, you never really do” and
when the classmate shows subtle expressions of “what a weirdo” we’re meant to
empathize with Monk as a man who’s not understood by his peers. However, I
think this came off tonally as it wasn’t intended to. I can empathize with Monk
and his OCD but his clinging to an image of his dead wife is worth a proverbial
weird look or, better yet, a “get it together, man.” I certainly don’t think
every person on Earth needs to have a romantic life, but to hide behind your
dead wife for years is not being honest with yourself about what you want.
There are also elements of Monk’s sexuality that are generally left dangling
with no explanation; folded over into a mangled ambiguous neurosis. In one
episode, he’s disappointed with his childhood idol (Elizabeth Berkley) for
having an active sex life. He also has an aversion to naked people. Tell me this
puritan streak isn’t a lot to unpack
4. My understanding is that Monk is modeled after Sherlock
Holmes, but I liken him to a tortured noir detective. The way Monk follows his
hunches at the exclusion of all other variables often look like vendettas
similar to a character like Philip Marlowe in the Big Sleep or The Long Goodbye.
Edward G. Robinson’s character in Double Indemnnity, another famous noir hero,
speaks of being able to use his sense of smell to get his man every time. This
is awfully similar to Monk’s physical idiosyncracies (i.e. how he uses his
hands to frame the scene). Additionally, Monk’s bitterness—downplayed as much
as possible so that this show can still be considered a comedy for Emmy
purposes—and his close proximity to personal tragedy (not just his wife but his
father, brother, and exile from the force) are all interwoven into his
character.
5. I haven’t re-watched the episodes with Sharona since the show’s first run,
but I love everything about what Natalie Teeger (Taylor Howard) provides for
the show. It’s one of those relationships where you never get tired of how
these two interact. As previously mentioned, Monk runs the risk of looking like
an unhinged man with tunnel vision when he follows his hunch, so it’s quite
useful that Natalie is standing beside him. It’s also really sweet that Natalie
often locks arms with him. It doesn’t have romantic connotations and it doesn’t
look like a nurse helping an old man, but it’s a really nice show of support
and comfort between the two. It’s also one of those beauty-and-the-geek things
on a meta-level, because let’s face it: Natalie’s cute. Who wouldn’t want to be
walking arm-in-arm with Taylor Howard through the streets of San Francisco.
6. The show might be formulaic on first glance, but many of
the episodes are kind of must-watch based on the plots alone. A lot of it is
based on fish-out-of-water set-ups. For a man is phobic and idiosyncratic as
Monk, he’s pretty much a fish always out of the water, so when I see an episode
description like “Mr. Monk goes to a nude beach” or “Mr. Monk goes to Vegas”,
or “Mr. Monk goes to live on a farm”, I’m pretty sold instantly on how far out
of his comfort zone Mr. Monk will be pushed.
And while the show isn’t particularly serialized, there are episodes like
Monk’s reconciliation with his brother (John Turturro won an Emmy for this
guest turn), father, or childhood crush that are pretty strong on pathos too.
