Monk - General Discussion

[Columbo]

4 minutes ago, Door County Cherry said:

For a movie?  I think so.  Trudy's death exacerbated his OCD but it wasn't the cause of it.  He still had it at the end.  

 

Do you think a movie could work if it focused on Natalie? That's what the books did. She was the main narrator and became a private detective.

[LexieLily]

59 minutes ago, Columbo said:

Do you think a movie could work if it focused on Natalie? That's what the books did. She was the main narrator and became a private detective.

Julie would be in her late twenties/early thirties based on timeline. Maybe she wants to learn the circumstances behind her father's death in combat and she and Natalie ask Monk to solve the unsettled mystery of how Mitch was killed. 

Edited February 20, 2022 by LexieLily

[Fool to cry]

I'm just glad Randy could still be in it because I didn't know we almost lost the actor to heart failure a few years ago:

https://youtu.be/ozKHRtY0aOU

 

Edited February 23, 2022 by Fool to cry

[andromeda331]

2 hours ago, Fool to cry said:

Im just glad I'm just glad Randy could still be in it because I didn't know we almost lost the actor to heart failure a few years ago:

https://youtu.be/ozKHRtY0aOU

 

I didn't know that either. I'm glad he's okay.

[LexieLily]

21 hours ago, Fool to cry said:

I'm just glad Randy could still be in it because I didn't know we almost lost the actor to heart failure a few years ago:

https://youtu.be/ozKHRtY0aOU

I didn't know J G-S was Canadian, but you can definitely hear it when he talks :)

[fishcakes]

I started watching this for the first time only a few months ago when Decades began airing it and got drawn in so quickly that I've now binge watched the entire series twice. I just adore Mr. Monk and became so protective of him that I'd get anxious whenever he'd so much as get his feelings hurt.

Favorite episodes are the two with Ambrose, the one with the dog, the one with the kid, and any episode where he's not quite himself (when he's on anti-depressants, hypnotized, or drunk), but really they're all great.

I too was bothered by the timeline problem when it turned out that Trudy had a baby in 1983, even though they were supposed to have met in college and graduated in 1981, so I've decided to make the college reunion episode the problem. Trudy was born in 1962 (it's on her headstone) and Adrian probably in 1959 (in Mr. Monk and Little Monk, he's in the 8th grade in 1972), so Adrian graduating in 1981 makes sense, but not Trudy. Also, Ambrose said something like, Adrian started dating women when he was "only 26," and they didn't marry until 1990, so I prefer to think that they didn't meet each other until they were a little bit older, and the reunion episode, while very sweet, is just an alternate timeline.

[andromeda331]

On 2/24/2022 at 4:09 PM, fishcakes said:

I started watching this for the first time only a few months ago when Decades began airing it and got drawn in so quickly that I've now binge watched the entire series twice. I just adore Mr. Monk and became so protective of him that I'd get anxious whenever he'd so much as get his feelings hurt.

Favorite episodes are the two with Ambrose, the one with the dog, the one with the kid, and any episode where he's not quite himself (when he's on anti-depressants, hypnotized, or drunk), but really they're all great.

I too was bothered by the timeline problem when it turned out that Trudy had a baby in 1983, even though they were supposed to have met in college and graduated in 1981, so I've decided to make the college reunion episode the problem. Trudy was born in 1962 (it's on her headstone) and Adrian probably in 1959 (in Mr. Monk and Little Monk, he's in the 8th grade in 1972), so Adrian graduating in 1981 makes sense, but not Trudy. Also, Ambrose said something like, Adrian started dating women when he was "only 26," and they didn't marry until 1990, so I prefer to think that they didn't meet each other until they were a little bit older, and the reunion episode, while very sweet, is just an alternate timeline.

Trudy and Monk meeting when they were a little older makes the episode with Trudy's parents more sense too. They show a flash back of Trudy introducing Monk to his parents. At that time he was already police officer possibly already a detective. That doesn't make sense if they met and started dating in college.  

 

Watching Monk's 100th case episode. I really wish Randy ended up with his girlfriend in the episode. She really seems like she'd someone he'd end up with. They were both kooky and a little crazy. 

[fishcakes]

On 3/6/2022 at 7:15 PM, andromeda331 said:

Trudy and Monk meeting when they were a little older makes the episode with Trudy's parents more sense too. They show a flash back of Trudy introducing Monk to his parents. At that time he was already police officer possibly already a detective. That doesn't make sense if they met and started dating in college. 

That was a good episode, even though Kevin was in it. Her parents were so gentle with Monk, and it was cute the way her mom remembered to put his dinner on separate plates.

What do people think of Karen Stottlemeyer? I always liked Glenne Headly, but Karen was hard to take. It seemed odd that she and the kids blamed Leland for the divorce, and he seemed to agree with that. I don't get it. He had always been so devoted to her and supported her filmmaking career (despite how TURRRIBLE her films were, if the one about the oldest man in the world was any indication), but after she left him with no explanation, the older son is mad at him. Of course, he did move on pretty quickly with murderous realtor, but even so, I don't see how Karen wasn't at least equally at fault for the divorce.

[Bastet]

It seemed to me like Stottlemeyer wasn't particularly present in the family - physically or emotionally - and they'd get caught up in this cycle where things would come to a head, he'd make a grand gesture to avoid communicating, and then things would go back to status quo.  He'd have probably kept on like that forever, but at some point she had to admit it wasn't enough and put an end to it.

[LexieLily]

1 hour ago, fishcakes said:

What do people think of Karen Stottlemeyer? I always liked Glenne Headly, but Karen was hard to take. It seemed odd that she and the kids blamed Leland for the divorce, and he seemed to agree with that. I don't get it. He had always been so devoted to her and supported her filmmaking career (despite how TURRRIBLE her films were, if the one about the oldest man in the world was any indication), but after she left him with no explanation, the older son is mad at him. Of course, he did move on pretty quickly with murderous realtor, but even so, I don't see how Karen wasn't at least equally at fault for the divorce.

I never cared for Karen because she never respected Leland's career when it was his money that supported her lifestyle including her documentary hobby, but if they were together since they were kids/twentysomethings like Leland said it seemed like a simple case of both of them growing up but the relationship didn't grow with them. Depending on when the boys were born in relation to their marriage, having a young family with the hours Leland kept as the captain of an entire division must have been hard on their family and their marriage. Her intense anti-gun stance when her husband was a homicide cop would have driven me nuts, and the scene where Leland had to use Randy to distract Karen while he took down everything in his office that she didn't approve of made me sad even though it was supposed to be funny. You're right, she was the one to leave him - I hated her 'if you have to ask why that's why' line - and his sons automatically blaming him for the divorce and (possibly) being the first to date again made me wonder what Karen was telling them or how she talked about Leland when they were in the house. Between Karen and Linda I was very happy when Leland ended the series happy with TK :)

[chessiegal]

I always thought Karen was a flake, but Leland, bless his heart, loved her. I saw "Mr. Monk is the Best Man" recently (I think it's the only one I hadn't seen before), and both boys were at Leland's wedding, so it seems the boys are okay with dad. 

Interesting that the preacher in that episode is Tony Shalhoub's brother Michael.

[LexieLily]

15 minutes ago, chessiegal said:

I always thought Karen was a flake, but Leland, bless his heart, loved her. I saw "Mr. Monk is the Best Man" recently (I think it's the only one I hadn't seen before), and both boys were at Leland's wedding, so it seems the boys are okay with dad. 

Interesting that the preacher in that episode is Tony Shalhoub's brother Michael.

It might just be my Monk-style attention to detail talking, but the mini-Stottlemeyers' blink-and-you-miss-it appearance at Leland and TK's wedding confused me as to how old they were supposed to be. They looked like two average teenagers that were extremely close together in age, maybe 16/17 or 15/16. But in the episode where Karen was in the hit and run and Monk took them to the diner (the only other episode we saw both mini-Stottlemeyers together) there was an age difference between them. In that episode Jared was at least 13 (because it was after the baseball episode where Leland fudged Jared's age to get him on the team) and Max looked about eight or nine.

[Bastet]

In the rock concert episode, Stottlemeyer knew virtually nothing about his teenage son's life and had "missing child" posters made with a childhood school photo, as that's the most-recent one he had in his wallet.  I don't think Karen had to badmouth him for the kids to harbor some resentment over their dad's lack of engagement in their lives. 

It seems like one of those scenarios where the husband and father loves his family, but pretty much leaves the parenting to the wife and mother (and then initially acts surprised when they inevitably grow apart).  To his credit, I seem to recall he did ultimately acknowledge he'd largely checked out - maybe in the "If you have to ask why, that's why" episode (a line which, unlike a poster above, I love, because it sums it up perfectly).

[fishcakes]

I'm in Monk withdrawal and I discovered that my library has all 19 of the Mr. Monk books, which I didn't expect to be very good, and halfway through the first one, that seems like it was a good prediction. It's not terrible, but I can't see anyone who doesn't love the show reading these. They're written by two of the show's writers, and you can see why there were inconsistencies in the episodes (like sometimes Monk can ride in the back seat of a car and sometimes he can't, he's afraid of elevators/he's not afraid of elevators) because there are a lot of out-of-character things in the book. He's drinking milk, throwing trash on the ground, telling Natalie he's glad she's in his life; he would never do any of that. I will still probably read all of these though, heh.

[chessiegal]

26 minutes ago, fishcakes said:

I'm in Monk withdrawal

I'm watching it right now on Hallmark Murders and Mysteries. They air it every weekday too.

[andromeda331]

I'm currently going through a Monk marathon at night. I really wish this show was still on or we had a few more season. Eight is a lot but there were still some really good episodes in the last season. It could have gone on a few more years.

[kathyk24]

On 3/8/2022 at 6:49 PM, LexieLily said:

I never cared for Karen because she never respected Leland's career when it was his money that supported her lifestyle including her documentary hobby, but if they were together since they were kids/twentysomethings like Leland said it seemed like a simple case of both of them growing up but the relationship didn't grow with them. Depending on when the boys were born in relation to their marriage, having a young family with the hours Leland kept as the captain of an entire division must have been hard on their family and their marriage. Her intense anti-gun stance when her husband was a homicide cop would have driven me nuts, and the scene where Leland had to use Randy to distract Karen while he took down everything in his office that she didn't approve of made me sad even though it was supposed to be funny. You're right, she was the one to leave him - I hated her 'if you have to ask why that's why' line - and his sons automatically blaming him for the divorce and (possibly) being the first to date again made me wonder what Karen was telling them or how she talked about Leland when they were in the house. Between Karen and Linda I was very happy when Leland ended the series happy with TK :)

I'm going to defend Karen. She's the one who managed the household and took care of the kids so that Leland could focus on his job. She's probably heard horror stories about murders and accidental shootings so I understand why she didn't want a gun in her home.

[shapeshifter]

9 hours ago, kathyk24 said:

I'm going to defend Karen. She's the one who managed the household and took care of the kids so that Leland could focus on his job. She's probably heard horror stories about murders and accidental shootings so I understand why she didn't want a gun in her home.

Karen was always a peace-loving hippie type. I guess sometimes “opposites attract” until they don’t. I was surprised to read that Glenne Headly appeared as Karen in just 4 episodes. In one other episode, we hear just Leland’s side of a phone call with her. As neither Headly nor the show had serious commitments to each other, the writers would have been limited by her availability to write stories about Stottlemeyer’s home life. So maybe someone(s) decided to have them divorce for that reason, but I don’t really know. Maybe they just wanted to have the stories about divorced Leland falling in love.

Edited April 3, 2022 by shapeshifter

[fishcakes]

Leland was so in love with Karen, but it was funny and pretty realistic when he moved on so quickly. Some people just can't be alone, and evidently he's one of them. When Monk told him Linda was a murderer, his first instinct was to be more mad at Monk for ruining his "last chance" than he was at Linda for killing someone.

I just discovered my library does not have all 19 Monk books; it only has 18. This is so wrong. If he worked in that library, he'd either replace the missing one or throw away the other 18.

[christie]

He'd be pestering the author to write another book so there's 20 books in total (a nice, round number). Then he'd be pestering the library to buy the two it doesn't have.

[Katy M]

10 minutes ago, christie said:

He'd be pestering the author to write another book so there's 20 books in total (a nice, round number). Then he'd be pestering the library to buy the two it doesn't have.

Nobody would let Monk work in a library. He wouldn't let people check out books because then there would be empty spaces on the shelves. And the books couldn't be arranged by author or subject. They'd have to be arranged by size and color.  We'll thank him later.

[peacheslatour]

11 minutes ago, christie said:

He'd be pestering the author to write another book so there's 20 books in total (a nice, round number). Then he'd be pestering the library to buy the two it doesn't have.

Yep, that was exactly what I was thinking.

[shapeshifter]

12 minutes ago, Katy M said:

Nobody would let Monk work in a library. He wouldn't let people check out books because then there would be empty spaces on the shelves. And the books couldn't be arranged by author or subject. They'd have to be arranged by size and color.  We'll thank him later.

As a retired librarian, I really appreciate this post. 
But let's not forget that Monk met Trudy when he was working in the college library and impressed her with his knowledge of the collection.

[LexieLily]

3 hours ago, Katy M said:

Nobody would let Monk work in a library. He wouldn't let people check out books because then there would be empty spaces on the shelves. And the books couldn't be arranged by author or subject. They'd have to be arranged by size and color.  We'll thank him later.

He'd only let people check out particular books that were two spots away on the shelf from another book so the shelves would still be even - every other space has a book. 

[LexieLily]

Maybe it's the Monk-style OCD in me but does it bug anyone else that the Monk wiki refers to Molly as Monk's stepdaughter? You can stretch it in the technical sense of the relationship, but Trudy when she was alive was under the impression her daughter was dead. She didn't know Molly existed as a living human. Monk certainly didn't know Molly existed. The end of the series was nice wish-fulfillment in that regard, but Monk really wasn't anything to Molly except a tenuous connection to her biological mother.

[chessiegal]

11 minutes ago, LexieLily said:

Maybe it's the Monk-style OCD in me but does it bug anyone else that the Monk wiki refers to Molly as Monk's stepdaughter? You can stretch it in the technical sense of the relationship, but Trudy when she was alive was under the impression her daughter was dead. She didn't know Molly existed as a living human. Monk certainly didn't know Molly existed. The end of the series was nice wish-fulfillment in that regard, but Monk really wasn't anything to Molly except a tenuous connection to her biological mother.

No, it doesn't bother me. It doesn't matter that Trudy didn't know her daughter was still alive. She knew she had given birth to a daughter and was told the baby had died soon after birth. Monk married Trudy, therefore Molly is his stepdaughter.

Edited April 4, 2022 by chessiegal

[andromeda331]

17 hours ago, kathyk24 said:

I'm going to defend Karen. She's the one who managed the household and took care of the kids so that Leland could focus on his job. She's probably heard horror stories about murders and accidental shootings so I understand why she didn't want a gun in her home.

I'm fine with her not wanting a gun in the house. My issue is her talk with Randy that he doesn't need a gun and Leland doesn't. Does she think that criminals are never going to shoot at Randy and Leland? What are they suppose to do when they do?

14 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

Karen was always a peace-loving hippie type. I guess sometimes “opposites attract” until they don’t. I was surprised to read that Glenne Headly appeared as Karen in just 4 episodes. In one other episode, we hear just Leland’s side of a phone call with her. As neither Headly nor the show had serious commitments to each other, the writers would have been limited by her availability to write stories about Stottlemeyer’s home life. So maybe someone(s) decided to have them divorce for that reason, but I don’t really know. Maybe they just wanted to have the stories about divorced Leland falling in love.

I agree they were opposites attract. Karen was a hippie type and Leland was definitely not. He shut down a protest at Monk's campus in his early years. It doesn't always work out. Even without adding in Leland always at work and rarely at home it's pretty realistic that it didn't work out. 

 

One question I just thought of how did Karen feel about Trudy's death? Trudy was married to a detective and was killed in a horrible way. Leland was basically the closest one to Monk. Did she ever worry that something would happen to her or Leland? How did she feel about Leland spending so much time with Monk especially as the years pass? Especially at the expense of their family. Karen never really seemed close to Monk or Trudy.  

[shapeshifter]

21 minutes ago, andromeda331 said:

One question I just thought of how did Karen feel about Trudy's death? Trudy was married to a detective and was killed in a horrible way. Leland was basically the closest one to Monk. Did she ever worry that something would happen to her or Leland? How did she feel about Leland spending so much time with Monk especially as the years pass? Especially at the expense of their family. Karen never really seemed close to Monk or Trudy.  

Trudy's death was not motivated by Monk's work, but there are plenty of other reasons for the wife of a cop to worry. 

But, again, Karen only appears in 4 of 125 episodes, so we don't know much about her--which is why we can't answer your questions--at least not based on the show. 
@fishcakes, did the books have anything more about Karen Stottlemeyer?

[LexieLily]

2 hours ago, andromeda331 said:

One question I just thought of how did Karen feel about Trudy's death? Trudy was married to a detective and was killed in a horrible way. Leland was basically the closest one to Monk. Did she ever worry that something would happen to her or Leland? How did she feel about Leland spending so much time with Monk especially as the years pass? Especially at the expense of their family. Karen never really seemed close to Monk or Trudy.  

I don't have an answer for you but I wanted to tell you, @andromeda331, that that is a fantastic question and gets my mind whirring about a fanfic I hope to start writing soon :)

If I'm remembering correctly Monk operated under the impression for years that Trudy's murder was a direct reaction to his career/his work - I want to say the Manhattan episode was when that changed?) It was also noted in canon that Leland was the one to find and hire Sharona for Monk so we can assume that the first couple of months after Trudy's murder were difficult for Leland as well, professionally (having to discharge Monk, one of his men, from the force) and personally (seeing his friend spiral so badly). 

[Bastet]

13 minutes ago, LexieLily said:

If I'm remembering correctly Monk operated under the impression for years that Trudy's murder was a direct reaction to his career/his work

I thought it was assumed to be about her work, as an investigative journalist (until they came up with the dumb-ass kid storyline in the end), rather than her being the typical cannon fodder.  But I don't know this show the way most here do, so that may very well be wishful thinking.

My favorite memory of the convoluted and contradictory Trudy murder storyline is in one of my favorite episodes, "Mr. Monk and the Three Pies", when Ambrose responds to Adrian's bitterness by saying his lack of communication in the wake of Trudy's death was because Trudy's presence in that parking garage was (again, as I may improperly recall, believed to be her meeting a source on a story [maybe something with Dale the Whale?]) - to get Ambrose cough syrup from a drugstore. 

[andromeda331]

2 hours ago, LexieLily said:

I don't have an answer for you but I wanted to tell you, @andromeda331, that that is a fantastic question and gets my mind whirring about a fanfic I hope to start writing soon :)

If I'm remembering correctly Monk operated under the impression for years that Trudy's murder was a direct reaction to his career/his work - I want to say the Manhattan episode was when that changed?) It was also noted in canon that Leland was the one to find and hire Sharona for Monk so we can assume that the first couple of months after Trudy's murder were difficult for Leland as well, professionally (having to discharge Monk, one of his men, from the force) and personally (seeing his friend spiral so badly). 

Can't wait to read it! 

1 hour ago, Bastet said:

I thought it was assumed to be about her work, as an investigative journalist (until they came up with the dumb-ass kid storyline in the end), rather than her being the typical cannon fodder.  But I don't know this show the way most here do, so that may very well be wishful thinking.

My favorite memory of the convoluted and contradictory Trudy murder storyline is in one of my favorite episodes, "Mr. Monk and the Three Pies", when Ambrose responds to Adrian's bitterness by saying his lack of communication in the wake of Trudy's death was because Trudy's presence in that parking garage was (again, as I may improperly recall, believed to be her meeting a source on a story [maybe something with Dale the Whale?]) - to get Ambrose cough syrup from a drugstore. 

Monk believed that the bomb was meant for him and not Trudy until the end of season two when Dale the Whale told him that Trudy was the main target.

That was a great scene between Adrian and Ambrose. We also found out why Trudy was in the parking garage too. 

 

[shapeshifter]

I did not like the Trudy subplot, and after they revealed that Monk had always been OCD it seemed even more unnecessary. But I suppose on a murder mystery show, if they're going to have the main detective have a dead wife, there needs to be a mystery. 
At least the Trudy subplot was not all-consuming like on The Mentalist, a show that I would still be re-watching if not for all the Red John nemesis crap. On Monk, they never elevated Dale the Whale like that. Heck, three different actors played Dale the Whale. Kudos to the show for finding a subtle way to lower the importance of a recurring nemesis.

[fishcakes]

14 hours ago, LexieLily said:

Maybe it's the Monk-style OCD in me but does it bug anyone else that the Monk wiki refers to Molly as Monk's stepdaughter? You can stretch it in the technical sense of the relationship, but Trudy when she was alive was under the impression her daughter was dead. She didn't know Molly existed as a living human. Monk certainly didn't know Molly existed. The end of the series was nice wish-fulfillment in that regard, but Monk really wasn't anything to Molly except a tenuous connection to her biological mother.

I think it's okay; if at some point Trudy had found out Molly was still alive, she would have wanted to raise her and then Monk would have been her stepdad. Presumably he functions in her life now as a second dad. It's a little odd, but then all of his relationships are.

12 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

But, again, Karen only appears in 4 of 125 episodes, so we don't know much about her--which is why we can't answer your questions--at least not based on the show. 
@fishcakes, did the books have anything more about Karen Stottlemeyer?

I don't think so. I've only read the first and third books (I know, it hurts my OCD too, but someone has book 2 checked out). I don't remember her being mentioned at all in the first book and by the third, she and the Captain are already separated, and there's no more explanation there than there was in the show. I doubt she figures in the second book because it takes place in Hawaii, so the Captain's probably not in it much either -- he's even kind of a minor figure in the third book. Really, since the books are narrated by Natalie, they feel like they're more about her than anyone.

31 minutes ago, shapeshifter said:

On Monk, they never elevated Dale the Whale like that. Heck, three different actors played Dale the Whale. Kudos to the show for finding a subtle way to lower the importance of a recurring nemesis.

Yeah, by the time we knew the story behind her death, Dale the Whale was pretty superfluous. It seems like they originally intended for him to be the one who ordered Trudy's murder since he hated her and knew so many details about her death, but then they decided against it for some reason, probably something mundane like how much of a pain it was to put someone in that horrendous fat suit and prosthetics. Maybe that's why they kept switching actors too; it's supposed to take hours to get into that kind of costume so I could see why an actor would hate it so much they wouldn't want to do it again.

[shapeshifter]

15 hours ago, LexieLily said:

Maybe it's the Monk-style OCD in me but does it bug anyone else that the Monk wiki refers to Molly as Monk's stepdaughter? You can stretch it in the technical sense of the relationship, but Trudy when she was alive was under the impression her daughter was dead. She didn't know Molly existed as a living human. Monk certainly didn't know Molly existed. The end of the series was nice wish-fulfillment in that regard, but Monk really wasn't anything to Molly except a tenuous connection to her biological mother.

@LexieLily, I'm glad you mentioned the contrived relationship between Monk and the heretofore unknown birth daughter of Trudy and another man. It was a kind of "huh?" relationship for me too.
But now that others here have explained it, maybe next time I watch those episodes I won't question it so much.

[LexieLily]

1 hour ago, fishcakes said:

I think it's okay; if at some point Trudy had found out Molly was still alive, she would have wanted to raise her and then Monk would have been her stepdad. Presumably he functions in her life now as a second dad. It's a little odd, but then all of his relationships are.

LOL, that last sentence has no reason to make me laugh like it did 🤭

[Fool to cry]

Rewatching it confirmed "Monk and the 12th Man" as my least favorite episode. A lot of innocent people brutally murdered, that dumb subplot about Sharona dating the mayoral candidate, Monk's dry cleaning lady, comedy around a brain injured person, Stottlemeyer  maddingly not figuring out the connection between the victims sooner, having to see that guy from Hill Street Blues in a swimsuit, Sharona bitching out loudly to herself while Monk is confronting the killer. Not enjoyable to me in the least.

[Bastet]

That's the first episode I saw.  I was at my aunt's house, not paying much attention to the show on TV, until I heard someone complaining that one shirt button had been attached with parallel stitching, while all the rest were crisscrossed.  I perked up, because I thought, "Why would anyone not sew it to match?"  

That scene is all I remember from the episode (I had to look it up to make sure that's the scene you were referring to with his dry cleaner) and I don't remember when I started watching the show occasionally at home, but I remember that being my introduction and being Team Monk.  (Well, not for how he went on about it, but that it bugged him.)

[chessiegal]

Since the killer didn't know who the blackmailer was, the only way that plot works is to start killing off the jurors. There are only a few episodes where no one is killed. After all, it's a murder mystery show.

Monk being paranoid about the different stitching on the button, thinking everyone was staring at him because of it, is so funny.

[shapeshifter]

12 hours ago, Bastet said:

That's the first episode I saw.  I was at my aunt's house, not paying much attention to the show on TV, until I heard someone complaining that one shirt button had been attached with parallel stitching, while all the rest were crisscrossed.  I perked up, because I thought, "Why would anyone not sew it to match?"  

That scene is all I remember from the episode (I had to look it up to make sure that's the scene you were referring to with his dry cleaner) and I don't remember when I started watching the show occasionally at home, but I remember that being my introduction and being Team Monk.  (Well, not for how he went on about it, but that it bugged him.)

13 hours ago, Fool to cry said:

Rewatching it confirmed "Monk and the 12th Man" as my least favorite episode.

The only thing that really bugs me about that episode is that they got the wrong stitching backwards in that no way would the original stitching be crisscross. 
CORRECTION: Apparently buttons haven’t been sewn with parallel stitching in many decades. 
I’m guessing earlier machines could only do parallel button stitching???

Edited April 10, 2022 by shapeshifter

[chessiegal]

22 minutes ago, shapeshifter said:

The only thing that really bugs me about that episode is that they got the wrong stitching backwards in that no way would the original stitching be crisscross. 

Well, the buttons in my closet are crisscross, both on my shirts and my husbands.

[shapeshifter]

9 hours ago, chessiegal said:

Well, the buttons in my closet are crisscross, both on my shirts and my husbands.

You are correct! 🤔 

Wait. My old shirts from the 90s and early 00s do have buttons with parallel stitching. 🧐

Edited April 10, 2022 by shapeshifter

[Columbo]

On 4/3/2022 at 12:58 AM, fishcakes said:

I'm in Monk withdrawal and I discovered that my library has all 19 of the Mr. Monk books, which I didn't expect to be very good, and halfway through the first one, that seems like it was a good prediction. It's not terrible, but I can't see anyone who doesn't love the show reading these. They're written by two of the show's writers, and you can see why there were inconsistencies in the episodes (like sometimes Monk can ride in the back seat of a car and sometimes he can't, he's afraid of elevators/he's not afraid of elevators) because there are a lot of out-of-character things in the book. He's drinking milk, throwing trash on the ground, telling Natalie he's glad she's in his life; he would never do any of that. I will still probably read all of these though, heh.

Have you read any further books in the series?

[Fool to cry]

14 hours ago, chessiegal said:

Since the killer didn't know who the blackmailer was, the only way that plot works is to start killing off the jurors. There are only a few episodes where no one is killed. After all, it's a murder mystery show.

Eleven just seemed excessive to me. I like the whodunits but my favorite episodes the "howcatchems" where it's a guest star and it's obvious they did it but we don't know how until the end. It becomes like that Columbo episode with Leonard Nimoy where Columbo has a rare moment of showing his anger. The smug killer taunts Monk who becomes determined to bring he or she to justice.

[shapeshifter]

16 hours ago, Fool to cry said:

Rewatching it confirmed "Monk and the 12th Man" as my least favorite episode. A lot of innocent people brutally murdered,

15 hours ago, chessiegal said:

Since the killer didn't know who the blackmailer was, the only way that plot works is to start killing off the jurors. There are only a few episodes where no one is killed. After all, it's a murder mystery show.

45 minutes ago, Fool to cry said:

Eleven just seemed excessive to me. I like the whodunits but my favorite episodes the "howcatchems" where it's a guest star and it's obvious they did it but we don't know how until the end. It becomes like that Columbo episode with Leonard Nimoy where Columbo has a rare moment of showing his anger. The smug killer taunts Monk who becomes determined to bring he or she to justice.

I always thought of Monk as not being very "brutal" too until I turned one on to watch with Mom near the end of her life when she was under hospice care at her assisted living facility. It was then that I noticed the beginning of most episodes does usually get pretty dark. She startled quite a bit, but maybe that was just because of the screaming? So I switched it back to Reba. If her cable offered Murder She Wrote, maybe that might have worked, although they have screams too.

Anyway, I haven't seen the one with the 11 jurors in a while. Are the bodies all presented gruesomely, or is it mostly off-screen?

Edited April 10, 2022 by shapeshifter

[chessiegal]

You see dead bodies on Monk. Gunshot, knife, falls from high places, but not generally gory. On the episode with the jurors, one was dragged behind a car and was not shown, but described. If you want to see gore, NCIS is your show. When I watch it on Netflix, it shows a description of "gore".

[fishcakes]

I loved the dry cleaner. She had Mr. Monk as a separate line item on her price list.

My least liked episode is probably Mr. Monk and the Big Reward, where he's looking for the diamond stolen in a museum heist. It has a slapstick quality that I didn't care for and the story itself is just irritating to me for some reason: Natalie forcing him into the job, the three bounty hunters following him around, the hostile cleaning lady, the woman who keeps confessing stupid stuff to Randy. The good part of it though is that it's one of the few episodes actually filmed in San Francisco. It's such a distinctive looking city that it's pretty obvious that the show is usually filmed elsewhere, although the exterior of Monk's apartment building always looks right.

4 hours ago, Columbo said:

Have you read any further books in the series?

Still just #1 (Mr. Monk Goes to the Firehouse) and #3 (Mr. Monk and the Blue Flu). They both have similar plot points to the episodes Mr. Monk Can't See a Thing and Mr. Monk and the Badge, but are different enough that it's not like reading a novelization of the script. I've got the next few on my library hold list.

[chessiegal]

2 minutes ago, fishcakes said:

My least liked episode is probably Mr. Monk and the Big Reward, where he's looking for the diamond stolen in a museum heist. It has a slapstick quality that I didn't care for and the story itself is just irritating

I agree! I skip that one when it comes around.

[Fool to cry]

The bodies in "12th man" were off screen. I don't mind onscreen gore. 11 just seemed a bit much since they were all innocent people and the epiosde was still trying have a light tone.

Although I do like Natalie I miss Sharona. I love the idea of "Erin Brockavich as Watson". She was like a sister giving tough love to Monk. Well at least Dr. Kroger there was someone left on the show to called Monk by his first name.

[LexieLily]

My least favorite episodes are Mr. Monk Meets His Dad and Mr. Monk's Other Brother but those are mostly for character reasons. Same with Mr. Monk Bumps His Head. 

For episodic/plot reasons I'd have to say Mr. Monk and the UFO. The mystery as it was didn't seem very Monk-like, the UFO stuff seemed shoe-horned in, and as someone that likes the element of seeing the Core Four interact with each other, it was a letdown that Stottlemeyer/Randy weren't even in it.

[Fool to cry]

So thinking about it....

Adam Arkin = Brian Cox

Tim Curry = Anthony Hopkins 

Ray Porter = Mads Mikkelson