As several of his friends point out in Mr. The show’s signature blend of dark humor is still potent nearly 15 years after its series finale aired, if not more so. When Trudy’s daughter, Molly (Caitlin McGee), needs Monk’s help solving her fiancé’s mysterious death, Monk is reminded how much he matters to the people in his life. Monk’s Last Case: A Monk Movie, doubles down on that theme, finding Monk the most depressed we’ve ever seen him after COVID lockdown. Monk’s love for Trudy compels him to keep working, but the people who love Monk help keep him living. Ultimately, though, Monk is a show about love. The show is at its best when a big bully underestimates Monk, dismissing him as a sad, strange little man, only to be outsmarted with a smirk and a, “Here’s what happened.” The team wrung every ounce of comedy and drama out of their lead’s fears and compulsions, tempering his sadness and vulnerability with a wry yet goofy sense of humor. The show’s creator, Andy Breckman, wrote for Late Night With David Letterman and Saturday Night Live before developing Monk and brought on writers with a similar background in comedy in addition to more traditional mystery writers. Monk’s writing staff was (mostly) able to balance its dark premise with light humor, setting the template for shows like Psych, Burn Notice, and Suits. Monk is the progenitor of the blue-sky shows, a term given to the breezy procedurals that populated the USA Network during the mid-aughts to distinguish them from the grittier dramas found elsewhere on basic cable. If it’s not clear from that description, it’s also a really funny show! He does this work in the hopes of getting reinstated to the police force and, in some ways, to atone for the fact that Trudy’s murder still remains a mystery. Monk is called in as a consultant to solve the cases that stump the SFPD. With the help of Captain Leland Stottlemeyer (Ted Levine), Lieutenant Randy Disher (Jason Gray-Stanford), and a spunky assistant - originally Sharona Fleming (Bitty Schram) and later Natalie Teeger (Traylor Howard) - and the support of his beloved psychiatrists Dr. Tony Shalhoub plays the titular detective with severe obsessive-compulsive disorder, who was discharged from the San Francisco police department following a mental breakdown when his wife, Trudy (Melora Hardin), was murdered. ![]() Across eight seasons, the USA procedural showed us just how dirty and dangerous the world is - or at least that’s how it appears through the eyes of its germophobic main character, Adrian Monk. ![]() Randy Newman’s jaunty theme song warns us as much at the beginning of (nearly) every episode of Monk. Photo-Illustration: Vulture Photos Courtesy the Studios.
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