Monk

Mr. Monk and the Other Woman - S1-E8

Plot hole: Monk says that the two files, both with tab at the middle, were kept together, which led him to discover that the person related to this file is 'the guy'. In an earlier scene, when Monk is searching the file cabinets, he picks up one of these two files and tells Sharona that this file is of 'the guy'. How can he say which one of the two files with middle tabs, which are put together, is related to 'the guy'? Impossible. (00:39:00 - 00:40:00)

SaurabhShivaniSaumya

Mr. Monk Is on the Run (1) - S6-E15

Plot hole: The D.A. says that ballistics show that the bullet came from Monk's gun. The simplest thing to do would be to look at the gun, they'd know that it hadn't been fired and was full. With Monk's OCD we know it was cleaned, and the sheriff came in right after, so Monk couldn't have reloaded it. Yet they overlook all of this.

brianjr0412

Mr. Monk and the 12th Man - S2-E9

Plot hole: Monk identifies the killer because of a shirt sleeve that gets ripped off... he noticed the button is sewed on in a unique manner with the threads parallel as opposed to the "standardized" crisscross pattern. The killer and Monk coincidentally use the same dry cleaner and Mrs. Ling sews buttons parallel because it's her style. Dialogue in the episode indicated she is the only one who sews buttons on like that. But I checked over 20 button up shirts here at my house and the ratio of crisscross to parallel button sewing methods is 50% of each - hardly some unique identification method.

Mr. Monk and the Wrong Man - S6-E8

Plot hole: Monk supposedly hears for the first time that Max was not carrying anything away from the crime scene when he speaks to the witness in front of the church. This leads him to conclude that there must have been a 2nd man with Max 14 years ago. But this does not make sense given that the witness with her photographic memory did not change her testimony and given Monks ability to observe and memorize details it is very unlikely that he did not come to that conclusion 14 years ago already. (00:32:45)

Mr. Monk Gets Fired - S3-E4

Plot hole: In this episode the police are using the toupee of the commissioner to identify the torso as the missing woman. In reality that would not be possible since cut hair is missing the root and therefore only contains mitochondrial DNA, which can only be used to identify a human's relation via the female lineage, as it is the same in relatives and passed through generations from the mother to her children. Furthermore, the identification of said torso would likely not be sufficient proof that Mr. Harley killed her as he may claim that somebody misled him to believe she was in Paris by placing the telephone call he mentioned to police.

Prince Eitel Joe

Mr. Monk and the Psychic - S1-E3

Plot hole: When Monk is looking for the pebble, he immediately makes an announcement through the shop's speaker system and then directly asks the guy wiping the floor where the rest of the garbage is. Given the size of the trash can it is not realistic that the guy wiping could have filled the trashcan, emptied it and have it filled half again in the 2 to 10 minutes that might have passed since the pebble got lost.

Mr. Monk Buys A House - S7-E1

Plot hole: How come Monk and Natalie didn't think it suspicious that Cassie Drake was killed in her house within less than twelve hours after they had found out she was responsible for killing her patient? Since Jake and Ramone were the only two people they had disclosed their findings to (apart from Stottlemeyer and Disher), they should have focused in on Jake much sooner. (00:24:00 - 00:27:00)

dmcreif

Mr. Monk and the Red-Headed Stranger - S1-E12

Plot hole: When Monk explains to Miss. Mass how she had murdered Sonny, a flashback of the crime shows that she isn't wearing gloves when she leaves the note to get him to go to the alley. Had the cops checked the note for prints, they would have shown Miss. Mass' fingerprints on it and knew she was responsible for Sonny's death.

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: Just because they lifted fingerprints off the note, there wouldn't be a way to identify them as belonging to Ms. Maas if her prints aren't in the system. As a witness (and ruled out as a suspect because they thought she was blind), they wouldn't have fingerprinted her just because the found unknown prints and wanted to rule her out.

Bishop73

What about gun residue on the hands?

Mr. Monk Is on the Run (2) - S6-E16

Plot hole: When Stottlemeyer is confronted by the Sheriff for not going to the morgue there are 2 plot holes in that one scene: first it is impossible for that article to be in the morning paper since the coast guard "just fished him out" last night. And secondly an article, especially a long article like the one about the body in the bay would contain a physical description of said body. That is the reason it does not make sense to even ask the captain why he did not go to check the body to see if it was Monk when the body was tattooed and had red hair. (00:13:30)

Prince Eitel Joe

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: The article being there that fast is a bit odd, the sheriff mentions a police alert had been put out and was why he went to the morgue. That was what he was confronting the captain about. Even without the article the point of why he didn't check is still a valid question.

Lummie

Do you really believe that the police alert did not include a description of said corpse being found for the missing person's unit to combine against their lists?

Prince Eitel Joe

Mr. Monk and the Three Julies - S6-E13

Plot hole: There is no other reason for Randy to hand Natalie the walkie-talkie but to fill that plot hole. He is in fact in breach of police rules when he hands his department issued radio to a civilian to answer it while he is on duty. The same goes for Stottlemeyer and the car keys he hands to Monk. Even more so since he knows Monk could not even drive that car to the side in the far fetched scenario that a police car had to be moved while the cop is serving a warrant inside the building the car is parked in front of. (00:01:15)

Prince Eitel Joe

Mr. Monk Stays in Bed - S4-E3

Plot hole: When Stottlemeyer and the other cops arrive at the recycling center, the patrol car's siren turns on and off. The killer had said to Monk that if he called the cops, he'd kill Natalie. Coming to a hostage situation with the siren going would be a really bad idea. (00:37:45)

Captain Defenestrator

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: We never actually saw him commit the murder, so there's no way of knowing what he did or didn't do. The "re-enactment" was just Monk's summation and not the actual murder scene.

Bishop73

Mr. Monk Goes to Jail - S2-E16

Factual error: Death row prisoners cannot donate organs. No doctor participates in an execution and after the lethal injection the medical examiner must wait at least fifteen minutes to test for cardiac activity before pronouncing the prisoner dead. This is enough time for hypoxia to render the heart, lungs and kidneys useless for transplant. Apart from this, organs intended for transplant must be removed within minutes of the death of the donor. Prisoners are not executed in operating theatres.

More mistakes in Monk
More quotes from Monk

Trivia: Brooke Adams, Tony Shalhoub's real-life wife, has appeared on the show 5 times. In S1 as Leigh the flight attendant Monk drives crazy in "Mr. Monk and the Airplane"; in S3 as Mrs. Carlyle in "Mr. Monk and the Kid"; in S5 as Sheriff Butterfield in "Mr. Monk Visits a Farm"; in S7, again, as Leigh the flight attendant in "Mr. Monk's 100th Case"; in S8 as the crazy cat lady in "Mr. Monk and the Badge."

More trivia for Monk

Mr. Monk and the Garbage Strike - S5-E2

Question: Why would it have been political suicide if it was discovered that Mayor Nicholson was secretly meeting with Cusack to end the garbage strike? If anything, if the people found out that they were meeting to find a way to end the garbage strike, wouldn't that have made everybody happy considering how much garbage was piling up all over the city?

Answer: The two men are trying to work out a secret deal between them without involving the union, which means the workers' interests aren't being represented and defeats the whole purpose of a union. The mayor would lose labor's support and Cusack's union troubles would just be starting.

Captain Defenestrator

More questions & answers from Monk

Join the mailing list

Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.