Adrian Monk was once a rising star with the San Francisco Police Department, legendary for using unconventional means to solve the department's most baffling cases. But after the tragic (and still unsolved) murder of his wife Trudy, he developed an extreme case of obsessive-compulsive disorder. Now working as a private consultant, Monk continues to investigate cases in the most unconventional ways.
This tv show contains 66 potentially triggering events.
*possible spoiler* in the last couple of episodes, it is revealed that before Adrian and Trudy met, Trudy got pregnant by her professor. She was led to believe that the baby died very soon after she gave birth, but that ended up being false. Nothing was shown, only Trudy telling the story on videotape/Monk and Natalie’s reaction.
In S4E2, a pigeon is seen eating crumbs near a body at a crime scene. Later, Monk finds the same pigeon dead and says it could have been poisoned. The dead bird is shown on screen for a long while as Monk convinces his coworkers that it is the same pigeon. It is even flipped around and then taken in as evidence. In S5E12, Monk fires a rifle as a warning and accidentally kills a quail up in a tree. It is not seen being shot, only falling from the tree and its body appears in the background for a few scenes afterwards. In S5E14, a farmer’s pig is killed. It’s briefly shown alive, then later its body is found but not seen.
In a circus-centric episode, it is very briefly mentioned that the lion tamer has a gun ready backstage in case anything goes wrong during a show. I guess this may imply abuse of the lions and other animals at the circus, but none of it is shown.
Monk finds a dead pigeon and take it with a stop sign, and shows it to the captain and disher. In S05E14 there is a big pig who dies and is lying on the ground
In an episode (S3Ep16), a finger is found and the process of cutting it is described, and the finger is shown.
In another episode (S2Ep10), a side case pops up where there is talk of a body found with the two hands cut, but nothing is shown.
In another episode (S2Ep9), a guy cuts a finger off a frozen corpse, and while it is not vividly shown, you can hear the disturbing sounds of it taking place.
However, there is an episode where the main character is almost be tortured by a dentist. The dentist talks pretty non-explicitly about what he’s going to do to him, and it never happens.
Not sure why people are saying no, there’s an entire episode about a main character traumatically losing their eyesight after having acid thrown in their face.
The show is safe. Mr. Monk himself is emetophobic haha. There is one episode where he’s afraid he might throw up but it never comes close to happening, just mentioned.
In part 1 of "Mr. Monk and the End" a character is interrogated and beaten offscreen with a laptop by Captain Stottlemeyer, a character normally portrayed as "one of the good cops". It's played for laughs and treated as justified.
Mr Monk takes a medication that puts him through what looks like depersonalisation. I'm pretty sure there are some other occurences of derealization too, like when he talks with his dead wife as a way to cope. He seems pretty aware of it not being real though (?)
In a couple episodes scattered throughout the series, a man named Dale is bed-ridden due to how fat he is. It is mentioned he couldn't fit through the door of his bedroom anymore. He makes jokes about his own weight, as do other characters.
There is an episode where Dale the Whale makes Sharona dress up in a maid costume and wait on him. It’s not explicitly sexy but was uncomfortable to watch with my mom lol
There is a Christmas episode in which Natalie convinces Adrian to help solve a case for a few homeless men. Adrian is very uncomfortable with this, as they are very dirty and lack “basic” manners (ex. There is a scene where they are all eating Christmas dinner together and they are slurping, talking with their mouths full, etc.) Monk makes several comments at this, but Natalie makes sure to treat them with civility and works to convince Adrian to do the same.