Character mistake: It seems throughout the whole series at crime scenes Monk, Randy, and Stottlemeyer handle evidence bare handed. Surely, they should be wearing gloves so as not to contaminate the evidence.
Mr. Monk and the Candidate (1) - S1-E1
Character mistake: When Captain Stottlemeyer is saying that the two murders are unrelated, he says, "He was stabbed, she was shot," when the truth is the exact opposite.
Mr. Monk Goes Back to School - S2-E1
Character mistake: When Kathy is presenting her model of General Robert E. Lee's surrender to General Ulysses S. Grant on April 9th, 1865, she incorrectly states that the surrender occurred "at the courthouse in Appomattox, Virginia." The surrender didn't take place at the actual courthouse, but rather at the McLean House, a private residence selected by Grant and his aides for the meeting of two of the greatest generals in American history. This is a common misconception as the village itself is called Appomattox Courthouse. (00:29:05)
Mr. Monk Goes Back to School - S2-E1
Character mistake: Sharona invites Monk home for dinner. Monk is playing with his food, and Sharona guesses it is because the potatoes are mixed together with the carrots. Sharona asks Kyle to fetch two plates (So Monk can separate the potatoes and carrots.) As he tilts the dinner plate, Monk succeeds in scraping all the carrots onto one dish - save for one stray potato - all the while speaking. He completes his thought without removing the stray potato. In all other instances, Monk cannot allow such a transgression. He either corrects it before saying his piece, or after. But he cannot let it go.
Mr. Monk and the Sleeping Suspect - S2-E7
Character mistake: Brian Babbage is such a perfectionist and plans out such an elaborated plan for his crimes that it is very unlikely that he would simply leave the ketchup bottles sticking to the ceiling for the police to be found after he had timed the perfect glue for his plan. Plus, he even had staffers who already knew about the bottles and it would have taken him not more than a single order for the bottles to be removed. (00:23:50)
Mr. Monk and the Sleeping Suspect - S2-E7
Character mistake: In Brian Baddage's house, when Randy says to the Captain, "ATF at 3 o'clock," they both look at 9 o'clock. (00:25:00 - 00:26:00)
Mr. Monk Gets Married - S2-E15
Character mistake: Monk says West Virginia became a state after the Civil War, West Virginia actually became a state in 1863, during the Civil War.
Mr. Monk vs. the Cobra - S3-E11
Character mistake: Monk says that Croatia is a new country and didn't exist until 1992, but Croatia gained independence in 1991. However, Croatia still existed prior to that, it was just part of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. So things could still be made in Croatia.
Mr. Monk and the Election - S3-E15
Character mistake: Captain Stottlemeyer uses gloves to pick up the letter found sticking out of the pipe. He doesn't actually put the glove on, but still uses it to avoid getting any of his prints, skin, etc on the paper. But then he uses his other, non-gloved hand to open up the note and hold it, and Monk also touches the letter. If he cared about not contaminating evidence by using the glove, he wouldn't touch it bare handed and if he didn't care about touching the note bare handed, then he wouldn't have used the gloves.
Character mistake: Stottlemeyer says that the human finger was "still bleeding, freshly severed." But prior to him saying this, when we are shown the finger, there is no bleeding whatsoever and the blood on the severed end had already dried.
Mr. Monk Goes to the Dentist - S4-E15
Character mistake: He extracted the wrong tooth. He states 3 is the problem, then goes to the other side (left), which would be tooth 14.
Mr. Monk and the Big Game - S5-E3
Character mistake: When Julie asks "who discovered DNA?", Captain Stottlemeyer says "Watson and Crick. Two British scientists." However, James Watson is American (as of 2021 he's still alive), not British. And the duo only discovered the structure of DNA, not DNA itself. As much knowledge as the Captain demonstrates on the subject, he should know these two facts at least.
Mr. Monk Meets His Dad - S5-E9
Character mistake: At some point Monk asks his father what the device in the car is. His dad tells him it's a GPS. It's difficult to believe that our detective doesn't recognize the machine, even if it's probably another model: the whole plot of the episode 2x03, Mr. Monk Goes to the Ballgame, revolves around a tampered-with GPS.
Mr. Monk Makes A Friend - S5-E11
Character mistake: At the crime scene, the #8 evidence marker is in the bathroom. When Monk and the Captain are examining the body, a #8 evidence marker is seen on the lamp. They wouldn't use a number more than once at a crime scene.
Mr. Monk Visits a Farm - S5-E14
Character mistake: When Randy Disher is having Chinese food in his apartment with his new girlfriend in 3-12 "Mr. Monk Gets Cabin Fever", he gets a fortune stating that he is going to get money from his uncle, and says that he doesn't have an uncle. In this episode Randy inherits a farm from his uncle who appears to have committed suicide, but was actually murdered.
Suggested correction: Randy says when that uncle dies that they were never close, so his leaving him the farm comes as a total surprise. It's still a character mistake, however, Randy is established as the sort of person who could "blank out" a relative that long-lost.
Randy says he can run the farm because he went there and helped his uncle every summer.
Mr. Monk Goes to the Hospital - S5-E16
Character mistake: The doctor remarks that his patient has rheumatoid arthritis early in the episode, and later he says osteoarthritis. These are two different conditions. (00:19:15 - 00:28:40)
Mr. Monk and the Naked Man - S6-E3
Character mistake: SPOILER. Arlene Boras murders Vicki Deline in order to stop her telling Peter Magneri that he has an aortic aneurysm. Boras wants Magneri dead to clean up by short selling the stock in his company. Boras is a medical professional, and she would know that an aneurysm can burst if the patient is under stress or is shocked in some way. Allowing Deline to tell Magneri that he is in danger of dropping dead on the spot would kill him, which is exactly what she wants.
Mr. Monk and the Naked Man - S6-E3
Character mistake: SPOILER ALERT Monk accuses Arlene Boras of swapping Peter Magneri's X-rays in order to hide the fact that he has a potentially lethal aortic aneurysm. We see Magneri being examined and we see Boras handling his records, and they are not X-rays. Magneri was examined in an MRI scanner and Boras swaps the MRI scans - not X-rays.
Mr. Monk and the Three Julies - S6-E13
Character mistake: Julie has just passed her driver's test. At the end, she drives up with two teenage friends in the car and offers the stranded Captain Stottlemeyer a ride. Instead of simply accepting, by-the-book cop Stottlemeyer would be lecturing her. California law prohibits new teenage drivers from having other teens in the car. (00:40:15)
Mr. Monk and the Three Julies - S6-E13
Character mistake: When Monk's examining the second dead Julie, notice that Randy touches the body to point out a bruise. Surely real life cops would be wearing gloves so as not to contaminate part of the crime scene.
