Mr. Monk and the Candidate

"Mr. Monk and the Candidate" is the two-part pilot episode of the American comedy drama detective television series Monk. It introduces the character of Adrian Monk (Tony Shalhoub), a private detective with obsessive–compulsive disorder and multiple phobias, and his assistant Sharona Fleming (Bitty Schram), as well as police officers Leland Stottlemeyer (Ted Levine) and Randy Disher (Jason Gray-Stanford). In this episode, Monk investigates an assassination attempt on a mayoral candidate. First envisioned in 1998, Monk went through development hell due to difficulties to find an actor for the main role. After casting Shalhoub, the series' first episode was shot in Vancouver, British Columbia in 2001. "Mr. Monk and the Candidate" was written by Andy Breckman and directed by Dean Parisot. When the episode first aired in the United States on the USA Network on July 12, 2002, it was watched by 4.8 million viewers. The episode was generally well received by critics, with most of the praise regarding Shalhoub's performance as the title character. Plot Adrian Monk was a San Francisco Police Department investigator, but the death of his wife, Trudy, exacerbated his obsessive–compulsive disorder and led him to develop depression and multiple phobias. Now, as a private detective, Monk investigates the murder of Nicole Vasquez. A shooting occurs during a campaign rally, resulting in the death of mayoral candidate Warren St. Claire's bodyguard. The incumbent mayor orders Monk's former supervisor, Captain Stottlemeyer, to bring Monk in on the case, and reluctantly, he does. Monk meets St. Claire, his wife Miranda, and their advisor Gavin Lloyd, and walks to the site of the assassination attempt. He discovers Vasquez was a volunteer for the St. Claire's campaign. He goes to St. Claire campaign headquarters and questions a volunteer about Vasquez. That volunteer later dies under suspicious circumstances, enhancing Monk's suspicion about a link between the Vasquez and St. Claire cases.