Evidently. She’s an experienced nurse so she can live wherever there are sick people wealthy enough for a private nurse or a hospital. In the finale Randy accepts the police chief job to be with Sharona, who you never see ‘in the flesh’ but you see him putting her picture on his desk.
And if Monk taught me anything about how police work works, the cops in Summit, NJ are likely responsible for investigating all the murders in North Jersey, just as San Francisco cops investigated everything from Napa Valley to Monterey.
Work in Summit? Sure. Absolutely.
Live in Summit? No way. The median home price is something like $750,000. Apartment and condo prices are similarly high.
Okay, I’m sure we could come up with a scenario where Sharona could afford to live in Summit, but that would just be fanwankery. Even if she could afford to, she probably wouldn’t want to. It’s rich, ritzy, and would not be a good fit for a person with a more blue-collar sensibility. Sharona is sensible enough to know that she’d hate it there. Did they say that she actually lives there or that she works there.
And as for the question of whether it’s a “small burb” or not–it’s not. I’m very surprised at how low the actual population is, because it has a huge downtown with many notable shops and restaurants, a major hospital and many medical centers, and all sorts of other things that attract people from all over the area to the town. So they probably need a larger police force than might be suggested from the actual population. And there always seems to be a disproportionately large police presence in wealthy towns in central NJ because the residents want it and because giving out parking tickets is so very lucrative.
But would they hire Randy as police chief? No. He may be a genuinely good police officer, but he gives the impression of being a doofus. They’d get someone with a better manner and a better resume. The tax base is huge and NJ police officers are remarkably well-paid. They can afford somebody “better” than Randy Disher.
I’ve read a lot of complaints about the show getting Bay Area geography plain wrong, and I’m sure it just jolts you right out of the show. This is just as bad. It might not be provable factually, but it’s simply ridiculous. It’s an error that could have been avoided by just ASKING someone who lives around here if it makes any sense at all for Sharona to live in Summit and Randy to be the police chief there.
Just a stupid mistake. They should have known better.
p.s. For the local NJ folk–I’d guess that Sharona would live in Union, though it’s way too big to be a “small town,” and Randy would get a job in someplace like Mountainside or even Garwood, depending on the message you were trying to get across.
Fiddlesticks: That’s just a terrifying thought. Could you imagine Randy Disher going head-to-head with the Soprano family?
Spoilered here.
And he might have discovered Trudy’s daughter was alive. Although, honestly, I think he probably would have creeped out 14 year old Molly and her adoptive parents at the time and they would have gotten a restraining order against him. And as a minor, she might not have been allowed to have a say in whether she wanted to meet him or not.
Maybe that’s how he affords to live in Summit.
Actually I can see Randy being Tony Soprano’s wet dream. “Mafia, no, they’re just a myth… take it from me, the guys behind it all ain’t the Sicilians, it’s the Finns, always has been, look it up… you won’t find it, know why? Cause they’re that good at hidin’ it.”
I’ll admit I’d never heard of Summit NJ, but I hate when characters live ridiculously above their income level. Sharona in SF for example: she lived in a large old (as in historic district, not slum) house in San Francisco on what she made from Mr. Monk. Natalie’s place was as nice as Monk’s also but presumably Natalie would get a pension for herself and her daughter since her husband died in service, while Sharona’s ex-husband was a deadbeat dad (there were episodes built around this) and her salary was given in an episode when she reappeared- it was in the low 40s IIRC, which even adjusted for a few years of inflation wouldn’t be that much. If you can’t live well while supporting a kid in the low 40s in Alabama I’m reasonably certain you can’t in San Francisco.
Maybe Sharona got a really really huge settlement from breaking her arm on the golf course in the Mr. Monk and Sharona episode? Actually, these kinds of plot elements don’t bother me at all.
There’s the fanwankery.
The ultimate problem isn’t the cost but that it’s just not a Sharona type of place.
It bothers me so much because they could have so easily gotten it right. Or gotten it not so terribly wrong.
And remember that Natalie’s family is really, really rich, but I don’t know if she gets any money from them.
She doesn’t. She takes pride in not taking any money from them.
But she probably has money from her late husband. He did die while on a mission. I’m sure she received a large amount from that.
I suspect any man gets a happy ending with Sharona;)
I was somewhat disappointed that Trudy’s parents didn’t make an appearance (or even get a mention) - after all, they are Molly’s grandparents, and perhaps her only living biological relations (and they are pretty decent folks, judging from their one onscreen appearance)
If you can keep up with her, beer for beer.
Well, her mother is played by Holland Taylorwho’s always something of a bitch. 
(Holland Taylor makes a living taking roles for which Christine Baranski is too expensive or not “country club WASPy” enough.)
Tony Shalhoub’s post-Monk interview. He’s such a classy guy. And it looked like the finale went out with a bang in the ratings.
Anyway, yes, Shalhoub is a class act. He includes his friends and family in his projects. He directed a movie in 2004, called Made-Up. His wife, Brooke Adams, was the lead actress. Adams’ sister, Lynne wrote the screenplay and Brooke and Lynn Adams co-produced the film. Bit parts in the film went to Shaloub’s brothers and sisters, and his nephew, Michael Matsdorff, edited the film.
Not only that, Brooke Adams was a co-star in “Mr. Monk and the Badge.”
Do you remember the episode “Mr. Monk and the Dog.”? Natalie bought Monk a pooper scooper, called the Sha-Poopie that one extends under the dog’s rear end to catch the waste before it hits the ground. That was actually invented by Tony Shalhoub’s real-life brother, Dan.
Dang, the first Friday with no Monk episode in years. Live long, Mr. Monk. Please come back and visit.
So, are you saying he is seriously really goofy, for lack of a better term?
She’s been in several episodes. Per imdb:
- Mr. Monk and the Badge (2009) TV episode .... Mrs. Edith Capriani
- Mr. Monk's 100th Case (2008) TV episode .... Leigh Harrison
- Mr. Monk Visits a Farm (2007) TV episode .... Sheriff Margie Butterfield
- Mr. Monk and the Kid (2005) TV episode .... Mrs. Abigail Carlyle
- Mr. Monk and the Airplane (2002) TV episode .... Leigh
Trivia: she’s a descendant of John and Abigail Adams.
Holland Taylor played Natalie’s mother. Trudy’s mother was played by Rosemary Forsyth (in one episode “Mr. Monk and the Game Show”).