I’m only now getting around to watching “Monk” – in a rather haphazard manner.
In the last episode I saw, Shirona was gone and he had a different woman assistant. Is Shirona gone for good? I hope not. 
Was there an in-show explanation for the change?
Was there some real-life reason for the change?
Yes, she’s gone for good, and has been for several years.
In the story, she reconciled with her ex and moved back with him; in real life (whatever that is), my understanding is that she was a casualty of a pay dispute.
I just looked up her IMDB record – I wanted to see the rousingly successful resume she’s put together since walking away from Monk – when something struck me that I never realized before: She’s the one whose tears inspired the “There’s no crying in baseball” line!
Sharona is currently being held in Captain Stottlemeyer’s basement, or rather in an 18-foot-deep pit dug in the center of the basement. Naked and weeping, she is forced to rub her body with an expensive foreign emolient or be pelted with water from a hose, again and again. However she’s a plucky gal and even as we speak is trying to lure the captain’s little dog into her clutches so she can use it to bargain for her life and freedom.
I always felt sorry for her “kid.” If he wasn’t part of her decision to hold out for higher pay, he got royally screwed out of a job.
Wouldn’t that be “it puts the wipe on its hands…” or something to that effect? 
I haven’t watched the show much past the Shirona years… never took to the new girl, and found the situation wayyyy to contrived (even for Monk) in the single mom with a young kid taking over just where Shirona left off. Did they ever get around to addressing that?
I think they simply didn’t show the gap. I mean, why would they? It’s not like he had any cases. You think Stottlemeyer bothered to call him when he was solo?
Natalie, and Sharona before her, are not sidekicks in the Watson mode, whom the detective likes to have around so he has someone to talk to but doesn’t really need. Monk cannot operate alone.
What, no “she just never got the Knack of things” jokes yet?
Well, Sharona’s son was about ten years old or so and Natalie’s daughter Julie is about 16 or 17, so it’s not completely parallel. And I thought there was an episode that showed the process he went through to find another assistant.
There are actually many more episodes with Natalie than Sharona. For me, there was a period of transition from one assistant to the other, but Natalie feels natural nowadays. The show itself has gone downhill somewhat as it appears that they are running out of new ideas for the main character. Next season will be the last and let’s hope they resolve the open plot elements in the series.
Plus… IT’S TRAYLOR friggin’ HOWARD!
Hmmm, Sharona or Natalie? Isn’t that kinda a “Ginger or Mary Anne?” or a “Bailey or Jennifer?” type of question?
Now, now, he does have a name! But I don’t think Leland cares about Randy all that much.
No, that’s what happened to Dr. Hahn from Grey’s Anatomy. 
Ye Gods! I knew she looked familiar!
I just wasn’t willing to actually watch Grey’s for long enough to make a connection.
Ah. Too bad, I guess I’ll have to learn to like Natalie.
One difference, though, which has never been commented on in the show or elsewhere AFAIK: Sharona was a nurse, implying Monk needs a trained nurse in his condition; Natalie apparently is not.
Nah . . . they’re both Mary Annes/Baileys.
Monk needed a trained nurse after his breakdown after Trudy was killed. I always figured that Sharona was assigned to him and eventually decided that working for Monk was better than working as a nurse.
I think it’s fantastic that Natalie can have such a great house on her small salary. And live in San Francisco. My husband says, when I ask him if we can please live there, that yes we can, for about two years. Then we’d be street people.
Maybe her family (of a toothpaste dynasty) gives her money to live on. Or maybe she has money from the government because her husband was in the military.
I mainly want to know why she wears high heels every day–running around SF in them. How does she do that?
Shirona does re-appear in one of the tie in novels. MR MONK and the TWO ASSISTANTS.
