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Joseph "Joe" Christie was a Detective Sergeant with the San Francisco Police Department, and was Adrian Monk's last partner before Monk was discharged.

Biography[]

Early History[]

Joe Christie was Monk's partner. Joe told Sharona Fleming that he learned more from Adrian in one day than he did in his entire time at the police academy. Joe and Monk were great friends and respected each other quite a bit. Joe stated that he "was there" on December 14, 1997, when Monk got the news about Trudy's death. However, he is not seen in a flashback to this event in "Mr. Monk and the End, Part 1", with Leland Stottlemeyer with Monk instead. It is perhaps most likely that Joe was not seen because he was interviewing another witness at the pediatric clinic regarding the disappearance of Wendy Stroud. It is also possible that Joe was at the scene of Trudy's murder and the one who placed the call to inform Leland about Trudy's death, and this is what he meant by saying that he "was there".

Joe told Sharona that Monk never laughed again after finding out Trudy had been killed. Following Trudy's murder, Monk had a nervous breakdown and was discharged from the police department. Shortly after this, Joe was accused of stealing cocaine confiscated from a drug dealer. The lack of evidence led to the release of the dealer who would later kill two uniformed officers during a traffic stop. Because there was not enough evidence to convict him, Joe was never charged, but was fired. Joe was also hated by many of his former colleagues, including Stottlemeyer and Monk, both of whom were close to the murdered officers. In reality, Joe was innocent and had been framed by the real perpetrator, the evidence clerk at the time, Clara Toplyn, who had stowed the drugs away inside a seized bicycle and smuggled it out after buying it at a police auction. She then promptly retired due to the drug dealer bribing her with $750,000.

Mr. Monk and the Employee of the Month[]

He later found work as the chief of security at a Mega Mart location, where he called in the police to investigate the death of an employee, Edna Carruthers. Christie was still a detective at heart, but the other police were inclined to give him the brush-off. A month later, Monk took a position as stocker at the store to familiarize himself with the case and was thusly forced to work alongside Christie. Monk in particular had loathed for Christie for the purported break in trust and was quick to shoot down his attempts at reconciliation with an uncharacteristic coldness, though he still begrudgingly cooperated with him.

Monk would later agree to have a one-on-one talk with his former partner at a local diner, but Monk is knocked out by the killer before closing hours and left at the mercy of the aggressive guard dog. He manages to call Sharona, who had shown up at the diner in his place, altering Christie, who promptly headed for the Mega Mart and manages to distract and lock away the dog, saving Monk's life. Due to this, Monk reconsidered and eventually gave him the benefit of the doubt and examined the evidence photos, immediately recognizing key details that, upon further investigation, cleared Christie of the crime and led to Toplyn's arrest.

With their bond restored, Christie and Monk go back to collecting and analyzing clues like in old times, soon coming to the conclusion that the cashier Jenny Silverman was the killer, having needed Edna's parking space in order to pull off a major heist at the nearby bank. They are unable to prevent the robbery itself, but Monk is able to grab a rifle from the gun section and hand it to Christie, who manages to shoot the wheels of the escaping car. Following this, Christie quits as his security guard job and is reinstated into the Department, giving grateful thanks to Monk, and calling dibs on being his partner when Monk's own reinstatement came.

Trivia[]

Joe's actor, Enrico Colantoni, famously played Keith Mars in Veronica Mars. Like Joe, Keith is a disgraced law enforcement officer (sheriff), forced out for for the wrong reason (accusing one of the town's oligarchs of withholding information about a murder) and now works in a law enforcement adjacent profession (private investigator). In the third season episode of Veronica Mars, an undercover Keith gives the pseudonym "Adrian Monk".

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