Randall "Randy" Disher is a lieutenant at the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) and Leland Stottlemeyer's second-in-command.
As of in Mr. Monk's Last Case: A Monk Movie, he is Sharona Fleming's husband and Benjy Fleming's stepfather.
Appearance[]
Personality[]
Randy is characterized as a naïve, loyal, overly ambitious but not necessarily bright assistant to Stottlemeyer. His far-fetched theories and comments about the cases Monk works on are a running gag of the series. Apart from his extremely ridiculous theories, which often involve defying the very laws of physics, Disher appears rather competent within his own range of abilities. He has proven himself to be trustworthy, courageous, and capable of providing valuable insights into the cases they tackle. Also, a running gag is the awkwardly ceremonial way in which he delivers news to Stottlemeyer, asking him to guess what it is or sit down for it. His personality has dramatically changed throughout the years. Originally, he was not only skeptical of Monk, but he seemed to find Monk a joke. One could assume that he was jealous of Monk, by his actions toward Monk himself and to the captain about him. He was also known to drink on the job when he becomes intensely stressed, as evidenced in "Mr. Monk Gets Married" when Randy Disher grew stressed in regards to his mother marrying a significantly younger antique dealer, marrying him after the second date, and then claiming they have marital problems necessitating a visit to a marriage counseling house shortly after their marriage, all while his mother was neither beautiful nor does she even have a lot of money, thus drinking some alcohol while hiring Monk and Sharona to take the case in regards to finding out what the antique dealer is up to while inebriated.
The novel Mr. Monk and the Blue Flu offers an explanation for the apparent contradiction between Randy's seeming ineptitude at solving cases and his continuing role as a ranked police officer: Stottlemeyer, in a covert meeting with Monk and Natalie, states that Randy in fact has a high clearance and conviction rate; the cases he solves are simply not high profile or unusual enough to be mentioned in the press (or recounted as a Monk adventure). He explains that Randy is able to solve so many cases because he is a "people person" who gets people to say things they would not have said otherwise.
Trivia[]
- In the pilot episode, Randy was credited as "Lieutenant Deacon".[1]
- If the first 2 letters of Randy Disher’s original first name and last name (Randy Deacon) are combined with Leland Stottlemeyer’s first name and last name, they spell LESTRADE, the name of a police inspector from Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories.
- Leland Stottlemeyer Randy Deacon
- If the first 2 letters of Randy Disher’s original first name and last name (Randy Deacon) are combined with Leland Stottlemeyer’s first name and last name, they spell LESTRADE, the name of a police inspector from Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories.
- Randy is allergic to cats as well as peanut butter.[2]
- Randy is left-handed.
- Randy is usually driving a tan or silver Ford Crown Victoria with a Mars light attached to the inside rearview mirror. He mentions in Mr. Monk Can't See a Thing that he is considering purchasing a Ford Festiva.
- In Mr. Monk Gets Cabin Fever Randy claims that he has no uncles (only aunts), but in Mr. Monk Visits a Farm, he inherits a farm from his uncle Harvey Disher.
- Randy states that he used to help on the farm all the time as a kid, so this rules out the possibility that Harvey was an estranged relative that Randy only learned about after his death.
- This also rules out one his aunts getting married, as it would had to have happened some time after Randy mentioned he had no uncles, when he's already an adult.
- Randy states that he used to help on the farm all the time as a kid, so this rules out the possibility that Harvey was an estranged relative that Randy only learned about after his death.