List of Monk Characters - Secondary Characters - Dale "The Whale" Biederbeck

Dale "The Whale" Biederbeck

Dale J. Biederbeck III, better known as Dale "The Whale" because of his size, is a recurring villain, appearing in three episodes. In the first season, he is played by Adam Arkin, in the second by Tim Curry, and in the sixth by Ray Porter, all of them wearing fat suits.

Dale is a very rich and well-connected financier, who is arrogant, brilliant, and ruthless. Monk claims that Biederbeck owns "half the city" of San Francisco, and has an option on the other half. He gets his nickname from his morbid obesity.

In "Mr. Monk Meets Dale the Whale", Dr. Christiaan Vezza, Dale's physician, reveals that when he first moved into his apartment, he weighed 400 pounds and could occasionally see his toes. But after his mother died, he started binging, ordering everything on a restaurant's menu. He topped out at 900 pounds about 11 years before the events of the episode, and has been bedridden ever since. In his first and second appearances, he weighs upwards of 800 pounds, or 360 kilograms, and is unable to leave his bed. By his third appearance in "Mr. Monk Is On the Run (Part Two)", he has lost just enough weight to get around in a wheelchair.

In his first appearance, "Mr. Monk Meets Dale the Whale", Biederbeck is the primary suspect in the slaying of Catherine Lavinio, a superior court judge who issued a costly antitrust ruling against him. Several clues point to him, but this seems impossible because he is incapable of leaving his bedroom. Monk discovers that he ordered Vezza to murder the judge and implicate Biederbeck. It is also revealed in this episode that Monk harbors a severe hatred of Biederbeck, who sued Trudy and her newspaper after her article profiled him as "the Genghis Khan of world finance".

Biederbeck goes to extreme lengths to avoid publicity, to the point of buying newspaper companies just so that they would not print his name. The first twenty numbers on his speed-dial are all lawyers. He pursues the drawn-out libel suit just to torment Trudy. Legal costs force the Monks to sell their first home, which Biederbeck purchased to store his collection of pornography. Because Trudy is killed a short time later, Monk feels that Biederbeck stole one of the last years of her life.

Biederbeck reappears in the season two finale "Mr. Monk Goes to Jail". Although convicted of murder, he is adjusting to life in prison quite easily. He has an inmate to act as his personal servant, luxurious furniture, a TV, and just about everything one would not normally find in a prison environment, except a window. After condemned prisoner Ray Kaspo is poisoned less than an hour before his execution, suspicion falls on Biederbeck, to whom Kaspo owed $1,200. Monk knows that Biederbeck would not kill anyone over such a petty sum: Biederbeck laughs, "I wouldn't bend down to pick up $1,200, even if I could". Until the killer is caught, the prison refuses to install a window in Dale's cell. He offers Monk a deal: find the killer, and Biederbeck will share what he knows about Trudy's murder.

Even though Sharona tells him not to, Monk takes the case on the off-chance that Dale is telling the truth. After Monk finds that prison librarian Sylvia Fairborn killed Kaspo, Dale reveals that Trudy was, contrary to Monk's belief, indeed the intended victim of the car bomb. He also states that Monk should look for a man named Warrick Tennyson who can be found in Manhattan, New York. This gives Monk his first real lead on Trudy's death. The episode ends on an ominous note, as Biederbeck watches Monk's plane depart for New York through his newly installed window and smiles, "Bon voyage, Mr. Monk."

In the third season premiere, Monk finds Tennyson, who confesses to being hired to kill Trudy, and identifies the man who hired him as having a six-fingered hand. To Sharona's and Monk's surprise, Biederbeck told the truth.

The reason becomes clear in the two-part episode "Mr. Monk Is On the Run", when Monk is framed for murder of Frank Nunn, the six-fingered man who hired Tennyson. Dale is revealed to be the mastermind of the plot, and of a simultaneous plot to assassinate the state governor. The lieutenant governor, who is on Dale's payroll, would then pardon Dale, completing his revenge by setting him free and jailing Monk. The detective foils Dale's plan, and John Rollins, the Angel County sheriff whom Dale recruited to frame Monk, turns state's evidence. As a result, all of Dale's privileges are revoked. His custom bed, telephone, and laptop are confiscated, and his window is removed. His special meal deliveries and manicure appointments are cancelled, and he is reduced to sleeping in a cramped bunk bed, with only a wheelchair and prison food to distract him.

Biederbeck also makes a brief appearance in the 2008 novel Mr. Monk Goes to Germany by Lee Goldberg. Monk telephones Biederbeck from Germany when he suspects that one of Dr. Kroger's colleagues, a psychiatrist with a six-fingered hand named Dr. Martin Rahner, is the man who killed Trudy. Since the doctor was giving a lecture at Berkeley around the same time that Trudy was killed, thanks to a grant from one of Biederbeck's foundations, Monk suspects Biederbeck of being the killer. Biederbeck smugly refuses to confirm or deny Monk's suspicions, but later Monk proves that the doctor is not Trudy's killer.

Dale "The Whale" is frequently compared to Professor Moriarty, Sherlock Holmes's nemesis, even including his nickname ("The Genghis Khan of World Finance" for Dale, and "The Napoleon of Crime" for Moriarty), further echoing on the analogue of the four main characters to Sherlock Holmes characters.