Review: Bad Monkey, "The Floating-Human-Body-Parts Capital of America" & “A Hundred Bucks Says You Won’t” | Season 1, Episodes 1 & 2
Vince Vaughn runs his mouth in the Sunshine State
Welcome to Episodic Medium’s coverage of Apple TV+’s dark comedy/dramedy/comic thriller Bad Monkey, which debuted its first two episodes this week. This review covers both episodes, but it does cover them separately, if you only get time for one episode. To follow along with our reviews, become a paid subscriber—to learn more about our coverage and get updates on shows we’re covering in the future, see our About Page and become a free subscriber.
There’s no better time Bad Monkey could have been released than mid-August. Apple TV+’s laid-back crime comedy is the TV equivalent of a beach read (and not just because much of it is set on a beach). It’s smart and well-made but doesn’t take itself too seriously, with an engaging murder mystery and a playfully dark sense of humor. Its primary goal is to be fun, and through one episode, it’s nailing what it set out to do. Every time I watch a show like Bad Monkey, I wish every show was like Bad Monkey. I think the “funny thriller” might be the platonic ideal of prestige-ish TV (and a definite Dad Show, per my own Substack), so I’m very excited to be making my Episodic Medium debut with a show that so embodies it.
This “funny thriller” comes with other bona fides beyond its tone. Bad Monkey is based on a 2013 novel by Carl Hiaasen, who has been writing comedic crime novels set in South Florida since the ‘80s. His books always have colorful characters and conservationist themes—I've read several of them (but not Bad Monkey), and I’ve always loved the specificity of his tone and setting. Apparently, showrunner Bill Lawrence felt the same, adding this first TV series based on Hiaasen’s work to his stable of Apple projects alongside Ted Lasso and Shrinking (and returning to the Florida vibes of Cougar Town). Bad Monkey is a bit edgier than anything he’s done previously, but he’s great at balancing the salty-and-sweet of cynicism and sentimentality, which is the perfect fit for the character of Andrew Yancy (Vince Vaughn), a jaded detective who cares deeply about baby sea turtles. And Lawrence’s decades of experience producing broadcast sitcoms means he knows he has to hook the viewer right from the beginning. Bad Monkey wastes no time getting into the story, and even the obligatory table-setting is executed with efficient pacing and an abundance of quirky humor.
While I learned in editorial that Myles will fire me if I claim that a show’s setting is like a character in the show, Bad Monkey’s setup is definitely rooted in South Florida. As the series starts, Yancy is a detective in the Florida Keys who is currently suspended from his job while he faces some legal problems (more on that later). He’s enjoying a relaxing day at his beachfront “happy place” when his partner Ro (John Ortiz, who’s an unflappable foil to Vaughn’s logorrhea) shows up with an assignment from their boss: a tourist fished a severed arm out of the ocean—rigor mortis has set it in permanent flipping-the-bird position—and the sheriff doesn’t want any bad publicity (not that there’s any such thing as bad publicity in Florida, which attracts the ignorant and the criminal like a humid, drunken magnet).
It’s notable that initially this isn’t framed as a mystery, exactly: Yancy just has to drive the arm up to Miami and make it that police department’s problem. It’s supposed to be a simple task that will help Yancy get his job back, but Yancy can’t help asking questions. He likes to talk, and that’s why Vince Vaughn was cast in the role: no one can talk like Vince Vaughn. The motor-mouthed thing he does is so unique and charming that it’s sustained his career for nearly 30 years. Vaughn’s on-screen charisma allows him to do bad things and then just talk and talk until he wins you over. He can do stuff like carry a severed arm in a cooler with mango popsicles and blue crabs he’s saving for later and have it be funny, not sociopathic. He can do flirty banter with medical examiner Rosa Campesino (Natalie Martinez) and make the morgue come alive. It helps that he and Martinez have great chemistry—she’s terrific as Rosa, whose grim job hasn’t killed her sense of humor, just turned it morbid. It’s easy to understand why Yancy keeps going to the morgue to talk to her in-person even though she can’t solve the errand-turned-case for him.
Amidst their flirting, though, Yancy and Rosa come up with some questions about the arm. Why was a watch removed, but not the platinum wedding ring? Why hasn’t anyone reported whoever this arm belongs to missing? What if this wasn’t an accident? When Yancy is driving back to the Keys, Ro says to throw the arm into a canal for some gators and forget about it. But Yancy can’t let it go. His life revolves around asking questions and getting answers, even if doing so means blowing his life up. He has to know what happened, and now so do we.
It’s important to note, though, that Yancy’s personal life is even messier than his professional life. He’s having an affair with Bonnie (Michelle Monaghan), a married woman with a shady past. Yancy is suspended from his job because he assaulted Bonnie’s husband, Cliff, after Cliff slapped her when he found out about the affair. Yancy wants Cliff to drop the charges so he can get his job back, but Bonnie won’t—or can’t—talk her husband into that. Later in the episode, she tries to convince Yancy to settle. “I can’t have a trial, Andrew,” she says. “If certain things came out, it would ruin my life.” Cliff has something on her that prevents her from leaving him, which could be anything, given that Yancy doesn’t even know her real name. Bonnie is bad news for Yancy, but is she bad? We’ll have to wait and see, but Monaghan is very charming here. The first thing I ever saw her in was Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, so it’s nice to see her in a crime comedy again.
Around this time, the show introduces its other plot, cleverly drawing attention to the cutting-away contrivance by having the narrator (Tom Nowicki)—who’s also the captain of the sport fishing boat where the arm got hooked—promise that he’ll reveal how the two stories are connected later on. The playful narration gives Bad Monkey a bit of a Big Lebowski feeling, which adds to the overall “funny crime story” style in these opening episodes.
This other story concerns Neville Stafford (Ronald Peet), a chill Bahamian man who leads an idyllic life in a beachfront fishing shack with his pet monkey Driggs (Crystal, a 30-year-old Capuchin who’s arguably Hollywood’s most accomplished monkey actor), a cute creature who’s “one of the trained monkeys from the very last Johnny Depp pirate movie they made out here.” But Neville’s peace is threatened when he finds out his half-sister has sold the land to a developer who plans to build a luxury resort. All of Hiaasen’s novels have environmentalist themes of protecting nature from greed-fueled destruction, but Bad Monkey is unique in dealing with conservation outside of Florida.
I was unfamiliar with Peet before this episode, but I’m enjoying his performance. I like that he seems like he’s having fun even when he’s angry or scared, which will help Neville be an interesting foil to Yancy when they meet. They’re both animal lovers with a mischievous streak, but their personalities are otherwise very different, with Neville as quiet as Yancy is loquacious. I’m looking forward to finding out how they collide.
Out of other ideas to stop the development, Neville goes to the Dragon Queen (Jodie Turner-Smith), a practitioner of Obeah (a Caribbean folk religion) to put a curse on the developer, Christopher. She’s enchanting and intimidating, and she introduces a mysterious supernatural element to the show—I don’t know if her magic works, but it’s adding another fun flavor to the stew and adds to the anticipation for when the two sides of the story merge, as the narrator promises.
While Neville is trying to save his home in the Bahamas, Yancy’s investigation in Florida is gathering momentum—even after he’s fired for insubordination (Carl Hiaasen characters always have problems with authority). What becomes clear in his pursuit of answers is that Bad Monkey is a story about a person who is constitutionally incapable of staying out of trouble. Even when he’s not looking for it, he finds it—but he’s usually looking for it. First, Yancy becomes suspicious of the victim’s widow Eve Stripling (Meredith Hagner) while he’s handing over her husband Nick’s severed hand in a Winn Dixie parking lot, as she seems more concerned about her husband’s money than finding out what happened to him. When Yancy crashes Nick’s funeral—which is also attended by some stone-faced federal agents—the dead man’s daughter Caitlin (Charlotte Lawrence) tells him point-blank that she thinks Eve killed him.
Up until this point, Yancy’s investigation has simply gotten him into some uncomfortable interactions. After the funeral, though, Yancy is drinking with his buddy the fishing boat captain/narrator when they run into Phinney, who was working on the boat when the hand was caught but quit after he came into some cash. He storms out of the bar while Yancy is questioning him about where the money came from and is promptly gunned down by a mustachioed man on a scooter, which confirms Yancy’s pursuit of answers has led him into a very dangerous situation, indeed.
That’s where Yancy’s story in the Bad Monkey premiere ends, but it’s also the point where it connects to Neville’s story, as the narrator promised. The reveal that real estate developer Christopher—played by Rob Delaney, the great comic actor best known for Catastrophe and the Deadpool movies—is in fact also the man who killed Phinney is the twist that clarifies the show’s intentions. All the table-setting is complete, and we are well into the story now. This isn’t just a murder mystery anymore: it’s going to require unraveling an international, probably pretty incompetent criminal conspiracy (Florida real estate developers aren’t known for their conscientiousness).
A lot of premiere episodes of streaming shows are all set up, and the real story doesn’t start until the end of the episode. Bad Monkey, however, gets going right away. Instead of doing the flash-forward to a moment of high tension later in the story that it feels like a plurality of shows open with, it starts at the beginning, with the arm being fished out. And after one-half of an establishing scene, Yancy takes possession of the arm, and we’re off. It’s fast-paced and action-packed but doesn’t break a sweat, finding plenty of time for little character moments (I love Yancy and Ro’s married-couple relationship) and stuff that’s purely for comedic effect (the slapstick moment where Yancy flips down his bicycle’s kickstand and the bike immediately topples into the marina killed me). Vaughn is the perfect actor to build this type of caper around, and if Bad Monkey can maintain the premiere’s breezy tone and pace, this is going to be a very fun season.
Episode 2: “A Hundred Bucks Says You Won’t”
It’s incredibly difficult for addicts to stop using on their own. Willpower can help keep them sober for a period of time while they seek a reward or try to avoid consequences, but in the absence of outside help they eventually return to form. There’s no Detectives Anonymous for Andrew Yancy, and he wouldn’t go even if there was, because he loves being a detective. This episode is all about Yancy trying to go legit—follow the rules, stay out of trouble, don’t ask too many questions—and giving up two-thirds of the way through because his craving for action is too powerful. Admittedly, as far as addictions go, being a detective is a fairly healthy one—it causes financial and relationship problems for Yancy and puts him in mortal danger, sure, but solving murders is a net positive for the world (if you can survive long enough to do so).
Yancy spends much of this episode denying the call to adventure. Cliff has dropped the assault charges against him, but before Yancy can get his job back, he has to do a sort of probationary stint as a restaurant inspector, which leads to a very funny scene in Key West’s most disease-riddled seafood restaurant, where there’s a condom floating in the chowder. More importantly, he tells Rosa—who he dragged into this in the first place—and Caitlin that he’s taking himself off the Nick Stripling case and can’t help them anymore. That lasts until about the half-hour mark, when his conscience can’t handle idling on the sidelines. His half-hearted attempt to stay away from the case helps us understand him better: he can’t not be a detective. He lives for this job.
“All you had to do to get your job back is stay out of trouble, and you can’t do that, can you?” Rosa asks him, after they’ve illegally searched Eve’s house and found bone shards in a shower drain. And he barely hears the question, because he’s already mentally moved on to the next phase of his investigation, fully relapsed on detective work.
He’s drawn Rosa into his addiction, too. After only visiting her in the morgue with Yancy in Episode 1, we spend time with her alone in Episode 2 and see her own somewhat messy personal life. She’s lonely and a bit depressed, and the investigation has brought some sparkle back to her. Martinez is giving a terrific performance as the quick-witted medical examiner-turned-amateur detective. She’s been around for years but has never starred in a truly successful show—there are a lot of one-and-done broadcast dramas on her résumé—and hopefully Bad Monkey helps her break out bigger.
While Rosa’s character is expanding in a gratifying way, Yancy’s so-called-but-maybe-not “girlfriend” Bonnie confused me in this episode. She’s only in one scene, and in that scene she behaves differently than she did in the first episode. In the premiere, she seemed sophisticated and emotionally in control, even if she wasn’t in control of her circumstances. However, in this episode she’s erratic, demanding Yancy not ask her why she’s leaving Cliff and then getting upset when he says “okay.” She seems 180 degrees from how she was before. These mood swings might be a character choice, or they might be inconsistent writing. I’ll wait until next week before before I determine which I think it is.
That weirdness aside, I was surprised when an investigator from the Oklahoma Bureau of Investigations (Ashley Nicole Black, who’s also a writer on Bad Monkey and previously worked for Bill Lawrence on Ted Lasso and Shrinking) shows up at Yancy’s house and tells him that Bonnie’s real name is Clover Chase, and she’s a wanted fugitive because she was an English teacher who sexually abused a student and fled rather than face charges. In the premiere, I wasn’t sure if Bonnie was bad or just bad for Yancy, but this reveal tips it toward the former. If she was supposed to be a wholly sympathetic character, her secret would have been that she killed an abusive husband—which she might still do in the future, we’ll see. In any case, the darkness of her past might be a miscalibration for the character that makes her too unsympathetic. Again, we’ll see.
Over in the Bahamas, the reveal that the Dragon Queen might have willed a man who broke her heart to choke to death makes her more sympathetic. I don’t know where her storyline is going, but I’m enjoying it. She’s just really cool, and Jodie Turner-Smith’s intensity gives the otherwise laid-back show a jolt of energy whenever she’s on screen (also, the running joke that she has to tell Neville to leave every time they’re done talking is very funny). We spend some time alone with her and her grandmother Ya-Ya (L. Scott Caldwell) at the end of the episode as they practice Obeah on the beach and seemingly establish that magic is real in the world of Bad Monkey. Ya-Ya has not done much so far, but Caldwell’s placement in the show’s main cast leads me to believe she has an important role to play later in the story.
The episode’s wider spread across the ensemble means Neville takes a bit of a backseat. After his house is destroyed and he’s frustrated with the Dragon Queen’s lack of progress on magically punishing Christopher, he goes to Florida to get money from his half-sister to expedite the curse. We see his strained relationship with his sister Samara and learn he has a crush on a woman named Dawnie, but we don’t get a whole lot more information about him. His story this episode is mostly for the purpose of getting him to Key West so he’s in position to meet Yancy.
Finally, Eve Stripling might not be sympathetic, but she is smart. Her play to get Caitlin off her case by sharing some of the insurance money with her shows that Eve’s a savvier operator than she initially may have seemed, though buying a bright yellow Jeep is objectively unwise. I love the decision at the beginning of the episode to just drop us into Eve and Christopher already together in the Bahamas instead of hand-holding with a scene establishing their relationship. It’s a confident choice that shows faith in the audience.
Overall, after the pedal-to-the-metal premiere, “A Hundred Bucks Says You Won’t” is a little bit of a slower, character-building episode, not in the least because the main character spends much of the episode trying to avoid participating in the main plot. This forces the show to put the characters in different types of scenes, which leads to a fuller portrait of who they are. They’re all coming together—literally, at the end of the episode, as Yancy and Rosa go to Neville’s sister’s restaurant while he’s working a shift. They don’t yet know that they’re all part of the same story, but Bad Monkey is moving quickly enough that we won’t have to wait long to find out what’s next. The plot is burning up like a tourist who passed out on Miami Beach after too many daiquiris.
Stray observations
The pilot is directed by Marcos Siega, a TV veteran who has helmed episodes of somewhat tonally similar fun thrillers like You and The Flight Attendant. He also directed several episodes of Dexter, so he has prior experience shooting in Florida. He knew to get b-roll of pelicans diving into the harbor and stuff like that. His greatest achievement, however, is directing the Muppet-starring music video for Weezer’s “Keep Fishin’.”
I love Alex Moffat as the douchey real estate agent selling the enormous, aggressively yellow new construction house next to Yancy’s. Yancy taking an immediate dislike to him and dedicating his free time to messing with him and his ugly house is a fun subplot, and I’ll bet it connects to the main story in a surprising way later on.
Looking in Nick’s criminal record, Yancy and Rosa find out that he used to run insurance scams where he’d rear-end other drivers on purpose and claim he was injured. Yancy observes that whiplash is easy to fake, you just need a crooked doctor to go along with it. Cliff, Bonnie’s husband, is a “pill-pushing dermatologist.” Might he be connected somehow?
Do you think Nick is still alive? I can’t be sure until I see (the rest of) the body. And having a funeral before someone is legally declared dead seems like something that will blow up in Eve’s face.
I’m a little suspicious of Yancy’s partner Ro. He’s subtly tried to thwart Yancy at every turn.
Episode 2 in particular has some great one-scene comedic performances. Bad Monkey knows that every character is someone Vince Vaughn can interact with in a funny way, so every part is well-cast. Shout out to Brian Thomas Smith as the dimwitted cook at the gross restaurant and Shira Lee Abergel as the car rental clerk who’s great at bubbles, and shout out to casting directors Jennifer Cooper and Lori S. Wyman.
“Fucknuts.” I’m going to start using Yancy’s expression of frustration in my own life.
Just want to reiterate how excited I am to be joining the Episodic Medium community, and I’m looking forward to solving this murder with you all this season.
I'm a huge fan of Carl Hiaasen's novels, so when I heard this one was getting adapted I was thrilled. Doubly thrilled that it's been so well-cast and well-written so far. Triply thrilled that Episodic Medium is covering it! Looking forward to watching along with you. Bad Monkey is one of the few that I've only read once and I only remember the vaguest details of the plot - mainly Yancy's adventures as a health inspector and his fucking with the neighbour. Now I just need to resist the temptation to pull it off the shelf again and spoil the show for myself...
"I’m a little suspicious of Yancy’s partner Ro. He’s subtly tried to thwart Yancy at every turn."
I felt the same. I hope not as I like the relationship, but right now he's very suspect.