2024-08-14 20:50:05
Florida is forever fertile ground for a chaotic TV crime romp. From “Claws” to “Palm Royale” to “On Becoming a God in Central Florida,” the combination of a laissez-faire approach to law and order with tropical scenery has proved an effective setup for storytelling on the small screen. The novelist Carl Hiaasen has long specialized in precisely this milieu, making his 2013 book “Bad Monkey” a natural candidate for adaptation. The result, a 10-episode comedy on Apple TV+, takes the same droll, affectionate attitude toward its colorful characters as Vince Vaughn’s Andrew Yancy, a Keys-based police detective too bemused by his surroundings to get wound up over a messy love life or a floundering career.
“Bad Monkey” was developed by Bill Lawrence, the “Scrubs” creator and recent recipient of a blank check from Tim Cook courtesy of “Ted Lasso,” the computer company’s most successful Hollywood venture by far. Lawrence’s follow-up, “Shrinking,” may have earned a renewal and awards nods, but was to this critic a creative disappointment — more of a tonally muddled “Ted Lasso” rehash than an exciting use of free rein. “Bad Monkey” is not quite a level up in ambition; despite the stacked cast afforded by Apple’s largesse, the show largely takes after Yancy in its smooth, unbothered approach. It is, however, a new register for Lawrence, who brings his sitcom-honed talent for levity (along with “Scrubs” star Zach Braff) to the world of drug smuggling, land theft and insurance fraud.
Yancy’s first concern, though, is a potential murder. On suspension after ramming his girlfriend’s husband’s golf cart into the marina with the victim aboard — not really a long story; it’s exactly what it sounds like — Yancy gets assigned an errand as a shot at redemption. A severed arm has turned up off the coast of the Keys. If Yancy can take the appendage up to Miami and get the case off his department’s books, he may get to stop moonlighting as a food inspector while his main gig is on hold.
This being a television show and not a guide to making good decisions, Yancy can’t help complicating things. The protagonist’s defining traits are his inability to shut up or let sleeping dogs lie, so he flirts with medical examiner Rosa (Natalie Martinez) as he pressures her to rule the arm’s origin a likely homicide. Once its owner is identified as a shady businessman named Nick Stripling, Yancy interrogates Stripling’s wife Eve (Meredith Hagner, as monstrously, deliciously vapid as she was on “Search Party”) on the suspicious terms of her husband’s disappearance. The repeated warnings of Yancy’s partner, Rogelio (John Ortiz), to back off fall on willfully deaf ears.
One smart move “Bad Monkey” makes is to answer our questions quite early. In Lawrence’s telling, “Bad Monkey” is not a whodunit, nor even much of a mystery; a flashback episode revealing how that arm really ended up in the Caribbean, plus Yancy’s own past in the Miami Police Department, arrives before the season’s halfway point. (Suffice it to say Yancy was already on his second chance when vehicular assault put him on even thinner ice.) The structural choice is a welcome reprieve from the tiresome tendency to delay such disclosures until long after the audience has caught on or new information could be usefully incorporated into the plot. Some shows, like Apple peer “Sugar,” make an eleventh-hour twist out of what should be their premise; “Bad Monkey” clears the air to become more of a cat-and-mouse game between Yancy and his targets than 10 hours of our hero fumbling around in the dark.
Vaughn has spent much of his press tour lamenting the demise of the R-rated comedies where he made his name. Despite a poorly received dramatic turn in Season 2 of “True Detective,” he seems to have found a more comfortable berth in TV after a stint on the final stretch of “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” The actor’s flat-voweled, motormouthed affect doesn’t quite square with the Margaritaville-esque environs of his latest role, but once Yancy gets obsessed, the performance is not unlike Natasha Lyonne’s in “Poker Face”: both maniacally fixated on a goal and believably blasé about the risks of the chase.
“Bad Monkey” balances these misadventures with frequent trips to the Bahamas, where an unrepentant Eve has absconded with her boyfriend Christopher (Rob Delaney, underused until the back half of the season). The couple’s quest to develop a beachside resort puts them at odds with locals like Neville (Ronald Peet), a fisherman and owner of the titular primate. (His name is Driggs, and legend has it he once acted in a “Pirates of the Caribbean” film.) The Bahamas plot marks the series’ most significant expansion from the novel, exploring the impact of American meddling on longtime residents like hired enforcer Egg (David St. Louis) and Gracie (Jodie Turner-Smith), an obeah mystic who calls herself the Dragon Queen. While Turner-Smith gets to develop Gracie beyond her intimidating, imperious exterior, the island interludes as a whole feel less focused without Yancy’s neurotic energy to push the proceedings forward.
“Summer TV” is a somewhat nebulous concept, encompassing everything from unscripted schlock like “Love Island” to endless hours of reruns. Yet “Bad Monkey” is precisely the kind of show the phrase calls to mind: undemanding but effective, offering all the distraction of a sunny day without the need to relinquish the AC. Lawrence surrounds his core ensemble with personalities — a douchebag real estate agent trying to offload a waterfront McMansion; a novelty T-shirt baron with potential ties to the Russian mob — who may not advance the central case, but help enhance the vibe. Yancy loves nothing more than to recline in his deck chair and let the ocean view wash over him. “Bad Monkey” instills just such a feeling.
The first two episodes of “Bad Monkey” are now available to stream on Apple TV+, with remaining episodes premiering weekly on Wednesdays.
