I didn’t have high hopes for Bad Monkey. Don’t get me wrong, I like Vince Vaughn as much as the next guy; Old School was one of those movies I loved growing up, but have been a little hesitant to return to because I’m not sure how well it has aged (actually, I’m fairly certain it hasn’t aged that well, thinking about what I remember of it). So I sort of assumed that Bad Monkey would see a continuation of that sort of “lad humor” that I’m really not that into anymore. I figured if I’ve outgrown Old School, I’ve outgrown Vince Vaughn. But, I was convinced to give it a shot and I couldn’t be more glad that I did.
It turns out that Bad Monkey is kind of a combination of a noir detective story, Miami Vice, and, oddly enough, Ted Lasso, with which it shares some of the creative team. Vaughn plays Andrew Yancy, an on the rocks detective in the Florida Keys, who is in trouble because he, somewhat rashly, but in a sort of justified kind of way, pushed a rich old guy into the ocean…with his car. But anyway, he went from Miami PD to the Keys, and is perpetually a dog with a bone.
The inciting incident is somewhat gruesome. An arm is found during a fishing tour and Yancy’s boss wants Yancy to take the arm up to Miami and try and dump it on them so his precinct doesn’t have a murder counted against them. Do this favor and his suspension would be lifted. So, he drives the arm up to Miami and when he’s rebuffed by PD there, his boss instructs him to dump the arm, this time into a swamp so the alligators can clear the case for them.
Remember what I said about Yancy being a dog with a bone? Well, in this case, it means that he couldn’t let that go. I know cops don’t have the best reputation these days and rightly so, and often I find myself having a hard time stomaching a certain type of cop show that is still prevalent on network TV, but Yancy seems to not only truly care about justice, but in the Ted Lasso tradition, he also truly cares about people. Like the legendary moustache man himself, Yancy is a surprisingly kind and open-hearted fellow who likes to talk. A lot. But there’s this almost incongruous quality to the job that he does and the way he goes about it. He reads people well, but he takes as them as they are. He judges a bit, sure, we all do, but it’s never too petty (though at times it does get pretty petty), but his approach to life and to people is very positive. He’s an oversharer, perhaps, but Yancy really does come across as a person who believes in right and wrong in a way that is very much live and let live, until you start harming another person. Unlike Lasso, Yancy does have a bit of a rough edge to him and he has his fair share of flaws—he’s not a relentless ball of positivity and energy that Ted Lasso is, but he’s definitely a good person. Even though he’s a cop. Well, he’s mostly a cop. Well, sort of, anyway.
It’s not just a character-driven show either and it’s more than Vaughn’s performance as Andrew Yancy that keeps you there. And it’s also not just my unending appreciation of Meredith Hagner’s abilities as an actress either that kept me interested (if you haven’t seen Search Party yet, it streams on HBO and she is an understated powerhouse in it). In fact, just about the whole cast is excellent. It’s difficult enough to point to Vaughn’s and Hagner’s performances as standouts amongst their peers, because it’s even more difficult to not mention how good just about every other actor is in the show. I mean, this is a show that also has Michelle Monaghan, who is one of my favorite actresses of all time and whom I rate very, very highly on the talent scale. In addition to her, there’s also Jodie Turner-Smith, playing a dubious island mystic known as The Dragon Queen (you may have seen her playing Mother Aniseya in the unfairly maligned The Acolyte on Disney+, but that’s a whole thing for another post), Natalie Martinez, who shines in her starring role, and Rob Delaney, Ronald Peet, and John Ortiz (fresh off his role in American Fiction) who round out the cast with aplomb. Everywhere you look in Bad Monkey, there’s an abundance of acting talent. But, the story is compelling and it comes to a narratively satisfying conclusion after 10 episodes (really sort of feels like the sweet spot for TV series these days, 8 to 10 episodes, except for Bob’s Burgers and Abbott Elementary, for which there will never be enough episodes for me). It weaves itself from a whodunnit to a howcatchem and I am completely fine with that. Every transition and story movement feels natural and organic, nothing comes out of nowhere. Yancy was never going to be Philip Marlowe and he was also never going to be Columbo, but the show threads the needle very well, giving you an engrossing story that you enjoy watching unfold. I don’t want to go into too many details and ruin the experience for you, but suffice it to say that from the very first episode, I was hooked. The twists and turns along the way are always earned, they’re never just there for shock value, and every beat they hit feels like part of a well composed symphony.
And that’s one of the hardest tightropes to walk when writing a mystery, even though this isn’t strictly a mystery all the way through. Too many times, you find yourself embroiled in a plot, running the numbers in your head, pinning up yarn on your corkboard until you look like Charlie from Always Sunny and then the show decides to throw you something at the end that makes no sense just because it’s something you’d never have thought of. Or, sometimes the clues are there, but the conclusion is so unsatisfying that it tanks the rewatchability of a series. A great mystery is a great mystery, even after it’s solved. But some shows just don’t stick the landing and they do it in such a poor manner that you can’t go back to it and enjoy the process again in the future, such as recent hopefuls Death and Other Details and A Murder at the End of the World. It feels like it’s happened so many times that I hesitate to recommend a mystery until I know that the ending is a good one. But that’s not a concern here, as everything is crafted so well and no surprise is too far out of left field as to feel too easy or manipulative. The show respects its viewers and doesn’t pull cheap tricks. I really like that and I appreciate the skill it takes to manage that feat.
As of the time of writing, Bad Monkey’s season finale just aired this week, but its fate for a second season is still up in the air. Luckily, it’s on Apple TV and not Netflix, so it hasn’t been cancelled five times before even airing, but it also means that it’s not as widely available as it would be were it on Hulu or Peacock either. But if you have Apple TV, it’s well worth your time. And if you don’t have Apple TV, but can get a free trial of it, definitely do that. I won’t tell, promise. Yancy would probably let it slide too.