Bad Monkey continues to crush refreshing cold beers in the little spot between funny and foreboding. In the course of only three episodes, the series has already got corner seat real estate in a lived-in, locals-only hangout of its own design, where the laughs usually beat back the darker impulses that course through South Florida like canals to the sea. But only usually. Because even a guy like Andrew Yancy, with his Vince Vaughn-powered gift of gab, can’t keep the tone light forever. Not when the pool of other people’s blood keeps growing around the severed arm of Nick Stripling. In episode 3, that blood is courtesy of a guest straight from the rolodex of Bad Monkey showrunner and exec producer Bill Lawrence – Zach Braff, the star of Lawrence’s Scrubs before his tinfoil-biting turn as a singer of cheeky T-Mobile jingles. But more on the demise of Braff’s improbably-named Israel O’Peele in a bit. First, let’s put both principals of the Bad Monkey story in one Florida breakfast place together, even if they don’t know it.
Neville is helping out at his half-sister’s Samara’s cafe, serving mugs of steaming coffee to neutralize Floridian hangovers. But because he doesn’t actually know Yancy and Rosa yet, for us it’s like if a celebrity was moving through the background of their morning chat. It’s a fun way for Bad Monkey to push its characters into further proximity, and gets even better when Yancy briefly puts on his restaurant inspector’s hat to enter the kitchen. “If I’m nitpicking, the only red flag would be the live monkey eating grapes in the cupboard” – Yancy even gets an unbeknownst introduction to Driggs! And Neville explains just enough about his life in the Bahamas to introduce his evenhandedness, but not enough to link him with any red flags specific to Yancy. (Like “Christopher” or “Eve” or “Curly Tails Resort,” for example.) At least as their respective circles of influence move toward full intersection, Neville and Yancy already appreciate each other’s vibe.
It’s just like Andrew Yancy’s life to have a tentative moment of attraction between him and Rosa Campesino interrupted by a phone call from his married ex-girlfriend, who’s now on the lam. Bonnie can’t tell Yancy the name of the beach resort where she’s luxuriating – and she knows full-well Johnna Russell is after her – but she can dismiss the sexual assault charges against her in Oklahoma by saying “Hence” a lot and explaining he wasn’t that much of a minor. (“He knew more positions than me.”) Bonnie’s whole deal is a red flag. Then again, her persona of the casually disruptive femme fatale, and Michelle Monaghan’s portrayal of her, is utterly perfect for Bad Monkey. In the meantime, Rosa wants to know why Yancy’s pulling first-date moves on her. But she’s also being coy about her coffee preferences, taking off work to investigate a murder case that neither of them are authorized to be investigating, and telling her sister “He’s tall. I like tall.” While Yancy’s phone conversation with Bonnie was confrontational while still flirtatious, the dialogue between him and Rosa, as the medical examiner sutures the dog bite on his butt, is downright romantic.
If it’s 8:30 in the morning in South Florida, then Dr. Israel “Izzy” O’Peele (a stubbled and bathrobed Braff) is fixing a hefty cocktail. The medical insurance fraud he cooked up with Nick Stripling was one thing, with lots of “nobody got hurt”’s about their bilking of seniors out of their Medicare checks. But now Izzy’s learned that the kid he gave Nick’s bloody arm to, the same kid who agreed to “find” it hooked to a deep sea fishing rod, was shot to death in a drive-by. “Izzy had a good heart,” our omniscient Bad Monkey narrator chimes in. “It’d just been a long time since he’d done the right thing.” But it’ll be an even longer time before he does anything else, because before he can spill the beans to Yancy, Izzy O’Peele is shot in the back of the head by the guy we’ve been calling Christopher.
We’ve also seen Christopher taking pot shots at Neville in Andros after he ditched his skiff in the water, just to be a dick, which makes Neville drop his latest cash deposit on Dragon Queen. “What happened to my curse? Christopher just shot at me!” (Additionally, Neville’s required to prove his faith in Obeah magic by giving up the last thing of importance in his life, Driggs the Monkey, who becomes the property of Dragon Queen’s grandmother.) But while Christopher and his pistol are making the rounds of people linked with Stripling’s arm, Caitlin is in Florida pulling a gun on Eve. She wants her stepmother to admit she murdered Caitlin’s dad for the five-mil insurance payout. But Eve can’t, because she didn’t, and Caitlin turns to find her father standing right behind her. The man known as “Christopher Grunion” on Curly Tails resort fliers and in empty police databases is also actually Nick Stripling, who apparently faked his own death with the assistance of Eve. (Remember the bone shards in their shower?) “Hey Sweetie,” Nick/Christopher says as embraces his daughter with one arm, his stump visible now that he’s not wearing a poncho, like in all Rob Delany’s previous scenes.
Florida Keys for Bad Monkey Episode 3:
- In episode 1 of Bad Monkey, a stirring Eddie Vedder cover of “Room at the Top,” the 1999 single from Florida natives Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, lent a contemplative, dreamlike air to a scene of Yancy cruising on his bicycle through the nighttime-lit streets of Key West. But ensuing instances of Petty covers in the series – there will be a lot more; a soundtrack album releases in October – have felt fleeting. Not so with the keyed-down, Lana Del Rey-like take on “Mary Jane’s Last Dance” that accompanies the murder of Izzy O’Peel here in episode 3. The track is courtesy of WAZ & Jamie Jackson, past collaborators of Bill Lawrence on the music for Scrubs and Cougar Town, who are also the music supervisors for Bad Monkey.
- “You’re a food inspector. Leave it alone.” Suspicion is only growing around Rogelio and Sheriff Sonny Summers. What once could be seen as Key West casual, practicing work avoidance and going with the flow, now feels more officially like malfeasance. His friends and colleagues say the Stripling arm case is “dunzo, thank god,” ruled an accidental death. And they warn Yancy to stay out of it. Which he notes the oddness of, especially as Ro and Sonny are about to eat at the newly reopened crab shack, the same one their restaurant inspector just shut down. The seafood in there isn’t the only thing that’s rancid in South Florida.
Johnny Loftus (@glennganges) is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift.
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