“Yo, Would You Tell Ms. Chase I Still Love Her Like Crazy”

As Bad Monkey ambled its way to an Episode 5 midpoint, our concern was direction. Sure, Vince Vaughn had made Andrew Yancy immediately endearing with his fast talking and irrepressible ability to be charming. And Vaughn’s chemistry with Natalie Martinez as Rosa, as their connection has evolved into romance, is not only believable, it’s completely undeniable. But we were questioning where the series was going as Yancy and Rosa’s unofficial investigation of Nick and Eve Stripling flailed on the table of the Miami medical examiner’s morgue. The main characters weren’t main charactering, and the side characters weren’t coalescing. At least to us. Which is why another drop-in from Scott Glenn as Jim Yancy is so refreshing.

Episode 6 of Bad Monkey links Andrew’s seen-it-all dad with his runaway fling Bonnie, who’s now carting around her former high school student lover Cody. It moves the proceedings down in Andros forward in an interesting and sinister manner. It deposits Neville in Rosa’s orbit at just the right time, as Mendez’s bullshit murder rap on Yancy was somehow gaining traction. And as episode 6 has Bonnie getting philosophical about the pickle she’s in, it features Michelle Monaghan swimming with a manatee. Which maybe is exactly what this show really needed all along. 

“A place like this holds up a mirror to our soul,” Jim says to Bonnie as she and Cody appear at the Yancy family’s remote cabin on the buggy St. Johns River. “Shows us what’s real.” Bonnie definitely needed some help in that department, with all her running from the law and relationships of opportunity. Between Jim’s wisdom and the manatee’s calm, she finds a few moments of clarity, and it helps her see Cody for what he is, which is the embodiment of her poor choices. (Alex MacNicoll plays the eager horndog dude bro very well.) It’s not a realization that will stop Johnna Russell from chasing her, and the Oklahoma state investigator eventually catches up to the cabin hideout. But can a show even be set in South Florida if it doesn’t feature a kickass fanboat? Bonnie decides clarity can wait while she seizes another opportunity to flee. “You just missed her,” Jim tells Russell with his zen-like calm. “Also I’d like to report a stolen airboat.”

It’s a great sequence because it ties the nature-loving soul of Bad Monkey to its characters’ antics in a deeper way than the series had managed up to this point. And the same can be said for what’s going down in Andros. Dragon Queen has decided to amplify her hustle for personal gain. There’s no question that her status as a practitioner of Obeah folk magic is legit. But it’s pretty devious, making it look like a local she helped cross over into death signed his land over to her. Via Egg, she requests a meeting with Eve and Nick. She intends to use the deed she forged to sell them the property, to the tune of a sweet $700K. But first the glaring hubris of those two as currently consequence-free escaped murderers has them thinking of more pertinent business. 

Bonnie isn’t alone with her newfound clarity. The mirror on Rogelio’s soul is also guilt-tripping him hard. With his livelihood threatened by the sheriff, the grouch gold medalist gave up Yancy to Detective Mendez, and in between all of the usual fast-talking, there’s a second or two where the flimsy murder charges just might stick. But Ro comes to his senses. As Rosa reminds him – and getting guilt-tripped in Spanish makes it sting even worse – Yancy is actually a true friend. His ex-partner gets the witness to Izzy O’Peel’s murder to recant the story Mendez concocted, and Yancy is freed to speed-yap another day.

Bad Monkey Episode 6 also notches another win for the once floundering investigation of Nick and Eve’s killing and scheming by finding a clever way to link up Neville with Rosa. Winged by a gunshot from a pursuing Egg, Neville managed to conceal himself in the hold of the drug-running prop aircraft the Striplings flew to the Bahamas. And when the plane returns to the airstrip in Miami, who does a snooping Rosa discover but Neville, who can further corroborate Nick and Eve’s whereabouts to the authorities. “I know you,” he tells her, bleeding but smiling through his gritted teeth. “One cream, two sugars.” It’s a nice throwback to Episode 3, the last time Neville was randomly in Rosa and Yancy’s proximity. And now that he’s in Miami, he’ll be a big key towards moving the action back to Andros, where Nick and Eve are still under the impression that Yancy is going down for one of their murders. 

In a way, though, it kind of doesn’t matter if Yancy and Rosa end up solving this case, the one they were never officially investigating to begin with. Nick and Eve are almost certainly not going to get away with any of their crimes. With the series managing to increase the resonance of its characters, they can become more real and less superficial, which means it can focus on the madcap mayhem as it rolls toward a conclusion. You know, like the last hundred pages of a twisty summertime novel, which of course is the very format from which Bad Monkey was adapted. We’re glad this show is finally finding its footing as a fun watch with a real sweetness to temper its established darkness. It’s what the manatee would want. 

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.