‘Bad Monkey’ Finally Gives Carl Hiaasen’s Work the Adaptation It Deserves
Given how successful and acclaimed Carl Hiaasen’s novels have been over the past 40-plus years, it’s surprising that more of his books haven’t been adapted for the screen. The only previous Hiaasen adaptations are 1996’s notorious box-office flop Striptease starring Demi Moore, and 2006’s kid-oriented Hoot. That changes with the new Apple TV+ series Bad Monkey, which effectively captures Hiaasen’s range of oddball characters, humorously discursive plotting, and environmental activism.
Based on Hiaasen’s 2013 novel, Bad Monkey comes from co-creator Bill Lawrence, who’s best known for his work on sitcoms including Scrubs, Cougar Town and Apple TV+’s Ted Lasso and Shrinking. There’s plenty of humor in Bad Monkey, but it’s darker than any of Lawrence’s previous shows, and he finds an effective tonal balance that provides plenty of laughs without undermining the more serious elements. That’s Hiaasen’s trademark as well, and Bad Monkey faithfully adapts the story of demoted police detective Andrew Yancy (Vince Vaughn) and his misadventures in the Florida Keys that begin with the discovery of a severed arm.
Yancy has been demoted twice, first from his job as a detective in Miami, and later from his detective position in the much sleepier community of the Keys. He’s waiting out a suspension for assaulting the estranged husband of his semi-girlfriend Bonnie Witt (Michelle Monaghan) when he’s approached by his previous partner Rogelio Burton (Jon Ortiz) with an off-the-books assignment. A tourist on a fishing trip reeled in a severed human arm, and the image-conscious local sheriff wants to avoid a scandal by passing off responsibility onto the Miami police.
Yancy projects a laid-back image, but he’s also the kind of cop who believes in justice over expediency, even at the cost of his own career. So when the Miami cops refuse to take the arm because it doesn’t fit any of their open cases, he rejects Rogelio’s suggestion to just dump it on the side of the road and instead embarks on a labyrinthine investigation that eventually pits him against a criminal couple attempting to open a resort on the Bahamian island of Andros.
There are many, many more steps along the way, and one of the main pleasures of watching Bad Monkey is seeing how Yancy winds his way toward achieving some kind of justice. Yancy’s quest is balanced by Andros resident Neville Stafford (Ronald Peet), who has his own reasons for pursuing the perpetrators of the central crime. That gives Bad Monkey a stronger connection to Hiaasen’s focus on social commentary, albeit sometimes in a clumsy manner when depicting Bahamian local culture.
The mystery of who the arm’s owner is and how the detached limb ended up in the ocean is solved fairly early in the 10-episode season, and Bad Monkey isn’t about big reveals or shocking plot twists. It’s about the strange, colorful world of South Florida, encompassing plenty of characters whose connections to the main investigation are largely tangential.
That includes Bonnie, whose own storyline barely intersects with Yancy’s and often feels superfluous. Yancy begins a far more meaningful relationship with Miami coroner Rosa Campesino (Natalie Martinez), and they have a playful chemistry that mixes romance with danger, as Rosa becomes Yancy’s partner in investigating the case. Their immediate target is spoiled widow Eve Stripling (Meredith Hagner), who claims that the arm belonged to her late husband, the victim of a boating accident.
Hagner channels the self-centered obliviousness of her character in the underrated mystery comedy series Search Party, making Eve into an image-obsessed sociopath who will do anything to get the luxurious life she thinks she deserves. She’s the most clearly evil character in a show that is mostly about well-intentioned people struggling to do what’s best, including Yancy himself. His repeated warnings to Rosa that getting involved with him will ruin her life only make him more endearing, both to her and to the audience.
As he’s demonstrated in his previous series, Lawrence is great at bringing together a cast of similarly endearing characters that are fun to spend time with, and while Bad Monkey has far more plot than Lawrence’s previous low-key comedies, it retains that loose hangout vibe, especially as more of the disparate characters start to meet each other.
Lawrence also has plenty of experience depicting the offbeat characters who populate various Florida towns, like the fictional title location of Cougar Town. It wouldn’t be entirely surprising for Yancy to run into Courteney Cox’s Jules Cobb on one of his random Florida detours. Previous Lawrence favorites Zach Braff and Bob Clendenin pop up here in small supporting roles, along with Lawrence’s daughter Charlotte.
Bad Monkey conveys some of Hiaasen’s wry tone via narration from Tom Nowicki as a boat captain who makes brief onscreen appearances but mainly offers insights about all of the characters’ mindsets — including the actual monkey referenced in the title. He often uses phrases like “And just like that” and “I couldn’t help but wonder,” sounding like the folksy, grizzled Florida version of Carrie Bradshaw. The soundtrack is filled with songs and covers of songs by Florida icon Tom Petty, who’s the perfect artist for the show’s breezy but wistful vibe.
Lawrence has garnered a reputation for shows that start strongly and peter out in their later seasons, so maybe it’s best that Bad Monkey adapts Hiaasen’s entire novel and ends without leaving any loose plot threads. Still, Hiaasen wrote one more Andrew Yancy novel, and the finale of Bad Monkey leaves open the possibility for more stories. Even if the show turns into a typical Lawrence love-fest, these are characters that would be welcome back any time.
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But first-this being Hiaasen country-Yancy must negotiate an obstacle course of wildly unpredictable events with a crew of even more wildly unpredictable characters, including his just-ex lover, a hot-blooded fugitive from Oklahoma; the twitchy widow of the frozen arm; two avariciously optimistic real-estate speculators; the Bahamian voodoo witch known as the Dragon Queen, whose suitors are blinded unto death by her peculiar charms; Yancy’s new true love, a kinky coroner; and the eponymous bad monkey-who just may be one of Carl Hiaasen’s greatest characters.
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Josh Bell is a freelance writer and movie/TV critic based in Las Vegas. He’s the former film editor of Las Vegas Weekly and the former TV comedies guide for About.com. He has written about movies, TV, and pop culture for Vulture, IndieWire, CBR, Inverse, Crooked Marquee, and more. With comedian Jason Harris, he co-hosts the podcast Awesome Movie Year.