We may receive a commission on purchases made from links.
Vince Vaughn’s Apple TV+ series “Bad Monkey,” a wacky crime comedy from “Ted Lasso” co-creator Bill Lawrence, wastes no time in establishing the kind of Florida-set weirdness that viewers are in for. The show kicks off with tourists on a boat fishing a severed arm out of the water — an arm that has a stiff middle finger extended. Yes, it’s that kind of show. And as if that wasn’t enough, we have Vaughn playing a motormouth Florida Man who talks 90 miles a minute and never takes anything seriously. He’s a former cop, to be more specific, one who’s now working as a health inspector in the Florida Keys after the Miami Police Department gave him the boot.
“But after stumbling upon a case that begins with a human arm fished up by tourists,” Apple’s streamer explains, “he realizes that if he can prove murder, he’ll be back in. He just needs to get past a trove of Floridian oddballs and one bad monkey.”
For better or worse, the show (based on Carl Hiaasen’s 2013 novel of the same name) never aspires to be anything more than a sun-soaked, offbeat crime caper that’ll keep viewers entertained over its 10 episodes.
Bad Monkey – a crime comedy with Carl Hiaasen’s signature quirk
In fact, enough viewers have found themselves entertained by “Bad Monkey” that they’ve boosted its Rotten Tomatoes audience score to a relatively strong 81% — while the show’s critics’ score currently stands at an even better 92%, all of which probably contributed to Apple TV+ giving the show the best possible reward: It’s coming back for Season 2.
You know those pulpy novels in airport bookstores with the splashy, attention-grabbing covers? They aren’t winning any prestigious literary awards anytime soon, but they tend to be the kind of page-turner that saves you from being completely miserable on a flight. That’s the sort of entertainment category that “Bad Monkey” belongs to, in my opinion (having watched all of Season 1 and mostly enjoying it). “Since ‘Bad Monkey’ first made its debut on Apple TV+, this highly entertaining series became an instant fan favorite,” Apple TV+ head of programming Matt Cherniss said in a news release at the end of last year, announcing the Season 2 renewal.
“Led by the incomparable Vince Vaughn as Andrew Yancy, alongside a brilliant ensemble cast, we can’t wait for everyone to experience more hilarious, sun-soaked, beachy misadventures from the mind of Bill Lawrence as the temperature rises even further in the next chapter of this engrossing murder-mystery.”
Shows like HBO’s “Barry” and Peacock’s “Poker Face” — crime dramedies with offbeat humor and larger-than-life characters — are sort of similar to what you get from “Bad Monkey.” Likewise, a series like Hulu’s “Only Murders in the Building” — a zany mystery with a bit of a satirical edge, is very much the “Bad Monkey” vibe.
