Let's Rewrite: Bad Monkey

Detective neo-noir, South Florida quirkiness, and Vince Vaughn’s staccato charm: Bad Monkey season 1 had a lot that I liked. However, it couldn’t decide between Scrubs in the Tropics or a Coen brothers-like exploration of greed. Instead, by switching those styles scene to scene, it jarred and left me unmoored. What exactly was I watching? I suppose incongruence was inevitable when Bill Lawrence decided to adapt Carl Hiaasen, but I can’t help thinking that the show left a smoother blend of genre on the table.

Let’s explore a few changes that might have made everything fit together!

Actually, before that, let’s talk about what we shouldn’t touch. Gracie’s character arc was rich and coherent. Nothing forced: her cosmic justice (and subsequent redemption) were well earned by the story. She effortlessly moved between the contrasting narrative styles. Another arc or two like this and the show would elevate beyond a fun mystery into something really special.

Ok, so the changes:

• Camp should be fun! The first 3/4 of the season was lighthearted, apart from random moments of violence: NickChristopher and Eve murdering people in cold blood; Mendez inexplicably trying to gunfight his way out of downtown Miami; Egg beating Charles; Russians unloading assault rifles into Yancy’s house¹. Besides not matching the general vibe, these moments diluted shock value which would be better used at the end of the season. So, let’s lean into the Scrubs like screwball comedy, and get rid of most of the murders and guns. In fact, Nick’s first and only murder should come in episode ~8, where his descent into evil completes by killing his only friend Izzy.
• Eve is a Siren, not a Sociopath. Yancy’s not always a good dude. He’s flawed like a real person is flawed. And this is why Eve’s character doesn’t quite work. She’s supposed to be diametrically opposed to Yancy, but she’s far more evil than he is pure. I like imagining her as a neutral trickster, causing chaos via temptation. She’s better as a mirror to reveal our characters’ inner darkness than as their direct foil. This fits nicely with our first change: Eve never has to murder anyone. And rather than manipulating Nick to get what she wants, we can flip it. It’s Nick that’s always dreamed of owning a resort, and her role is to innocently suggest that he deserves it. She enables Nick to give into the darker side of his personality, rather than twisting him into something he’s not.
• Yancy needs Stakes. The biggest flaw of the season is that Yancy doesn’t change at all. A flat arc could actually work if he were more emotionally detached, but the scene where he lets go of the rope is clearly a metaphor for some sort of personal growth. Yet, at the end of the story, he can’t help looking at the evidence that Rogelio tempts him with, and none of his close relationships are any different. What was the point of all this? We’ll build off Eve’s new, flat character arc: Yancy’s weakness is that his need for justice is actually self serving instead of noble. Eve tempts him towards sacrificing his friends and family for it. We can tweak his story such that he starts betraying his principles in small ways throughout the season². The climactic rope scene should have Yancy choose between saving a drowning Neville and pursuing Eve. Crucially, because he chooses Neville, Eve will survive. There’s no cosmic justice delivered via a fall from a roof in Portugal³; she’s not Gracie. Yancy pays a real price for giving up on the chase, but the reward is inner peace. He’s free to look at Rogelio’s evidence because he knows he won’t betray his deepest values in the pursuit of a criminal.

So, where would those changes leave us? The season focuses clearly on Eve’s temptation of our 3 main characters: Nick, Gracie, and Yancy. All of the now-backloaded violence serves to highlight their respective falls from grace and its consequence. Nick fully crosses into evil once he convinces himself to murder his friend. He pays for it by dying⁴. Gracie’s death in her unchanged arc highlights that murder isn’t the only sin that requires justice. Then Yancy letting go works both for his character and the larger theme: how we respond to temptation is a choice.

We’d need to rework or cut⁵ a lot of the subplots, but the coherence of the main arcs will be worth it. We’d build towards the darker Coen brothers’ elements instead of forcing them into random places. And, while we’re at it, maybe we should get some justice for Driggs, who was pretty clearly a Good Monkey the whole time.