Bad Monkey Ep. 10 - “We’re in the Memory-Making Business”

The roller-coaster ride grinds to a halt as a fun, funky story ends in a not-quite fulfilling way, thanks to some mishandled moments that come off feeling a bit, well, Petty.

As I write this final recap for “Bad Monkey,” life is imitating art rather uncomfortably, as the second of two immense hurricanes we’ve seen in two weeks bears down on Florida's gulf coast. By the time this is published we will surely know if Milton will bring with it as much devastation as its unwelcome predecessor, Helene. I sincerely hope for a minimum of harm.

But now, in Carl Hiassen’s parallel-universe version of Florida and the Caribbean, Hurricane Mel is making landfall as we prepare to wrap up the whole show, so you know that not everyone is getting out of this unscathed. The stakes seem comparatively low under the circumstances, but hey, we’ve come this far. It’s time to see who will reap the whirlwind. 

One more time, here be spoilers . . . 

Man, much of this episode is a highly frustrating experience. Right out of the gate, “Bad Monkey” reverses expectations again, and this time it hurts. We’ve all been dying to see this version of Eve get kicked out of paradise for her many sins — far worse than just eating a piece of fruit — but divine retribution is denied us. Whatever forces are at work here on Andros, they have designs of their own, and they’re about to go all George R. R. Martin on us. 

Yes, just when the Dragon Queen triumphantly demands that Eve give back the land she has stolen from the people of Andros, and declares that “the island demands a sacrifice,” a bolt of lightning fells a tree between the two women. In the melee that ensues, Eve pushes Gracie down, right onto the splintered, upturned root of the tree, gruesomely impaling her. 

She didn’t deserve this. We didn’t deserve this. I feel like Fred Savage in “The Princess Bride,” trying to tell Grandpa that he’s telling the story all wrong. Gracie clearly wants more of a say in the ending as well, as she spits, “I hope you choke on your lies!” while bleeding out.

But as we wallow in our shock and anger, Gracie somehow visits three of our other characters, clad in purest white — first Ya-Ya, to whom she apologizes for losing her way. Then Egg, who she says has a true soul even if he doesn’t believe it. And finally, she passes the torch to the young girl that Ya-Ya encountered in the last episode, who is destined to succeed her as the Queen. This Queen, having achieved her apotheosis, now breathes her last. 

Unfortunately, another lackluster Tom Petty cover — this time, “The Waiting,” — robs the scene of some of its emotional impact. Still, the supernatural experience suggests that there’s some hope that Gracie will yet help to turn the tide. But all this happens before we even roll the opening credits, and it’s going to get a lot messier and still more frustrating. 

From here, the story hurries on its way, even though the ones telling it are determined to rob us of the way we want it to end. Thus far, though, the constant subversion of our expectations has been a delight. So we’ll start moving a little faster, too, and hope for the best.

Eve is more petty (no pun intended?) and selfish than ever, and she’s not done ruining lives. As Yancy and Neville try to figure out a way to nab the Striplings before they can escape on their own after the storm, it’s clear inside their house that Nick isn’t going anywhere, at least not on his own legs. The fishing rod to the spine has left him with a pus-leaking wound and without the ability to move anything but a couple of toes. So the man who started out scamming Medicare with a phony wheelchair business ends up stuck in one. (There’s a grim joke in here somewhere about either the Black Knight from “Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” or maybe Anakin Skywalker after losing 75% of his limbs in “Revenge of the Sith,” but we’ve got more ground to cover here. You’ll just have to settle for the poetic justice.)

Yancy’s not out of tricks yet, though, and in order to flush out the one still-mobile Stripling, Yancy enlists the help of the FBI department head back in Miami to get the message to Eve that their assets will be frozen at the end of the day. Hopefully they can get to her in time to get her on a plane and back to the mainland. Meanwhile, Egg spots Claspers the pilot at the local bar and fritter shop and knows that something is up, since he’s supposed to be long gone. Is this the moment where Egg will rethink his life, consider his soul, and do the right thing?

Nah.

So, Yancy’s attempt to intercept Eve is itself interrupted when Egg shows up with the police and the Mayor, and accuses him of both his own shooting and Nick’s stabbing. Neville tries to save the day, but crashes the getaway car, so they have to jack the police cruiser to make their escape. Is Eve ever going to get what’s coming to her?

C’mon, Grandpa, who kills Humperdinck?

With nobody available to fly onto or off of Andros save Claspers, the Striplings need a new plan, which presents itself in the form of their yacht. Yancy and Eve arrive at this conclusion at around the same time, so it’s a race to the pier now – but first, Eve’s decided that she needs to lose some baggage to travel a little lighter. Unfortunately, that baggage happens to be her husband. 

As Eve wheels Nick to the edge of the water, it dawns on him what’s happening, and the weight of all his terrible decisions comes crashing down. He hardly seems to care that he’s about to die, though, since it was clear at least three or four episodes ago that he’d already died inside. The last thought he gets to voice aloud is, “How did I choose a f***in’ sociopath over my own daughter?” Once he’s over the edge, Nick is left with the use of only one arm, so he quickly drowns and ends up sharing the fate of his other arm that started the whole story. 

As Eve is about to shove off with the yacht, she encounters Egg and insists that Nick is just waiting back at the house for him. Is this the moment where Egg will rise up and redeem himself, where he’ll get retribution on behalf of Gracie and his whole island? Also no. 

But this is enough of a delay to let Yancy catch up, in time to dive in and catch at the rope dangling from the end of the yacht. As Eve accelerates and Yancy struggles to keep his head above water, we find ourselves at the turning point of Yancy’s personal journey, and his own version of his life flashing before his eyes comes in the form of everyone important to him urging him to let go.

Jim, Rogelio, Rosa, even Neville racing along the pier in the real world, all exhort him to loosen his grip on his all-consuming obsession with justice, or at least to save himself from drowning in the soggiest literal sense. And of course, here we go with the Petty covers again, this time “I Won’t Back Down,” and oh my God we get it already! 

Yeah, I’m sorry, but that makes two times in this episode where we’ve undermined a major character moment with the watered-down Petty lyrics. It’s been more of a personal nuisance thus far in the show, but here the song choices actively get in the way of a pair of critical scenes, where we know this is the story trying to tell us what it’s all about. Maybe if the original songs had been used, maybe if the choices hadn’t been so thuddingly obvious, they would enhance the emotion and dramatic effect of each scene, but instead they drag me right out of the moment and emphasize only their own incongruity. It’s a shame, because I think with some different choices, both of these scenes could have landed with power and grace. 

Anyway, Yancy does let go, and he’s left with the Pyrrhic victory of having conquered his own obsession this time. Fortunately, the story’s own sense of justice finally takes over, and we get the closure we need when the Dragon Queen’s heir apparent – Lulu – and Ya-Ya talk at Gracie’s funeral. Ya-Ya says she was able to appear to them because she believes again, and because of that belief, “all her wishes will come true.”

They do, finally, finally come true when Eve, now all alone atop a swanky hotel in Portugal with her irritating little dog Tilly, chokes. It’s neither forbidden fruit nor necessarily the lies that Gracie wished would choke her, but a baby carrot, which is in turn enough to cause her to lose her footing and plummet to a satisfying splat in the courtyard below. The dog laps her blood. 

It’s not clear when or whether Yancy gets word of Eve’s timely end, as he is busy reassessing his life in the aftermath, back home on his Adirondack chair on the beach, right where he started. Everyone else is getting a satisfying new start — Neville and Dawnie and Driggs the monkey back on Andros, Rosa going solo in Miami, Rogelio, even the dumb T-shirt shop girl and her dumb boyfriend who have moved in next door, and oh, yes, Bonnie, too (via a phone call from the end of her still mostly irrelevant side story) — but Yancy just keeps getting in his own way. He’s got to move on, he decides, and put away his obsession with being “the cop of the world.” Time to find the next chapter.

Of course, Ro now tells him there’s something in the car that he may want to look at, that’s “not strictly police business.” And here we go again.

I’m not familiar enough with Carl Hiassen’s work to know if there are more adventures with detective-slash-food-cop Andrew Yancy. Even though I found this ending a little disappointing and a little flat, it’s been a hell of a ride, and if there happens to be another novel to adapt with Vaughn and company, I’ll be ready to rejoin them when they return.

Maybe they’ll have moved on from the Petty covers by then.