Bad Monkey Ep. 5 - "That Damn Arm Is Back"

Tables turn and the board is set for the second half of the season, as the pursuers become the pursued. Who are also being pursued by others. There's a lot of pursuit happening, OK?

We’re back to the present this week with “Bad Monkey” and things are moving quickly forward after our detour to the past. Unfortunately, the past is catching up with each of our main characters, in most cases pretty literally. In the shortest episode yet, at a brisk 42 minutes, we’re playing cat and mouse all over south Florida. 

If you haven’t seen Episode 5 yet, watch out – we’re moving a lot of important pieces on the chess board this time, so spoilers are coming at ya right about now.

As we open, Nick Stripling (or Christopher Grunion, if you please) is trying to stage another accident on the ocean, this time dumping what he thinks is Yancy’s body off the edge of the pier after the crowbar whack that ended our last episode. But since it would be kind of a bummer to lose our protagonist halfway through the show, he is, to quote Miracle Max, only mostly dead. Or at least concussed. And still pretty lucky, since he also happens to stumble across the one piece of evidence he needs to crack this case wide open, in the form of Nick’s phone. He didn’t know for sure that Nick was still alive yet, but he sure does now.

Unfortunately, Yancy escapes from death only to find himself officially a fugitive from justice, as Officer Mendez has put out an APB for him based on an eyewitness who’s put him at the scene of Izzy O’Peele’s death. Does Mendez really believe Yancy is responsible for the murder? It probably doesn’t matter much to him. Now Yancy and Rosa are really on the run. 

Rosa, torn between resentment that Yancy has put them both in such grave danger and he growing feelings for him, spends much of this episode trying to work out with him whether they’re becoming closer or she’s just starting to hate him. Nevertheless, Rosa brings him to her family’s house to lie low for the night. They’re a boisterous, warmhearted bunch, but Rosa’s protective mother Ines (Madelin Marchant) isn’t amused. She scolds both Rosa and Yancy, so stridently in Yancy’s case that he just runs off – or so Rosa thinks until she learns that Nick’s phone can only be opened with a fingerprint, and where can they find one of those? 

Oh. Right. That damn arm.

So, one quick visit to the cemetery later, Yancy’s got a finger and an unlocked phone, which they promptly use to track Nick to the airport where he (as Christopher) and Eve are preparing to flee to their new digs on Andros, their new Bahamian island home . . . 

. . . Where Neville is busy calling in favors from every ex-girlfriend on the island (which seems to account for a significant portion of the population), in order to find his way to someone who can use the damning information he’s come up with by swiping a flash drive from Christopher/Nick’s office back in Episode 3. All the while, the furious Egg can’t forget that Neville socked him in the mouth in that same episode and is busy chasing him down. He gets some help from one of Neville’s exes who’s in a spiteful mood, and nearly has his quarry when Neville’s missing boat shows up just in time to facilitate a getaway. Deus ex marina? 

As I’d hoped, we do get more of the Dragon Queen and Yaya here, but they’re mostly observers this time. Of course, the Dragon Queen – whose name we learn here, I think for the first time, is Gracie – spends quite a bit of this time observing Egg, who is after all a sexy beast despite his nefarious employment. She may even sense in him a kindred spirit, out to take what he can from a world that hasn’t given either of them much of anything. “You can either play the game, too,” he says, “or watch them take it out your pocket.” Could there be an improbable romance forming here? Which one will it change?

It’s here where I will pause for a moment to note that “Bad Monkey” has thus far made something look pretty easy that is actually really difficult to pull off, namely the management of a vast and motley crew of characters in a way that doesn’t feel overwhelming or contrived. There are easily half a dozen more notable supporting characters that I haven’t even mentioned yet here, who stand on their own as unique characters while their stories become ever more intertwined. This is no small task, as I’ve been reminded lately by re-watching Prime Video’s first season of “The Rings of Power” in preparation for the second. That show has plenty of its own merits, but definitely makes the management of its multiple story threads and characters look hard. Very hard. By contrast, “Bad Monkey” keeps all its balls in the air with a breezy nonchalance.

As all our other players chase each other around, though, it’s actually Nick Stripling who finds himself in the middle of the pincers. He’s now as scared of the murderous Eve as Eve is scared of being found out and losing her shot at the life she thinks she deserves. When he discovers that Yancy is alive – thanks to one of those news broadcasts that always conveniently happen, in TV and movies, to find the right characters’ eyes at just the right time in the story – he’s more frightened of Eve’s reaction than of what Yancy might do. When they pay a visit to Caitlin on their way out, and Eve threatens her violently, he lets his daughter down again by failing to stand up for her. He’s trying to protect Caitlin as best he can by not provoking Eve to do what she did to “Heather with the Weather.” Too bad Caitlin doesn’t see it that way. 

As we wrap up, though, Nick’s luck runs out as Yancy and Rosa catch up to them at the airport. They get away on their seaplane, but any hope Nick has of concealing the truth from Eve implodes when Yancy calls her on Nick’s phone to tell her he’s coming for them now. 

The pieces are now in place to start moving toward the endgame in the back half of the series.

Oh, and Bonnie is back in the picture, circling back to Yancy’s house to find some safety as she runs from the law herself. It doesn’t quite neatly fit in with the rest of the story yet, though we’ve got plenty of time to find out how it will. For now, her past definitely finds her, in the form of the former student who’s the reason why she’s in legal trouble in the first place. 

Still waiting to find out what the monkey is going to do. But maybe we’ll discover that next time.