The newest Apple TV Plus crime comedy has debuted in the form of Bad Monkey, and as with all crime dramas, you'll want a handy recap article to remind you of every clue, suspect and event we've met.
Bad Monkey stars Vince Vaughn as a disgraced cop who retreats to the Florida Keys, only to stumble on a case that could help him in a comeback. The first two episodes debuted on Wednesday, August 14 and they set up the story to come.
If you've yet to watch Bad Monkey episode 1, this recap will spoil it all for you, so make sure to watch the 57-minute entry before you continue reading what's to come. Here's how to watch Bad Monkey if you haven't yet!
So here's our Bad Monkey episode 1 recap. It's mostly presented in the order that we see it in, but with one exception explained in the last section.
Welcome to the Florida Keys
We begin on a boat, where a yuppie is on a honeymoon going fishing for the first time. He doesn't catch a fish but a disembodied hand, with its middle finger sticking up!
On the mainland we meet Andrew Yancy (Vince Vaughn) who's in his beachside yard, drinking. He's joined by Rogelio (John Ortiz) who wants Yancy to drive something up to Miami. We learn that Yancy is a suspended cop who wants to earn his position back, and these two used to be partners. Eventually Yancy agrees on the courier task: it's to take the arm to the city police.
Yancy phones the sheriff whom Rogelio works for, and it's clear that the sheriff wants the arm to be anyone else's problem but his. Yancy agrees to take on the trip if the sheriff "lifts his restriction", and it's implied that the man was previously in a tryst that went wrong.
When Yancy gets to Miami, he takes the arm to Rosa Campesino (Natalie Martinez) in the morgue, who finds the limb curious but says that none of their bodies are missing an arm so they can't take it. On the way back Rogelio tells Yancy just to get rid of the arm by throwing it to the crocodiles, and Yancy nearly does, but can't stop thinking that the missing arm isn't the result of an accident as others do.
Yancy returns to the Florida Keys, and he's visited by Bonnie Witt (Michelle Monaghan). We learn that Bonnie is married to a man named Cliff but her and Yancy are having an affair — previously Cliff found out about the affair and Yancy tried to push his golf buggy into a quay, and so Cliff is currently in the middle of legal proceedings against him (which Bonnie is testifying in). Despite this the two are continuing an affair, though Yancy asks Bonnie to talk Cliff out of pressing charges.
After making love, Bonnie goes to get ice from Yancy's freezer, only to find the disembodied arm in it. She screams, runs out and drives away.
Mostly 'armless
Through the story so far, Yancy has been complaining about the massive holiday home that's been built next to his cottage. The next morning the owner introduces himself and asks for help removing a dead racoon but Yancy declines, reflecting that he's made a new enemy.
Then Rogelio shows up, wondering what happened to the arm. He's glad that Yancy retains it because a man went missing after a boat accident and the wife thinks the arm belongs to him, so is requesting it for the funeral.
Yancy meets the woman Eve Stripling (Meredith Hagner) to pass over the arm, and he starts to question her about the death while he's there. She seems eager to get away. After, Yancy goes back to Rosa to flag his suspicions about Eve, and wants to see the husband's (Nick's) records.
Unfortunately his investigations take a turn for the worse when Yancy is summoned by the sheriff, who's discovered his investigations. Yancy's suspension is turned into a full-blown firing, and the man has to give in his gun, badge and vehicle.
When Yancy returns home, Bonnie is waiting for him, and she says that she can't convince Cliff to drop the charges. Yancy recognizes that she's keeping secrets from him, and that Cliff may know these secrets and be using them as blackmail.
Yancy goes to Nick's funeral, and notices that some FBI agents are staking it out too. The man speaks to Nick's daughter (from a previous marriage, not Eve's) who accuses Eve of stealing the titanium ring found on the arm and replacing it with a cheaper one. She goes further, saying that Eve killed Nick.
Later that day, Yancy hires a pest control friend to put bees in his neighbor's chimney. Then he goes into town to speak to the captain of the boat from the first scene, who is also his friend, in order to identify some shark teeth in the arm. The captain says that they're not from a shark that could pull off an arm, and then they go for a drink.
At the bar the captain sees his former skipper, who was actually the one who pulled the arm from the ocean, but has since quit after strangely coming into a lot of money. Yancy confronts the skipper who quickly leaves the bar, but as soon as he does he's shot dead by a motorcyclist!
In the Bahamas
Through this episode, we keep cutting away to the Bahamas where a man named Neville (Ronald Peet) lives in a fishing hut with his pet monkey Driggs. While it's woven into the episode, I've presented it down here for ease of reading.
Neville learns that an American called Christopher is buying out all the houses in the area to build a resort, and Neville's sister (who technically owns the house) has already sold it for a lot of money. But Neville isn't happy.
After seeing Eve on the beach doing a poor job at mourning, Neville starts his quest to fight back against the resort. He urinates in the gas tank of a digger, and his friends join in.
At the bar later, Neville asks his friends to help him retain his home, and they decide to drink on it. Many drinks later, their best advice is to visit the Dragon Queen, an Obeah woman who can help him place a curse on Christopher.
After breaking into the construction office to steal some of Christopher's clothing for the spell, Neville visits the sorcerer woman (Jodie Turner-Smith). She tells him that the victim could die from the curse, but he's okay with that. On the way back to his home at night, Neville sees Christopher arrive to the island by sea-plane.
