Everyone is running from something in the latest episode of Bad Monkey. Yancy is running from the law, Bonnie is … also running from the law, and the Dragon Queen is running from what she perceives to be a life of stagnation on Andros. While each of these characters wade through a whole lot of chaos, they all find moments of catharsis in their pursuits as well.
Yancy tops the episode by calling his old pal Rogelio for help. He claims that he’s in “A jam, maybe even a pickle.” It feels like Ro gets these calls pretty often from Yancy, and he’s kind of tired of fielding them, but he also loves his friend dearly. He’s also conflicted because Sonny tricked him into admitting that he helped Yancy after the Miami PD wanted him. At the end of the episode last week, Sonny threatened his job, and so Ro gives up his buddy here pretty quickly. When Yancy arrives at Rogelio’s house, the cops are there to arrest him. Womp womp. It’s a pretty stunning moment of betrayal, but honestly what did Yancy think he was going to do? Keep running forever? With a putrid finger in his pocket?
Again, we get the sense that these are the types of bonkers activities that Yancy engages in on the regular, but he feels that he’s justified if he breaks the law in the pursuit of justice. Yancy is a big ol’ justice warrior, and he wants to see Nick answer for his crimes. He’s unclear on Eve’s involvement, but he knows she’s also very suspect. The cops book Yancy, and the episode keeps him away from the rest of the action for the majority of the run time. It’s fun to watch him spar with the cops, but also frustrating because we know that Yancy and his antics can’t be caged. Could this possibly be the very first time this guy has been arrested? Or has he been arrested before? Discuss!
There’s a lot of back and forth between Mendez and Yancy, with Mendez threatening and gloating and Yancy volleying everything back to him sharply. Then, in a last-minute twist, Ro comes to the rescue. On a hunch that Mendez was hiding something, he went back to question the (racist) lady who witnessed Yancy coming out of O’Peele’s apartment. Apparently, Mendez tampered with her testimony, telling her to leave out the part about the “one-armed man” that she saw at the scene. Oops. Mendez runs, and Yancy is free to go.
The feud between Mendez and Yancy has gotten a bit tiring, and I’m hoping the resolution to this episode means that Mendez is out of the picture, at least for now. I did enjoy Yancy’s admission that he’s been the one ripping the guy’s mailbox out of the ground — if nothing else, Yancy is a man of honesty and principle who isn’t afraid to answer for his actions.
The episode juxtaposes Yancy’s brutal honesty with Bonnie’s plight. As I mentioned last week, this storyline doesn’t truly feel like it’s a piece of everything else that’s happening, but we do get a whole lot of the wonderful Scott Glenn (!) waxing poetic about nature and responsibility, a cover of “Wildflowers” by Charlotte Lawrence, and Bonnie escaping on an airboat, so it’s not a total waste of time.
Bonnie is a very lost soul. She chiefly defines herself by how others see her, finding her self-worth in men who see her as a manic pixie sexual object, but she’s starting to see how that perspective might be damaging to her and everyone around her. At the top of the episode, Yancy comes home to find both her and Cody in his home. On high alert for anything threatening or suspicious — a weird dude in the middle of his living room reading Richard Russo qualifies — Yancy tackles the kid to the ground. Bonnie diffuses the situation and asks if she can stay at the Yancy family cabin. Yancy says yes. This man truly thrives in chaos.
When Bonnie and Cody get there, Yancy’s dad is there. Scott Glenn is the picture of unruffled cool as he hosts his unexpected guests. He chills with them on the dock and offers gems of advice to Bonnie. When she respectfully rejects his famous “pickle speech,” he understands. This dude seems like he would be a great therapist.
During her visit, Bonnie dives into the crystal clear body of water at the back of the cabin. One imagines that this place has been in the Yancy family for a long time because this property would be a prime location for a developer to build something and sell it for a crazy profit. Come to think of it, this is the low-key message of Bad Monkey as a whole — developers such as Evan Shook and the Striplings trying to claim nature in the name of profits. Scott Glenn — I know he’s Yancy’s dad, but they never give him an actual name, so I’m just going to keep calling him Scott Glenn because respect — talks about the breathtaking cove in his backyard being the product of 33 million years of evolution. It’s a lovely meditation on respecting the natural world and allowing things to grow at their own pace. Bonnie counters by telling him that it’s actually scientific: It’s geology. But when she dives into the water, she comes face-to-face with a sweet manatee. What is a manatee if not magic made manifest?
Bonnie thinks the manatee is telling her to “go for it” with Cody, so she does, but then she reads his novel-in-progress. It’s written in the voice of a young boy. Bonnie starts to realize that she did lasting damage to this boy, and begins to contemplate her next moves. But her thinking time is cut short as the detective on her case finds her at the cabin, and Bonnie absconds with Glenn’s airboat. Where she’s headed with no money is a mystery, but somehow I think we’ll be seeing her again soon.
Over in Andros, no one is running from the law. Neville tries to go see the Dragon Queen, but she’s busy canoodling with Egg. It’s a bad call from Neville, who’s just checking up on his investment, but the queen seems to have forgotten about the curse she owes Neville. Perhaps she’s playing the long game on his behalf, but probably not. Egg spots Neville through the window and shoots at him, getting him good in the arm. Neville escapes, but he’s hurt badly. Much to Egg’s chagrin, Neville seems to disappear off of the face of the earth. Egg returns to the queen, but she wants something more from him than just sex.
The events that unfold in this episode feel somewhat like a left turn for the Dragon Queen as she forges documents saying that John, the man she helped die in a previous episode, left her a very valuable piece of land that Eve and Nick are attempting to buy. John’s widow doesn’t blink an eye when the document is placed in front of her, but his daughter makes a scene. Ya-Ya snaps at her, telling her that she won’t tolerate disrespect again, but Ya-Ya also seems to know that something is up with this gift that has suddenly materialized.
The queen knows that Eve and Nick won’t question the forged deed, so she has Egg set up a meeting with them. The meeting between these two wildly mismatched couples underscores both the income disparity and racial disparity between them. Eve and Nick believe they have all the power, treating both the queen and Egg like servants there to do their bidding, but the Dragon Queen isn’t having it. Her power is stealthy and strong. Egg even feels it. He officially introduces her to his employers as the “Dragon Queen” with deep reverence in his voice. Nick doesn’t catch that though, and flippantly responds, “What the fuck is a Dragon Queen?” Again, I might have an iota of sympathy for Nick if not for how terribly he treats literally everyone on Andros.
Nick quickly learns that he’s not wanted or needed in this interaction. Neither is Egg. Eve and the queen negotiate the sale of the land, but they’re also sizing one another up. The queen isn’t deterred by Eve’s cheery Mean Girl vibes. She was the mean girl in school, not in the prom queen way, but in the literal she-will-legit-murder-you-if-you-cross-her way. The queen details her hold on the island in cryptic threats, telling them that they thrive on Andros only because she, in all her infinite power, allows it to happen. This is a chilling thing to hear; the idea that a total stranger holds your fate in their hands is pretty terrifying. Eve has no response to this, and the queen delivers a one-two punch, telling her that she will not be disrespected. To her, disrespect is always personal. She eventually stands up, towering over Eve, and says, “Ask around and find out what happens to people who fuck with me.” We see that Eve is actually scared for maybe the first time in her life. She’s so terrified, in fact, that she kidnaps the queen at the end of the episode. Okay, okay, we don’t actually know that it’s her, but it has to be, right? Eve loves money, Tilly, baby carrots, and violence, in that order. Quite frankly, Nick is probably down at the end of that list.
There are other reasons that Eve should be scared, too. At the conclusion of the episode, Claspers returns from Andros with a bunch of asshole drug runners. Rosa is there, snooping, and when everyone clears out she makes a shocking discovery in the plane. There is the missing Neville, covered in blood and discovered by the exact right person at the exact right time. Perhaps the Dragon Queen didn’t forget about young Neville after all.
Monkeying Around
• Eve says that the piece of land that the queen is trying to sell her would be the perfect place for her boutique. Now we know what Eve was doing dropping five grand at Asia’s boutique: research.
• The biggest laugh I got this episode was from Rosa and Rogelio speaking Spanish openly in the middle of the Key West PD like it’s a secret language because none of the other bobos in the office have bothered to learn the language. Rosa insults Sonny in Spanish with a giant grin on her face, only for him to respond, “Gracias, señorita!”
• Even though Rosa isn’t in this episode a lot, she has a few fun moments. At one point she tells Yancy, “You make me need coffee.” This is such a compliment and a diss at the same time, and I love it, and I’ll be using it in my real life from now on.
• Tom Petty Cover Watch: When Bonnie has her moment with the manatee, a cover of “Wildflowers” by Charlotte Lawrence plays over the interaction. Lawrence plays Caitlin in the show; she’s creator Bill Lawrence’s daughter, and she’s also a musician. It’s one of Petty’s best songs, and Lawrence delivers a sweet, serviceable cover.