Bad Monkey went a little Lost on us this week. No, I don’t mean the potentially magical island or the wild character matchups. I’m talking about meaningful flashbacks that provide rich and unexpected backstories. Sure, we got some flashbacks of Yancy doing his thing at the Miami PD and pushing Bonnie’s abusive husband into the ocean, and we did get a full episode detailing Eve and Nick’s gross relationship origin story, but this episode takes a deep dive into the world of the Dragon Queen, formerly known as Gracie, and the revelations are tragic.
This week, the narrator makes a point of calling the queen by her given name, Gracie. He’s referred to her in passing by that name before, most notably when she and her friend Asia drank rosé and gossiped on the beach, but he doesn’t diverge from it throughout this episode. As we learn more about Gracie’s history, we get the sense that she has struggled with her persona for a long time, perhaps since she was born. At the top of the episode, Gracie flashes back to her childhood: Ya-Ya is by her side at every step. Gracie’s mother dies, and Ya-Ya wants to train her granddaughter in the magical ways of the family. Ya-Ya is a constant, loving presence, but she also seems to be pushing her granddaughter into a life that she might not want.
The flashback sequence is almost painful to watch. A young Gracie rebels, sneaking out to kiss a dipshit white boy from the mainland, and he subsequently breaks her heart when he basically tells her she was just a fun part of his vacation. She curses him, hoping he chokes to death. And then he does. No great loss. (Note: The dipshit’s death is not explicitly discussed in this episode but was mentioned by Ya-Ya back in the second episode. Doubting her power, Gracie chalks it up to coincidence, but we all know what’s really up.)
Gracie takes her heartbreak as a sign that she is ready to level up. Ya-Ya trains her, Miyagi-style, with lots of rules for the first phase of her training. She must speak with no one but Ya-Ya for a full year. She must wear white and stay out of the sun. It’s isolating for a young woman, and the rest of the community begins to form opinions about her. As her life flashes before her in Eve’s trunk, the loneliness is what she remembers.
After Gracie is released and finds out that Eve and Nick were the ones who kidnapped her — Rob Delaney for the win with his goofy line reading of “Who’s got one thumb and can still kidnap the shit out of women?†— she and Eve have a chat. Eve was a bit taken aback by Gracie’s initial threats but counters with her own threat, stating that she would tell Gracie to ask around about what happens to people who fuck with her, but none of them are around anymore. It’s a terrifying retort, and Gracie realizes how badly she’s read this situation. Shortly thereafter, she decides to sell the land to Eve and Nick. It’s kind of a blow to the overall moral standing of her character, but we can tell that she’s never truly felt free and that she believes this money will help her to escape some of her demons.
Ya-Ya, on the other hand, knows better. The wonderful L. Scott Caldwell has quietly been sitting on the sidelines, waiting to play the earth-shattering moments in this episode. As Ya-Ya confronts her granddaughter about the scam she’s pulling with the land, Caldwell accesses a deep reserve of regret and sorrow, one of a caretaker regretting past decisions they’ve made raising a child while futilely trying to warn them of future danger. Gracie’s resentment toward her grandmother clouds her ability to hear her words in the present. Ya-Ya tells her, in no uncertain terms, “You have stepped into the middle of your own curse! That will be most difficult to undo!†Then, she drops a truly chilling bomb, “Mark my words, if you don’t get off this path right now, it will cost you your life.â€
Gracie, like most rebellious children, doesn’t listen. She sells her soul to the failed actress and the one-armed man, but she’s conflicted about the whole thing. When she seeks out her friend Asia, she finds that Asia has been listening to Drea, the daughter of the man whose land she sold. Asia was the only person who stayed by Gracie’s side throughout her year of magical training, but now she’s (understandably) angry that her friend would steal from a dead man. Gracie reels on Asia, telling her that the Gracie she knew is gone and that she is now the Dragon Queen. Jodie Turner-Smith infuses this moment with sharp, layered meaning, her intense gaze unwavering but her lip trembling ever so slightly. Gracie is not actually ready to fully embrace her intimidating Dragon Queen persona — in fact, she’s struggling with the decision to cast off her life on Andros altogether — but she’s invoking it here to scare her friend into leaving her alone. It works.
Later, Gracie goes back to her house and smashes up the mystical altar that she and Ya-Ya have maintained over the years. Egg finds her there, and they hook up. At this moment, it feels like Ya-Ya is right and that Gracie is going down a dark path from which she can’t turn back.
I could seriously talk about Ya-Ya and Gracie all day, but other things did happen in this episode. Sadly, the Bonnie story drags on, taking away screen time that could be used to further the intrigue on Andros, or to continue the hilarious feud between Evan Shook and Yancy, or really anything else other than more slog-like sex-offender drama. Bonnie returns to Key West, and Yancy helps her decide that she needs to atone for her sins by giving her the “pickle speech,†and she turns herself in when she sees the camera planted in her storage unit. The detective comes to take her back to Oklahoma while Cody and Scott Glenn (he has a name now, it’s Jim, but I’m still calling him Scott Glenn, sorry, not sorry) head to Yancy’s.
Yancy has had quite a day. He and Rogelio stake out the vet where Mendez’s cat is being assessed. Mendez is a childless cat man, and he loves that cat more than anything, so even though he’s on the run, he comes to check on his baby. Yancy and Rogelio arrest him, but then Mendez uses Rogelio’s daughter’s unicorn hair clip to undo his cuffs and steal a gun. There’s a shootout. Rogelio gets shot in the leg, and our old friend Donald gets shot in the arm. Yancy finally takes Mendez down, and as a prize for this capture and the information Neville brought in on the Striplings, Yancy gets his badge back.
It’s all he’s ever wanted, and he also has Rosa by his side. Rosa has a heavy moment in this episode when she goes back to work and finds the cadaver of a 6-year-old child on her table: The parents got drunk at a BBQ and forgot he was in the pool. As the camera lingers on the tiny hands and feet, it’s a depressing beat that feels a bit out of step with the playful tone of the rest of the show, but it does get Rosa thinking about finding a new job.
Meanwhile, Yancy meets with the Feds. A woman called Director Rhodes steps out of a black SUV and gives Yancy the rundown. They are aware that the Striplings are in Andros and that they probably killed a mess of people before escaping. They’re investigating the insurance fraud — because, let’s face it, the government prizes companies over people — but they’re not working to extradite the mass murderers at this time. This is half understandable and half infuriating. These two have demonstrated that they’re fully willing to kill people if they get in their way, and Neville has provided them with information that they’re working to upend the entire social, business, and environmental norms in Andros. It seems like they remain a pretty big threat, but I guess they’re not causing problems on American soil, so who cares?
Yancy is angry, but it doesn’t seem like there’s much he can do, so he goes home to snuggle on the couch with Rosa. It’s a full house when Cody and Scott Glenn show up, then some uninvited visitors case the place, automatic weapons in silhouette.
Has Evan Shook finally lost his mind? Did the Striplings spend some extra cash to eliminate Yancy once and for all? Did Mendez call in a favor to some friends after getting nabbed by his rival? Yancy has quite a few enemies, so it’ll be a real “guess who†until next week.
Monkeying Around
• The funniest moment of the episode is when Yancy says that the whole situation with the Striplings was pretty painless, to which Rogelio deadpans, “I got shot.†The camera then quickly shifts to Neville who says, “Me too.†The Striplings are causing all sorts of chaos!
• Before Yancy gets his badge back, he goes out on one more food-inspector job, checking out the heinous conditions of the rat-infested place that Sonny likes. He’s about to shut the place down — the owner even agrees that the “civilization of rats that have flourished in [the] kitchen†is not a good thing — but then Madeline and Pestov beg him to keep it open for Phinney’s memorial service. It’s fun to see these two paired together, and even funnier to think that another person might possibly die of food poisoning at this hellhole of a restaurant that just can’t be closed.
• I’m unsure why the pickle speech is called the pickle speech, presumably because you need to think about it if you’re in a pickle? But it feels like a very Good Place mantra, and I like it, so here it is in its brief entirety: “If you screw up, the easiest thing is to lie, but that never works, because the way that you feel about yourself, that sticks with you forever.â€
• Gracie’s bold and luminous eye-shadow choices are constantly on point. Forget the skin-care routine that Eve keeps begging for, I desperately need to know what color palette she’s using.
• Tom Petty Cover Watch: There are two prominent Petty covers in this episode: “Supernatural Radio,†by Goldford, and “Don’t Fade on Meâ€, by Chiiild.