How ‘Bad Monkey’ Became the Surprise Best Comedy of the Summer
The work of writer Carl Hiaasen—who has written over 30 novels chronicling a variety of outrageous and absurd Florida crimes—has been long overdue for a screen adaptation worthy of his irresistibly wry humor intertwined with bleakness. At first blush, Bill Lawrence might seem like a counterintuitive choice to be the one doing the adapting. After all, Lawrence is best known for his work on beloved, often heartwarming sitcoms like Ted Lasso and Scrubs, not prickly sunshine noir, but what he’s brought to AppleTV+ with Bad Monkey, a series version of one of Hiaasen’s most popular novels, is a surprisingly existential end-of-summer treat.
Bad Monkey’s intricate plot—here juicy and silly, there a blood-chilling thriller—chronicles the fallout of a Florida Keys life insurance scam perpetrated to provide the seed money to build a high-end resort on Andros in the Bahamas. At the center of the drama is Detective Andrew Yancy (Vince Vaughn), the motor-mouthed, downwardly mobile detective who follows his nose (also, occasionally, his libido) to crack the case. Along the way, the somewhat disgraced investigator—suspended for that most relatable of crimes, using his Key West Police Department vehicle to shove the golf cart carrying his sometimes-girlfriend’s jerk of a husband off of a pier—teams up with a restlessly brilliant young medical examiner, Rosa Campesino (Natalie Martinez), to uncover the truth about Nick Stripling (Rob Delaney), the supposedly deceased owner of the severed arm at the center of the insurance scam.
Lawrence sat down with The Daily Beast’s Obsessed to reflect on his desire to revive noir in film and on TV, the role of coaching and mentorship across his work, and the impossibility of maintaining an unblemished veneer of success when you really just want to write shows about people who are striving to be, at most, good enough.