Editor’s note: The below recap contains spoilers for Bad Monkey Episode 4.
All our burning questions about the murder mystery in Apple TV+’s Bad Monkey have been unexpectedly answered before the season’s midpoint. The end of Episode 3 left us wallowing in a bonkers revelation: alleged murder victim Nick Stripling and private developer Christopher (Rob Delaney) are the same person. Episode 4 momentarily leaves Andrew Yancy’s (Vince Vaughn) and Rosa’s (Natalie Martinez) steamy investigation behind to delve into the past, specifically Nick’s past, completely changing how we perceive the present timeline’s events. But just because we know how each of the mysteries played out in the past doesn’t mean the investigation is over yet, as Episode 4, titled “Nothing’s Wrong With It, I Just Don’t Need It Anymore,” ends on a jarring note that places our boisterous yet endearing former detective in a precarious situation on multiple fronts.
‘Bad Monkey’ Episode 4’s Flashbacks Expose Past Crimes
Episode 4 of Bad Monkey dives straight into a lengthy flashback, spanning back to the fateful night when Nick took his daughter, Caitlin (Charlotte Lawrence), out to a party so she could increase her modeling contacts, only to meet Eve (Meredith Hagner). Eve was a struggling actress, with only a commercial under her belt and plenty of other jobs she had been fired from due to her inability to spout tears on command — a trait that nearly got her caught by Yancy. Nick recognizes Eve from the commercial and awkwardly flirts with her, but they only hit it off when Nick promises to give Eve the lavish life she deserves. Meanwhile, Caitlin’s alcoholism and drug addiction seem to have begun on this night. Cutting forward to the couple’s wedding, Nick is completely smitten with Eve, while the not-so-sober Caitlin storms out of their wedding, leading to the father-daughter estrangement.
We then see Nick with his buddy, Dr Israel O’Peele (Zach Braff), as they both start building the ghost patient scam under Midwest Mobile Medical. Eve is also privy to the scam, unlike Israel’s wife, and also fills Nick’s head with fantasies of a Miami beachside mall, urging him to increase the magnitude of their scam so they can afford it. We also see Neville (Ronald Peet), the Dragon Queen (Jodie Turner-Smith), and Ya-ya (Scott L. Caldwell) become increasingly wary of Nick’s lingering presence around the coast. Unfortunately, this development puts them on the federal agents’ radar, and Nick faces the threat of 20 years in jail. He falsifies the excuse of being disorganized with his paperwork to buy some time, then rushes headlong to Eve, desperate for some advice. After her outraged reaction, he comes up with a plan to fake his death, eventually suggesting that he severs his arm to seal the deal.
Who’s the Real Villain in ‘Bad Monkey?’
In this flashback, Nick/Christopher is miles away from the villain we initially perceived him to be. Before Eve, he had a close relationship with Eve as a proud father who boisterously tries too hard, and a goofy friendship with Israel — his only crime was a mid-rate scam, not some global criminal empire. It is Eve who proves to be the villain of the two, as her eyes manically gleam when he suggests cutting his arm off, and her manipulative and psychopathic side slowly shines through.
Israel performs the procedure of amputating Nick’s arm, with Eve as an unwilling and repulsed assistant — but she makes sure to take off the watch. It is expensive after all. Israel also takes the limb to the shower and hides the clean cut by smashing the edges, leading to fragments of bone falling into the shower drain that Yancy and Rosa found in Bad Monkey‘s premiere. He cinches the facade by bribing Phinney (Brett Cormier) into tricking a tourist into believing they had caught a severed limb, and it is also likely that Phinney manipulated the arm’s fingers into that rude gesture. Despite his brief stint on the show, Israel had a pivotal role in Nick’s scam and later, Nick’s moral demise, as Israel began to have doubts about their scheming.
When Phinney begins extorting Nick for more cash, Eve encourages Nick to tie up loose ends, leading to Phinney’s murder. Her single-minded obsession with wealth and psychopathy slowly taints Nick as he also shoots Israel in the back of the head after finding out he wants to confess to Yancy. When he finally has a meltdown about it in a parking garage and accuses her of not being involved, Heather with the Weather (Lauren Buglioli) overhears this, leading to her own death by the pitiless Eve. Shifting back into the present, Nick starts to reconnect with his daughter and is aghast by Eve’s insinuations that Caitlin would divulge their secrets. He accuses her of plotting to murder Caitlin, but Eve’s story comes full circle here as she gives the performance of a lifetime and sheds a single tear to manipulate Nick back onto her side.
Romance Is Brewing Between Yancy and Rosa on ‘Bad Monkey’
Yancy’s love life is also further developed in this episode, as the flashback also exhibits his meet-cute with Bonnie (Michelle Monaghan). Yancy is transferred to Keys and is having a customary ice cream date with his partner, Rogelio (John Ortiz). They joke about Rogelio’s concern over meeting his new boyfriend’s children, and when Rogelio leaves to get a second scoop, Bonnie captures Yancy’s attention. Though their flirty interaction is brief, and she flashes her wedding ring at Yancy, he is hooked. We later also discover that Bonnie was being abused by her husband, appearing to Yancy with a bruised face. Since she didn’t want to file an official report, Yancy does the next best thing: he runs into her husband’s golf cart and laughs as he lurches off the pier. This further fleshes out the reason Yancy was suspended from the force when we first met him.
In the present timeline, Yancy has a completely different romance brewing with Rosa, as they share a delicately heartfelt moment in the morgue. Rosa opens up to him about her ex-fiance and how she had misjudged his character. In comparison, Rosa finds Yancy’s honesty refreshing, even though she knows his impulsive behavior isn’t necessarily good for her. We can almost imagine the steam wafting through the morgue’s cold dead air, as Rosa and Yancy get hot and heavy on a steel table that has held up many corpses.
Yancy Is In Deep Trouble in ‘Bad Monkey’
Bad Monkey Episode 4’s flashback also reveals the reason why Yancy cannot work as a detective in Miami again. He finds out about corruption in the police force, namely a cop we briefly met in Episode 3, Officer Mendez (Gonzalo Menendez). Mendez had been encouraging family and friends to phone into his office’s tip line about cases that were already solved, earning themselves free money. When Yancy figured this out, he immediately exposed Mendez, but his own irreverent and sardonic behavior caused him to be transferred to the Keys. A physical confrontation between the two officers also cemented their rivalry. As such, when Mendez speaks to the witness who saw Yancy walk out of Israel’s apartment mere minutes after he was killed, we know trouble is about to follow Yancy.
The episode’s closing scene also spells out doom for Yancy’s fate. Gazing out his window at a three-legged deer he saved and mulling over Rosa’s story about misreading her ex-fiance, an inspired Yancy finally comes to a logical conclusion: a person can live without one arm. As such, they may have jumped to a conclusion when they believed the severed arm automatically inferred that the owner was deceased. Yancy further connects the dots about Eve’s new beau, and theorizes that Nick is Christopher — he caught up quickly. However, this revelation arrives alongside a brutal whack on the back of Yancy’s head. He passes out cold on the ground with Nick looming over him, more psychopathic and desperate than we have ever seen him before.
The first four episodes of Bad Monkey are available to stream on Apple TV+, with subsequent episodes dropping every Wednesday.
Watch on Apple TV+
