I grew up on Lassie, Flipper, Rin-Tin-Tin, and Mr. Ed, so I am perfectly accustomed to seeing animal names as the titles of television shows and movies. But more recently, somehow, this familiar device has devolved into the stranger practice of using animal species to name shows about human beings. For example, here in the waning months of 2024 we have Wolfs, a movie with Brad Pitt and George Clooney, about a couple of competing fixers for underworld bosses (and why, by the way, are they “Wolfs” and not “Wolves”?). We have Reservation Dogs, about Native American kids. We have The Bear, about a very high-strung chef in Chicago. We have Baby Reindeer about a stalker and her victim. And, as perceptive readers have already noted in the title of this post, we have Bad Monkey and Slow Horses, only one of which has an actual animal in the cast—it’s the monkey—and this eponymous monkey appears peripherally and contributes nothing to the plot.
Bad Monkey, an Apple TV+ series based on a novel by Carl Hiaasen, might have been better compressed into eight episodes rather than the more bloated ten. Of those ten, the first five are the best. The visual pleasures of seeing the vibrant colors of South Florida and the Bahamas are alone a treat, and Vince Vaughn’s deadpan, wry incarnation of Andrew Yancy, a smart but unorthodox detective, serves as a nice foil to the eccentricities of those around him. Those accompanists include Natalie Martinez as a medical examiner who teams up with Yancy; Meredith Hagner as Eve, a properly named femme fatale; Jodie Turner-Smith as a practitioner of local magic; Rob Delaney as a dupe who is manipulated by Eve into increasingly awful behavior; Michelle Monahan as Yancy’s charming but amoral ex-wife; Alex Moffat as a frustrated neighbor of Yancy; and Ronald Peet as a Bahamian who owns the monkey of the title. Initially we appear to be in familiar Hiaasen territory, a land bustling with zany people and black humor. But there are certain contractual expectations that come with a tale that begins so playfully. We expect the plot to conclude with satisfactory poetic justice for all, with the evil properly foiled and the good rewarded. But as the series grows darker and darker and tempers our expectations of a tidy denouement, I found myself laughing less and sighing more. Zany surrenders to dismay at worst, disappointment at best, and while all the performances are first rate, I would prefer fewer deaths, less bile, and more sunshine at the end.
Slow Horses, on the other hand, smashingly succeeds in finding the perfect blending of dark humor and genuine suspense. Season 4, which I just finished watching, continues the streak established by the first three seasons, which offer superb entertainment with an unapologetically sardonic view of British intelligence services. Like Bad Monkey, this series is also based on the work of a novelist, Mark Herron, but this show establishes immediately that the stakes are truly high despite the often-hilarious bickering and outrageous behavior among the principal characters, most of them relegated to Slough House, a branch of MI5 for agents who have, for various reasons, made an egregious error in fulfilling their assignments. Without the brilliant performance of Gary Oldman as Jackson Lamb, the slovenly, decrepit, and wily leader of Slough House, the show would not be nearly so much fun. Kristin Scott Thomas is Oldman’s polished, steely foil at the top of the MI5 leadership, and Jack Lowden plays the more conventional spy who has landed for mostly political reasons at Slough House. The ensemble cast of British actors is uniformly excellent, as is the writing, and while I might have a couple of quibbles with this latest season—Hugo Weaving’s forced American accent, the borrowing of a plot device from Anthony Horowitz’s Point Blanc—they interfered not at all with the suspense, the twists, the laughter, and the satisfying conclusion. Bring on Season 5. Please.