Recap: Rosa Goes Undercover In ‘Bad Monkey’ Episode 8

Bad Monkey is back in form in Episode 8, “The Russian Mob Is Very Active in Key West”. And this is good news since we’re approaching the end now and it’d be best for everyone if the series finished strong. After weeks of having the core cast separated and forced to idle around waiting for the plot to reunite them again, it’s refreshing to be closer than ever to finally having everyone in the same place. 

The excitement is contagious among the characters, too. There are some big swings in multiple personal subplots that seem to be shuffling everything ancillary out of the way. All that’s left now is to take down Nick and Eve, even if it might turn out to be easier said than done.

The Dangers Of Beachside Living

That cliffhanger at the end of Episode 7 turns out to be nothing in “The Russian Mob Is Very Active in Key West”. The gunmen were hired by Evan Shook in another of his short-sighted schemes to stop Yancy from harassing him and tanking his efforts to sell his gaudy mustard beachfront property. He didn’t anticipate he was hiring Pestov, a Russian Mafia underboss who knows Yancy well enough to have invited him to his upcoming wedding.

As soon as Pestov realizes his mistake, the crisis is averted. Jim is forgiven for headbutting one of his goons off-camera, and Yancy unloads a few rounds of ammunition into Evan’s window to make the point that getting rid of him isn’t going to be quite so easy. This is funny, but it is cheating a little bit. It’s dangerously close to a Cliffhanger Copout.

But, to be fair, the show has written itself into a bit of a corner. With Nick and Eve still living the high life on Andros, the FBI has their hands tied thanks to extradition laws and other such complicated legal matters, which is explained to Yancy when he goes to interrupt Director Rhodes’s lunch break. If only they were back Stateside, things would be a lot easier, which Yancy theatrically interprets as an off-the-books instruction to lure them back himself.

This leaves Yancy in the difficult position of having to decide whether or not to risk everything, including the job he only just got back, to go to Andros and retrieve Nick and Eve by force. Luckily, the decision is made for him when Evan’s house explodes.

Bonnie’s Breakdown

To understand why the house blows up, we have to check in on Bonnie.

Agent Russell’s crusade to bring her in turns out to have been a waste of time since the Oklahoma State’s Attorney isn’t interested in prosecuting her and the family of her victims would rather the issue just went away. The revelation that Russell was acting entirely of her own volition makes Bonnie respect her more but doesn’t give her any more ideas about what she’s going to do next, especially since the lack of accountability has pushed her into a psychological collapse.

So, Bonnie purchases a lot of gasoline. The next we see her, she’s framed in the orange hue of Evan’s smoldering property. The grand gesture was all for Yancy, apparently, and to finally force a reckoning of her own. She’s very happy as she’s pushed into the police car and driven away, but Yancy and Rosa feel like they need a break. Andros it is, then.

Ronald Peet as Neville in Bad Monkey | Image via Apple TV+

A Run of Good Luck

Yancy and Rosa’s plan hinges on sending the latter undercover as a prospective buyer of a unit on the resort, with Caitlin in on the scam to help introduce Rosa to Nick and Eve. I felt a teeny, tiny bit sorry for Nick in the scene where Caitlin pretends to have upsold his land to a friend out of the goodness of her heart because it’s so clearly Eve who is the real villain here, but Nick is still culpable so I wasn’t sympathetic for long.

Plus it’s genuinely tiring to see Nick and Eve interact with Gracie and make offhanded comments about how easy bribery is in “third-world countries”. I’m glad that Grace is planning to wring every cent she can out of the pair of them, but I’m not keen on the tactics she’s using to do it. She has already compromised her ethics considerably and broken Ya-Ya’s heart, and her sudden guilt when Egg interprets Gracie saying Asia “won’t be a problem” as a covert instruction to smash her store up is a bit weird. What else was he going to think?

So, comeuppance is due, that’s for sure. Luckily, Yancy and Rose put their best foot forward after arriving by instantly befriending Claspers at a local fritter joint, taking a photo that goes up on the wall to commemorate the occasion. Yancy runs into Gracie the next morning and informs her that the watch she stole from Nick’s boat earlier is worth $250,000, and Rosa’s deception pays off. She and Eve bond over how awful Caitlin is, and Nick and Eve agree to fly to Miami the following week to pick up the money they think she’ll be paying for a unit.

Inclement Weather Warning

But things can’t go too smoothly, can they? Yancy and Rosa weren’t shy about mingling in Andros because they were reliably informed by Neville that Nick and Eve never leave their compound, which under ordinary circumstances would be correct. However, ordinary circumstances are not on the horizon. As Yancy and Rosa settle down for a toast with Neville and Dawnie, Rosa’s sister Mel delivers a weather forecast that promises a hurricane is coming.

And what do islanders do when there’s a hurricane coming? They head out to the bars while they still can, which is how Nick and Eve find themselves in the same fritter joint where Yancy and Rosa had their photo taken with Claspers. Bad Monkey Episode 8 ends with the picture taking up the entire frame, and while there’s no confirmation yet that Eve has seen it, Tom Nowicki’s smooth-toned narration suggests it’s a distinct possibility.

Read More: Bad Monkey Episode 9 Recap