For a moment there I was pretty nervous. Having avidly watched Apple TV+'s superb Bad Monkey week after week during its first-season run, I was surprised by the deathly silence from the streamer since. Was Apple about to 'do a Netflix' and pull one of its best shows (a la Kaos)?
Thankfully, no! This week – and just in time to be seen as a delightful Christmas message from one of the best streaming services – Bad Monkey season 2 has been confirmed. It's official – and it was supposedly down to sorting shoot location agreements, as the production will move to California.
I've spent a portion of December pondering over the best shows of 2024 – check out the 7 Best New Sci-Fi Shows To Stream and the 7 Best New Thrillers Streaming Now – and have no doubt that Bad Money is up there as one of my favourites.
Vince Vaughn pretty much plays Vince Vaughn – just as you'd expect, right? – in a cop drama adaptation of Carl Hiaasen's book of the same name. There is a sequel novel, called Razor Girl, but it's rumoured that those pages won't be destined to screen – so it'll be interesting to see what angle Apple TV+'s writers take with the show.
I'm not the only one to have enjoyed the season either: the show netted a 93% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes (even higher than when I first praised the season), with fans not too behind that on a flat 80% rating. Vaughn's take on cop Yancy is so amusingly lackadaisical yet enthusiastic that he's brilliant to watch.
There are plenty of other famous faces, too, with Rob Delaney, Michelle Monigan, Jodie Turner-Smith, Zach Braff, and many more delivering thoroughly entertaining and – importantly – often hilarious lines. It's not all sheer comedy, though, there are some gritty scenes that'll have you wincing too. But it's show like that which I think are just the perfect mix.
