Cheers to the guys from Apple’s B-plus summer.
Photo illustration: Vulture; Photos: Apple+
What do we expect from a summer TV show?
A little fun would be nice. A crazy twist. Maybe a performance or two where the actor just goes so over the top that it seems like he thinks he’s on a different show from everyone else. Something that makes you think or speculate a little without retreating into yourself and leaving you in a frustrating whirlpool of confusion. Nothing too heavy. Preferably very few shots of the protagonist driving around in the rain, with that bluish tint on the screen that’s supposed to convey moodiness and complexity, but sometimes…zzzzzzzzzzz. Excuse me, I must have dozed off just thinking about that last point. You can imagine that this is a problem.
Most of the time, I think the ideal summer show gets a grade around B-plus. That’s not a derogatory statement, although several decades of peak television may have conditioned us to believe otherwise. In fact, it’s just the opposite. A B-plus is an honor. A B-plus is a grade that falls somewhere between disappointing slacker and annoying nerd. A B-plus is a grade usually given to C students who are doing their best, or A students who are marching along at a relaxed pace. That’s an admirable quality in both people and TV shows.
Apple TV+ has two of these fun little B-Plus shows on offer this summer. The first was For lack of evidencethe whodunnit crime thriller starring Jake Gyllenhaal as a stressed-out and utterly frazzled prosecutor accused of killing a former colleague with whom he was having an affair. You’d be forgiven for not recognizing this as a lurid B-plus series at first glance. On paper, it had all the hallmarks of a slick prestige drama: star-studded cast, serious subject matter, a story based on a book that had already been adapted as a Harrison Ford film in the 1990s. There were even a few shots with that ever-present bluish tint I made fun of a few paragraphs ago. There was an understandable temptation to take it all very seriously.
But as For lack of evidence unfolded that it was more beach reading than highbrow drama. Jake did the full Jake Gyllenhaal compliment. Peter Sarsgaard transformed his character into a despicable little weasel with a master class in smirks. OT Fagbenle delivered some unrelatable voice work, there was a new wild twist every other episode, Ruth Negga popping up every now and then to keep it from drifting into atmosphere. It was honestly a blast right up until the wild twist ending. Was it the best show I’ve ever seen? I mean, probably not. But was it a blast watching it with someone in an air-conditioned room talking about how much I hated Tommy Molto while the sun outside turned the sidewalk into a hibachi? It really was. A second season has already been picked up and I have no idea how they’re going to pull it off, but I’m shaking with excitement at the audacity to even try. I’m kind of hoping the show runs for seven seasons, all premiering in July—what feels charming and wacky in sweaty weather might not feel that way in sweater weather—and each season begins with Jake’s character being accused of a new murder. Why not do it all, you know?
So that’s one way for a summer show to hit that B+ sweet spot, the screaming and the twists and turns and Bill Camp frowning at the chaos ensuing around him. There are other ways too. Which brings us to Evil MonkeyApple TV+’s latest series, which asks the simple question: “What if Vince Vaughn played a version of Fletch who lives in Florida and has to work as a restaurant inspector because he’s been suspended from his job as a homicide detective for assaulting his lover’s husband with a golf cart.” A question that, as it turns out, we should have been asking for some time, especially because the answer seems to be “it would be lovely.”
This crap doesn’t live up to its B-plus summer qualities. It manages to be pure and honest, as it should be, considering its source material is a book by beach-reading icon Carl Hiaasen. It has everything you could want in sultry August TV: severed limbs, curses, witty detectives, coroners eating mango popsicles, a plot that zigzags beyond the bounds of believability, Michelle Monaghan, everything. Hell, Vince Vaughn’s character gets his badge and gun stripped due to a series of erratic machinations in the very first episode. The season isn’t even halfway over at the time of writing, but everyone here — especially showrunner Bill Lawrence, who sets the tone in a way that makes decades of experience easier — knows exactly what they’re doing, and they do it well. You can’t ask for much more than that.
Come to think of it, maybe this should just be Apple TV+’s niche, like Prime Video is trying to corner the market on high-brow dad shows. There are a few other shows in the lineup that fit that criteria. Ted Lasso was a sweet little B-plus comedy through and through, with heart and swear words and mustaches as balm for the soul. Slow horses is back in early September—still technically summer!—with a fourth season of Gary Oldman’s flatulent spy who thwarts the most terrifying people you’ve ever seen. Even The morning show is sometimes a kind of B-plus show, at least in the “an agitated C student with annoying parents really thinks he’s doing an A-plus paper, which would be kind of annoying if it wasn’t also exciting to see how their overstimulated, hormone-ridden brains work” kind of way. Again, many ways to get to the same goal.
Anyway, let’s all just sit back and enjoy this for now. The days are getting shorter. The mornings are getting cooler. The time to enjoy a silly little summer show is coming to an end. Soon enough, the real world outside will have that goddamn blueish hue as the sun sets behind the leafless trees at 4:30 p.m. The time for mischievous primates and angry Gyllenhaals will be over for another year. Please stop and enjoy it while you can.
