Show Review: To Kill a Monkey (Season 1)

To Kill a Monkey explores themes of mental health, desperation, and moral decadence from multiple perspectives, which I appreciated.

Why do Black people like trauma so much? I say Black people, instead of just Africans or Nigerians, because of Tyler Perry’s Netflix movie, Straw.

Now, just a few months later, we get another trauma fest – To Kill a Monkey.

I had many reservations about watching the series when it was first released because I’m not a fan of all that suffering on screen. If I want to watch people suffer, well, I’m Nigerian, so I’ll just look out the window or something.

In the end, I succumbed to peer pressure; regardless, it took me two weeks to get through the show’s eight episodes.

My thoughts

Somehow, even though spoilers followed me everywhere, I think watching the show presented perspectives I could not have gleaned without watching it myself.

To Kill a Monkey had me equal parts entertained, frustrated, and deeply reflective — sometimes all within the same episode.

The characters

Efe

I need to breathe before I start with this one. This man annoyed me at every single stage in this movie. When he was poor, he didn’t seem to understand the stakes enough to do what it took to provide for his family.

When he became rich, he kept trying to delude himself into thinking he was better than everyone else. When bad things happened, it was always someone else’s fault, and even though he kept harping on about his morals, he made the ultimate choice to ruin every life connected to him. In case you can’t tell, I don’t like the human being.

Oboz

I think his character was the most consistent throughout the movie. Bucci Franklin did a phenomenal job. While he had flaws as big as the ocean, he was never in doubt about who he was, what he was doing, or why.

Inspector Ogunlesi

Not a single person who watched this series likes this woman. She is broken from the loss of her family, and determined to work herself to the ground to run away from her demons. She undermines her boss, takes dubious shortcuts, all to get the results she wants.

The fact that, in the end, while she was credited with solving the case, none of it was due to anything she actually did herself bothered me. If the aim of the character was to show resilience, she should have had a significant impact in the final resolution, giving some sort of validation to all the trauma she endured — especially since the show did not suggest she was doing much better on the health front.

Dr. Stella Nwaeze (The Therapist)

I was positively surprised by the amount of screen time the show gave to the therapy sessions with the therapist, as well as the way she handled her sessions.

I’m by no means a therapist, so I can’t speak to the accuracy in writing her character. Still, I believe this is a step in the right direction towards normalising and destigmatising the need for professional mental health care.

Pacing

The show begins heavy, showcasing Efe and Ogunlesi’s struggles, as well as Efe’s subsequent encounter with Oboz.

All through, there are solid action-packed scenes that keep the audience’s attention, but there are also drop-off points that were probably deliberate to fill screen time, but should have been omitted for a more coherent and concise story. Honestly, this series should have been short of at least two episodes.

Themes

Some of the major themes explored in this series include friendship, loyalty, family, emotional trauma and mental health, desperation, ambition, and moral decadence. Notably, To Kill a Monkey explores many of these themes from multiple perspectives, which I appreciated.

So while Oboz is loyal to a fault to Efe, he is blind to Ozzy Boy’s loyalty and is careless with his treatment, even though they’d been together for longer. Idia and Nosa’s friendship helps Nosa become a little wiser, while Efe is reluctant, almost ashamed of his friendship with Oboz.

The movie also explores the complicated interaction with money and fame, among others.

The ending

For all its storytelling, I believe they could have spent a little more time showcasing the ways Oboz and Efe could have dealt with the Teacher by showing the audience some of the flaws in his system that later failed him.

The way they wrapped up that part of the story was rushed and anticlimactic.

Verdict

Kemi Adetiba knows what she’s doing, and I’m here for it. I loved seeing seasoned actors Stella Damasus and Chidi Mokeme opposite newer and lesser-known actors such as Bucci Franklin. The entire ensemble really showed out on To Kill a Monkey, and I applaud them for it.

But the lawyers say I should tell you people that we don’t sign divorce papers in Nigeria o!