A quick review of tonight’s “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” coming up just as soon as toilet emoji…
“Boyle-Linetti Wedding” comes a few days after the end of that other Mike Schur show, which had an uncanny knack for doing wedding episodes that were both hilarious and incredibly sweet at the same time. Though “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” has certain tonal elements in common with “Parks and Rec,” it’s always been a lighter and goofier show. That difference is nicely illustrated by this episode, which has a few nice emotional moments – Holt looking to Kevin as he gives his speech about the meaning of marriage, or Peralta and Santiago smiling at each other in the closing moments – but was primarily an amusing farce about various things going wrong in the lead-up to Charles and Gina’s parents getting hitched.
We’re clearly heading back into a Jake/Amy flirtation zone, which I’m okay with because the show has never really leaned too hard on that angle. It comes up at times, and Samberg and Fumero work well enough together that they seem like an interesting potential couple, but there are also long stretches of the series without any pining or sideways glances. (Even “Parks” got more angsty as April and Andy, and then Leslie and Ben, struggled to get together.) And the episode’s final joke was wonderful: you expect Amy to offer to slow dance with Jake to make up for him missing his window with Jenny Gildenhorn, but instead she puts him with Gina’s very handsy great-aunt – a reminder that, while Jake is the much more frequent prankster of the two, she can on occasion get back at him, and on the same friendly level he operates on with her.
Beyond that, lots to like here on the comedy front: the way Andy Samberg pronounced “Fung,” Holt the robot struggling to say something emotional, Peralta’s ecstasy over learning Amy once played french horn in high school jazz band, Rosa inadvertently making Boyle’s dad panic about the wedding (and Boyle’s own panic and misunderstanding of wedding traditions), and even Gina’s mom listing the best days of her life.
Good to have the show back after a few weeks off. This was fun.
What did everybody else think?