A quick review of tonight’s “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” coming up just as soon as we get a frozen yogurt machine operated by Pam Grier…
As I said last week, there are areas in which the show has had success at telling more emotional Peralta stories, and areas where it hasn’t. Fortunately, the slow-burning flirtation between Peralta and Santiago has consistently been an area where taking Jake seriously has worked, and we got another strong example of that in the well-balanced “Det. Dave Majors.”
What started off as another instance of Jake going overboard to impress a cooler guy – in this case, Garret Dillahunt smartly underplaying the episode’s badass title character – instead pivoted into a solid Jake and Amy story. I remain impressed by the way this thing has been paced, so that it feels patient and not overdone, but never like the show is just dragging it out for the sake of the ‘shippers(*). We see it when there’s a specific story about it – this one littered with telling cues like Amy’s double-tuck – and not when there isn’t. This late in the season, the show could be building to something more with them, or this could be the last tease until season 3. Either one works for me – especially if the next time the story comes up, we again get Diaz’s terrifying impression of Santiago giggling.
(*) Do these two have a‘shipper portmanteau among the fans? Jamy? Peraltiago? Santialta? Ake?
The Terry subplot, meanwhile, worked as both comedy and mystery, since I knew Holt was running some kind of con to get Terry to stay a cop, even if it wasn’t clear at first what that was. Terry taking pleasure in being wooed (“Terry loves walls”) was a good note for Terry Crews to play, and made good use of everyone in the cast not involved in the Jake/Amy/Dave triangle story.
Nice and satisfying all around, and I really want to go to that speakeasy. And I hope Dillahunt comes back so we can see Dave Majors react with bemusement to other sorts of basic disappointments.
What did everybody else think?