A quick review of tonight’s Brooklyn Nine-Nine coming up just as soon as I use a ruler to measure another ruler…
I don’t always love Brooklyn episodes where the squadroom fills up past capacity, as the show tends to get too frantic for its own good in those stories. “The 9-8” worked, though, because it dealt with the invasion from the other precinct on two levels. Most of the chaos was confined to the B-plot with Holt and the other detectives, and was treated as a series of specific beefs: Santiago vs. the detective with the phony service dog, Holt being chased out of his own office, Diaz hating her chatty new deskmate, etc. And the A-story was a relatively simple one about Boyle feeling jealous of Jake’s ex-partner Stevie, who, as played by Damon Wayans Jr., embodied all the coolness that Charles wishes he has with Jake. (Also smart: Jake is aware this is a problem almost from the start, and does his best to alleviate the situation, rather than being oblivious because he likes both guys too much to see it.)
My only concern is that Jake’s arrest of Stevie was treated a bit too casually, even within the context of a silly police sitcom. When it wants to, Brooklyn can hit the tonal sweet spot where you can believe, despite all the absurdity, that the characters could function in something not wildly removed from the real NYPD. But every cop show and movie ever – especially all the ones a young Jake Peralta would have grown up memorizing – teach that one cop arresting another is a huge deal that can dramatically alter, if not ruin, the trajectory of the arresting officer’s career, even if he’s completely in the right. Maybe that’s something the show will deal with in upcoming weeks, but the story’s resolution wasn’t really suggesting anything would matter beyond this episode.
What did everybody else think?