Brooklyn Nine-Nine splits the difference with a novel premise and a tired one
Corrupt cops and parenting woes dominate this week's double header
TV Reviews Brooklyn Nine-Nine
“Blue Flu”
Brooklyn Nine-Nine was bound to have a clumsy re-entry upon its return to a post-2020 television landscape. The NBC years were already occasionally hamstrung by didactic political dialogue and wink-wink references to the zeitgeist that mostly reassured viewers of the show’s progressive worldview. This isn’t a bad move, per se, or at least it doesn’t have to be. Every character basically says the “right” things (and it’s obviously better than spewing reactionary rhetoric), but more often than not, these ideas were awkwardly integrated into the action, so it barely lands as drama let alone comedy. It mostly serves to demonstrate that the Nine-Nine are “the good guys” and nothing more.
Naturally, this is a dicey impulse for a sitcom about cops during a time of heightened awareness around systemic racism, police brutality, and the defund/abolition movements in the wake of George Floyd’s murder. There was no possible way for Brooklyn Nine-Nine to please everybody, and thankfully it doesn’t really try. But after the relatively exposition- and speech-heavy premiere that tried to do too much in the way of lip service and hedging, “Blue Flu” features a premise that integrates Brooklyn Nine-Nine’s political consciousness into a novel episodic premise that’s funny and compelling. It’s a good example of a show adjusting to The Times without getting bogged down in defensive anxiety.
After a uniformed officer plants a dead mouse in a burrito as a publicity stunt to shore up sympathy for law enforcement, the Nine-Nine struggles to maintain readiness when every officer in the precinct stages a mass walkout under false medical pretenses. Captain Holt splits the team into three groups (under a belabored “trident” analogy that Jake immediately tries to undermine by commenting that Aquaman wields a five-pronged trident): Jake and Boyle set out to prove that the officers’ doctors’ notes are fraudulent; Amy and Terry are assigned to keep crime down with no police on the street; and Rosa, being an outside investigator, is tasked to find evidence that the mouse was planted. Meanwhile, Holt must keep Frank O’Sullivan (John McGinley), the nasty patrolmen’s union president, at bay before he’s forced to cave to his humiliating demands.
Simply put, “Blue Flu” provides the entire ensemble with their own story that plays to their comedic strengths. Terry’s stomach-bug fiasco allows Terry Crews to flex his tough-guy act while also playing feeble. Boyle’s cancer scare gives Joe Lo Truglio the chance to wallow in terror and misery. Andy Samberg and Melissa Fumero successfully play straight against their characters’ chaotic situations—Boyle’s mortality and a sea of Hitchcock and Sully’s sent by other captains as a false token of good will, respectively—and Andre Braugher plays the hits. (Rosa barely factors into the episode, but Stephanie Beatriz plays up her restrained glee at potentially discovering the nature of Holt’s secret tattoo very well.) After eight years, a show like Brooklyn Nine-Nine knows its strong points fairly well, and watching the cast hit their marks within their wheelhouse has its own pleasures.
However, it’s elevated by a premise that does a little more than pay lip service to “bad cops are bad,” etc. Holt and co. are beset by institutional inertia buttressed by ideological rigidity. In his drunken, cheese-riddled state, Holt devises a fresh strategy: he shows O’Sullivan weekly stats that illustrate fewer police didn’t raise rates of major or violent crime, which means the Nine-Nine could serve as a case study for how a police force can work more effectively with fewer police. This scares O’Sullivan into calling off the blue flu and getting every uniformed cop back to work, but the subtext is damning: the threat of even the slightest positive change that hinges on police absence will force the return of an unproductive, dangerous status quo. That Brooklyn Nine-Nine would rather button “Blue Flu” with a tattoo gag than underline that idea is a point in its favor.
Grade: B+
“Balancing”
Unfortunately, the second episode this week features a tired premise around work/life balance and “having it all” that’s been done better many times before. Jake and Amy struggle to parent their son, Mac, while maintaining the pressures of their respective careers. For Jake, it’s an opportunity to catch a serial killer that has evaded capture for his entire career, while Amy is set to give a presentation to One Police Plaza for a reform proposal that’s suddenly become highly competitive. When Mac’s daycare shuts down for a couple days due to a lice outbreak, it stretches the new parents to the brink as they try to care for their son and their career.
It’s pretty easy to see where this is going. Jake and Amy learn that career sacrifices have to be made in order to be attentive parents and that doesn’t have to be a major tragedy. Though Jake doesn’t get to make the arrest, Jake helps Boyle uncover the killer’s identity and instead gets to watch his son pull himself for the first time. Meanwhile, Amy misses the milestone but successfully convinces her bosses to fund her reform proposal. This stock premise would be fine if the jokes were stronger, but aside from a quick scene of Jake and Amy realizing that their lice home remedy (maple syrup in the hair) has led to a swarm of ants in the bed and a montage of terrible babysitter applicants that includes a cheerfully abusive male Mary Poppins, it’s a bit of a dud.
The B-plot fares slightly better. Holt, still separated from his husband, moves into Rosa’s apartment, but he drives her crazy by constantly talking about Kevin. When Rosa suggests getting very drunk to take his mind off his marital problems, Holt sends a dick pic to Kevin’s email address in the wee hours of the morning, sending them both on a mission to break into his house and delete it. Again, another stock premise, but it’s improved by Braugher and Beatriz, who have proven time and time again to be an excellent duo, playing off each other’s restrained, yet easily flappable energy pretty well. Sometimes performances raise material and sometimes material confines performances.
Grade: B-
Stray observations
- Hello! My name is Vikram and I’ll be taking over the Brooklyn Nine-Nine beat for its final few weeks. We’re all very happy to see LaToya move on to bigger and better things, and though my brief stint can’t replace her seven years of consistent coverage, I hope to be an adequate replacement.
- After eight years, Joe Lo Truglio really goes above and beyond to sell bog-standard jokes. In “Balancing,” his scene in the interrogation room parroting Jake’s lines about his son’s spoiled diaper to an utterly confused perp was really elevated by his committed befuddled performance.
- Of course, Jake is a fan of The Snyder Cut.
- “I track down Diane Wiest and you finally try and use your hall pass? You’re smiling, so I guess that one’s it. Oof. Going with Wiest, huh? I’ve gotta be honest, Boyle, I’m not so sure you can pull that off. I mean, her career is red hot. She just did a movie with Streep!” I’ll put money on that being the weirdest, slyest, and only reference to Steven Soderbergh’s Let Them All Talk on national television.
- “It’s the exact same color as my color blind awareness ribbon.” “No, it isn’t.”
- “No! Lice! Scratching it makes it worse!” “Is that true?” “I don’t know. We don’t have time to know what’s true!”
- “I spent twelve thou on ass cheese.”
76 Comments
The phrase is “pull himself up” not “pull himself”. The meaning is a bit different.I thought Boyle’s scene where he talks about his fear of dying and all that he would miss was deeply affecting. The performance was top notch.
I was gonna say, did Amy miss her son’s first time jerking it? Might not be the end of the world. 🤣
Is it weird he never brought up Genevieve (or did I miss it)?
It’s in-character for Boyle to not mention Genevieve in that. It’s not a good thing about him at all, but Boyle’s always had slightly weird internal priorities that he never recognizes as odd.
A big problem in hindsight is that they’ve sorta misplaced crucial parts of Boyle’s arc progression. They’ve paired him up with Genevieve and gave him a son, but then they moved straight up into arcs like Charles getting into food trucks or his vicariously living off of Amy and Jake’s relationship – those would have made A LOT more sense if he wasn’t in a relationship with a kid, and in turn it would make a lot more sense if he was winding down into something for himself in the final season. It kinda hurt the character for me because it made him real scattershot and while previously he was pathetic in a way that was sympathetic, now it makes him pathetic in a creepy way that they don’t want to address at all.It almost feels like they wanted to work with Mary Lynn Rajskub but had a specific window to make it. Or, more likely, they had to make a budget cut on actors and she’s out of the picture because of it – we already know that’s basically the reason Chelsea Peretti left the show.
That’s a great point about Charles’s development. One of my biggest concerns with the character in recent seasons is how hard they’ve been leaning into his obsession with Jake – to the point that it’s legitimately creepy and unhealthy – and yet they don’t seem able to take the time and explore any of the why.
It’s SO WEIRD how the show has basically forgotten about Genevieve existing. Boyle even says in this episode that he would have to tell his son that he would be an orphan again if he died which makes no sense if Genevieve is still Nikolaj’s mom.
I honestly was wondering if Boyle and Genevieve had split and I had forgotten about it until Jake mentioned the word “hall pass”.
I understand the actress not being available or them not being able to afford it but would it kill the writers to throw a few references to her at least? And are they married or engaged or what? I genuinely don’t’ remember and it’s strange considering how much screen time Boyle’s romantic relationships took in the early seasons.
It’s nice when parents get to see their child tug one off for the first time.
Amy should be proud; Mac is way ahead of the curve on that one.
“We don’t have time to know what’s true!” is going to be the new GIF sensation, I know it.
Right up there with Jake’s “That’s a fucked up thing to say”
I thought that was the GOP motto.
You can’t see it, but rest assured I’m giving you a golf clap with an approving nod.
I loved Balancing. From the pilot, we were told that Jake needed to grow up. Tonight we saw him sacrifice one of the biggest moments of his career because Amy and Mac both came before that. I love that B99 let its characters grow.
Plus, the slo mo walk with shower caps full of maple syrup was an instant grade-A B99 Slo Mo Walk.
Yeah, even the review from last week (I think) noted that Amy was acting like a new parent but Jake wasn’t. Having them work together and Jake taking the professional “hit” to take care of their kid instead of her seems like a direct rebuttal.
Vikram! Loved your You’re the Worst reviews. It’d be hard to find anyone better to cover the rest of the B99 reviews than you here.
Amys presentation was based on the knowledge they gained in the Blue Flu episode about the (lower) numbers of police on the street and how it affected crime and ongoing trials. the two episodes were very connected.
This episode pair is a great example of just how tough this season of B99 has it in terms of covering everything it wants to. And how it mostly manages to get there, in fact.It has to juggle the clearly intended season-wide arc of grappling with the huge institutional problems with policing, which it spends most of the Blue Flu focused on. And then the personal arcs, which is what the bulk of Balancing is. And very rarely do those two really interact in a way that progresses both arcs, even if in some cases the personal plots are spurred on by the bigger one.And you know what? It’s working. Not in a way that’s necessarily completely fulfilling for either—they’re still stories that can often be at odds with each other, so you can’t really further both at the exact same time. But there’s clearly a will to not let either fall by the wayside, which is a reassuring thing to see; the show doesn’t want to lose itself in its messaging on the police, but it also wants to make sure it says those things and that it doesn’t fall by the wayside.Also, extremely happy to see John C. McGinley’s character is going to be recurring. Both because he’s a really integral part to the overarching question of corrupt policing, and because it’s just delightful to see him on TV on a regular basis again. I loved Scrubs so much, and he’s a huge part of that.
Last year, people were saying they should just change them from cops to postal workers or some other benign occupation with no explanation and just continue business as usual. It could have worked, but it also would have been a cop out 😉 . I’ll be interested to see where they take this season, and how many people join Team Rosa/ACAB . It was weird watching New Girl and Winston becoming a cop (with a cat named Ferguson) and trying to deal with cops and racism. I don’t know if they were successful in justifying it there either.
eh, we don’t need another archer thing that really tanked that whole series. Seems like they have a good final season to go out on, Id like to see these actors in other rolls once this is over.
My guess is that they’re leading towards the entire core cast quitting the force, for separate but interconnected reasons. They’ve even almost all got reasons at this point—Rosa and Hitchcock are obviously already out. Scully’s on his way for personal retirement reasons, Jake’s clearly getting conflicting feelings about his role, I feel like Holt and Amy are being set up for a fall that will disillusion them even further. Boyle’s grappling with his mortality might be leading to something, and even if it doesn’t, he’s always been the one most influenced by others.Basically the only one who isn’t somehow looking at the door (or already leaving through it) is Terry, and given how supportive the actor is about the direction, I don’t expect him to be left without a reason for long.
My guess is that they’re leading towards the entire core cast quitting the force, for separate but interconnected reasons. I find that highly unlikely. To me, it’s more probable that they land where it’s not enough that not actively being part of the problem isn’t good enough to be “one of the good ones,” but that it takes constant, focused effort to correct the problems with the police and policing, even in the face of the institutional roadblocks in place for any sort of effective change. Like that Captain last week explaining exactly why doing anything at all to stop bad cops from doing bad shit is utterly impossible. She wasn’t wrong, but that’s not an excuse for allowing these things to continue, and action still needs to be taken no matter how difficult or seemingly futile.
After all, Amy’s presentation was about changing the way the 99 operates based on the information Holt had in the last episode (where fewer cops meant fewer arrests and worse “numbers”, but drastically decreased bad arrests and didn’t make serious or violent crime any worse).
So my guess would be the series ends on either 1) they manage to make a small, but significant, change in the way the NYPD operates, or, 2) they try to make a significant change and fail, but vow to keep trying until they succeed.
An unlikely third possibility is they pull a Parks & Rec and do a time-jump into the future where Holt & Company have fixed the NYPD to be the model police force.
I suppose the question there comes down to… well, how optimistic do they want to be about the environment of modern policing? You certainly could tell a story about how Positive Change From Within Is Possible, but the question is if that’s the story they want to tell in 2021 America (and perhaps even more importantly 2020, when the episodes were written). And honestly… I don’t think it is. I think they know that’s not going to sound right. Especially with how smartly they’ve written the ‘corrupt cops’-focused episodes so far.
well, how optimistic do they want to be about the environment of modern policing? Well, it’s always been an optimistic show. Hell, the whole “policing is irrevocably broken so the whole cast just quits” angle sounds bleak as fuck, to me. It seems much more fitting for B99 to end on a note that change is hard and takes time, but it’s possible with dedication and work.
My guess is that they’re leading towards the entire core cast quitting the force, for separate but interconnected reasons.I have to admit, if they did do that, that would just seem a bit trite and unrealistic to me. I can see a few of the others quitting as well as Rosa, but not only would that just seem like the writers desperately trying to make sure that everyone knew that the characters really were the morally pure and virtuous “only good ones”, but it’d also unrealistic. These people are still cops, and they still joined / worked within a police force which had the shadows of Abner Louima and Amadou Diallo lingering over it well before anyone had even heard of George Floyd. It strikes me as unlikely that literally all of them will suddenly reach the same point of “fuck it, the system’s completely irredeemable, ACAB” and peace out of there; that would just seem like the writers pandering a bit, to be honest.
Thinking about it, one thing I could see happening (although it would probably be more of a button on the end rather than a subplot to conclude) is the pledge to aim to improve the police department, but from outside the police’s system. So far in the ‘central plot-focused’ episodes they’ve discovered that the rot is organizational, and hasn’t just been coming from the commissioner’s office, but also the union. So if the entire system is rotten and resistant to changing itself, what if they instead angle for a position that can change the police department for it?Holt has something resembling political acumen and history, even if it’s mostly internal, but we know he has the will to run for office. We know he has a vision informed from decades of police work and living through its discrimination, and Amy has the book smarts to write up a full policy platform based on it. We know from Rosa’s subplot that police corruption is as known and loathed on the street in-universe as it is in real life, and she could likely help construct an angle that appeals to the urban population. Add in Terry being able to advise from more of a family perspective, maybe even bring in Gina for some more of that PR pizzazz… there’s a lot of pieces there to lead to a ‘Holt runs for mayor on a police reform platform’ angle.Now, I’m saying this as an ‘end of season button’ idea, because I think the writers know that winning that angle seems insanely optimistic in 2021. But if ‘everyone quits’ feels too pandering (which it might), ‘everyone fails, well shit’ feels too depressing for a comedy, and ‘change the system from within’ would ring hollow both in real life and in-universe (because the system’s been fundamentally broken for eight seasons), ending on a seed of hope like that would work. And if they’re thinking about what message they want to end everything on… well, there’s much worse ones to cap with than ‘make change with local politics’, especially these days.
“God – my brilliance is now becoming a bit of a burden.
…Get back to me.”(Seriously, I have an unhealthy love of Dr. Cox.)
Especially in an antagonist role. Very few actors have a better “I’m up to something” Cheshire grin when talking than JCM
The first episode is based on an incident from last year where a couple of NYPD officers faked being poisoned by Shake Shack, potentially putting the store and its employees in danger, in an effort to perpetuate a narrative that cops were under attack and were, you know, the real victims in society.It’s actually a really sick mentality, and incredibly, INCREDIBLY dangerous. https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2020/06/nypd-shake-shack-debunking
A year before that, a sheriff’s deputy claimed an McDonald’s employee had taken a bite out of his McChicken sandwich, when it really was himself:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/07/29/cop-accused-mcdonalds-employees-taking-bite-out-his-sandwich-turns-out-he-forgot-he-ate-it/
You know they’re running out of material when they recycle a Family Guy joke
It’s been a long running Andy Samburg thing, he used it in Hot Rod as well.
And “pronunciation of the h” jokes have been around since the dawn of time. One of my favorites coming from Eddie Izzard: “[Americans] say ‘erb’ and we say ‘herb’ because there’s a fucking H in it!”
This episode was better than last week’s unbearably preachy entry, but making a show that is constantly caving to the current anti-cop mindset really deprives the show of much of its fun and joy. “Every character basically says the “right” things (and it’s obviously better than spewing reactionary rhetoric)” I disagree. If we’re going to go this route, might as well try to be realistic. But noooo, have to make sure everyone knows how good and perfect we are.
Anti-cop sentiment has been around since the formation of formalized policing in the United States. For good reason, too. “Protect and Serve” has always been a lie, we’re just seeing more examples these days because of the abundance of recording devices.
It’s a somewhat deliberate choice to have the episode resolve with a suggestion that lowered policing lowers crime rates, given the current controversy of skyrocketing violent crime rates thought to be linked to reduced policing.
I thought it wasn’t that it lowered crime, just that it didn’t cause crime to go up (though even that is dubious from a criminological perspective).
It was *violent* crime that didn’t go up.
There’s no controversy because there’s been no reduced policing. Defund the police was a Twitter hashtag, not an actual strategy that had been implemented yet. An increase of criminal statistics was used by dishonest people to make an argument against mythical changes. Because in this country, being right online is more important than the truth or improving anything.
Isn’t the “skyrocketing” violent crime rates only relative to last summer, when everybody was quarantined in their house and the economy was shut down?
I think including, as opposed to drops in the rest of the world.https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/07/crime-progressives/619569/
Seemed more focused on the reduction of bad policing that gets taken for granted in the police stats because the other stats get more attention.
I loved everything to do with Jake’s nemesis, serial killer Johnny Franzia, who taunts him with ridiculous playing card and puzzle related clues Also I also like it when Boyle gets to be competent & actually handle the investigation & arrest himself with Jake does dad stuff
I loved how while Jake was jealous he wasn’t “I must sabotage Boyle!” or “Let me reduce him to a Mac sitter!” which would’ve been first half Season One Jake shit. Growth!
I love Rosa and her teamups so far this season with Jake and Holt have been good & she has good chemistry with both. But I do hope the last season of the show has room for a last Rosa & Amy “sleuth sisters” teamup. They make Cagney & Lacy look so lame by comparison (the TV cops AND Terry’s daughters)
I liked the Rosa-Holt stuff here tonight because they have a lot in common in terms of how they express their emotions, and having Holt constantly undermine those expectations (he won’t stop talking about Kevin!) was such a great way of annoying her.That being said, there’s no way we’re not getting more Rosa-Amy before the series ends.
The Holt-Rosa plot in the episode where she breaks up with Marcus is one of my favorites.
Isn’t that the one where Kevin (off-screen) calls the both of them sociopaths for the way they try to handle it?
It is!
How about when we think an episode is bad, we give it a low mark, rather than a fucking B?
couldn’t disagree more with the reviews, haha. I thought the first episode was very clunky, badly paced stuff with about two more C-plots than was needed (poor Rosa had like two lines?) and the attempts at real-world accountability still feel hamfistedly forced into the breakneck pacing of this show. almost a total wash for me, frankly, except for Braugher’s delivery of “again the speech did nothing for me I’m just picking out isolated words”the second episode had everything I tune into this show for – it was funny, creative with taking a familiar premise and putting a spin on it, and when it mattered oddly moving in the way this show is at its best. we all saw it coming, but if Samberg’s expression when Mac pulled himself up didn’t get you, your heart is stone
I loved the return of Amy’s dorky happy dance
Still think she could use more elbows
The hallway only gave soooo much space
Two DC movies references in a row. Someone at the writer room loves DC movies, probably.
As a person who has had testicular cancer, I wasn’t a fan of the “Boyle might have testicular cancer” sub-plot, since it got basically everything about how a testicular cancer diagnosis goes wrong.
They don’t do partial biopsies of testicles. If there’s a suspected cancerous mass on one, the whole thing comes out. But before that they do an ultrasound and blood tests. An infection wouldn’t show up as a complex mass in the ultrasound, so almost immediately the likelihood of it being cancer would drop to ‘we’re gonna wait on the bloodwork, but this is probably nothing to worry about.’ If the bloodwork came back normal, it’s not cancer.
I feel the same way about the “Boyle adoption story” sub-plot. It’s an incredibly unrealistic portrayal of international adoption, and it didn’t have to be.DKesserich, wishing you health!
My sympathies on your struggle. I’m a thyroid cancer survivor, and I know all the tests and procedures are no fun. Thanks for filling us in on the facts.
Can a premise be novel if it was taken from a real-life story? Did Law and Order have “novel” premises? More of a philosophical question than anything.
Three words: Digital Phallus Portrait
Fucking wicked Skid Row cut.
Bird Flu?!
Still feels like they’re going out of their way to contrive reasons for Rosa to appear.
Another stray thought: if Boyle was wearing a wire during his physical exam, where was it? He was naked under his exam gown. If he had a device in his pockets or something, and he left them behind, wouldn’t that have given up the investigation when they cleaned the room?
One possibility is that it was inserted into his phone case or something. Or his wallet, or an innocent-looking object on his key ring. There are plenty of things that it’s not weird to have sitting right next to you during an appointment in a doctor’s office.
I’m hoping it doesn’t now devolve into a show about the baby. Mad About You lost its flair when Mabel came along and it became a series about tired parents trying to please an infant.
It’s still an ensemble show, it’ll be fine. And I like that they are touching on being a police officer and a parent is incredibly time demanding. One of my recurring nitpicks of Parks and Rec was nurse Ann rarely nursing and hanging out way too much at the P&R building for someone with such a gig, having been raised by a nurse.
Well, that’s a fundamental problem with shows where a couple on the show has kids. The show either becomes about the kid (because that’s what happens when you become a parent) and the vibe of the show completely changes, or the parent characters become just the most neglectful parents ever and never see or interact with their own child.
I’m not loving the strong political and social overtones that this season has taken, especially given that this is the last season of a beloved sitcom. Yes, B99 has tackled serious issues such as sexism, homophobia and racism in the past, but this feels too heavy handed. I feel a situational comedy about detectives in a police precinct isn’t the right vehicle for social commentary as pointed as this. The first episode of the season should have been it, I would like to see the 99 back to solving cases and being put in weird situations.
I’m bummed that assuredly “Digital Phallus Portrait” has been snapped up as a band name
Man NBC must be scared of pissing off the PBA and burning through this season with little fanfare. Cowards.
I think it’s just more this show was not a ratings darling and so the compromise is they get a last season to wrap it up because it’s so well respected, but gets a lower episode count and doubled-up summer burnoff before their full fall schedule. Same thing happened to Parks and Rec, where its final season was a two-a-night burnoff during the winter hiatus for the networks.
Why would NBC be scared of pro bowlers? They don’t get the ratings they used to. This isn’t the ‘70s anymore.
After a uniformed officer plants a dead mouse in a burrito as a publicity stunt to shore up sympathy for law enforcement
Sadly, this nonsense is all too ripped from the headlines:https://www.pe.com/2019/12/14/sheriff-protests-after-starbucks-employees-ignore-deputies-at-riverside-store/
Imagine: Someone had to wait a long time at Starbucks. The horror.
Just catching up to this episode after a few months. That monologue from Joe Lo Truglio was fucking legit. And the shot choice—a long unbroken take, with an uncharacteristically still and steady camera, pushing in slowly on Boyle’s face as he pours out his surprisingly relatable despair and deepest fears—just makes it hit so hard. It’s as cinematic as anything I’ve ever seen this show do.