Welcome back to my weekly review and recap of “Brooklyn Nine-Nine.” To catch up on previous coverage, click here.
We have just three episodes left of season three of Brooklyn Nine-Nine and it’s set up a storyline that could potentially carry over until the finale. Brooklyn Nine-Nine hasn’t always been known for being strictly serial (such is the case amongst many half-hour sitcoms) but they’ve had longer lasting threads in the past. There being a very real mole in the FBI isn’t just Jake’s dream come true when he and his team is gathered and tasked with the investigation at the end of the half hour but it’s also a wonderful narrative for the show to take it’s characters on. This is particularly true due to the personal repercussions it delivers.
Rosa and Pimento have been on a fast track relationship since they began their awkward flirtation and even if his proposal and breakneck approaching nuptials seems quick to the audience and their coworkers it also totally fits what we know of Pimento (which is still little) and especially Rosa. She’s the type who acts on impulses and what she wants no matter what others think of her and it’s the only thing which makes their upcoming marriage not feel like ridiculous storytelling.
Considering the ridiculous shenanigans the cast gets up to in the rest of the episode it’s a good thing the foundation is based in some form of reality.
Amy, Charles, Gina and Rosa arguably get the funniest storyline this week and the former three all try to throw Rosa the best bachelorette party possible. Since this is the only tradition that Rosa is interested in it means that the pressure is doubled than what it already would have been and in order to survive one another the three turn it into a competition, all basing it off of the limited knowledge they have of Rosa.
Gina’s boils down to everyone’s mild disdain of teenage boy and she brings them all out for paintball against her nephew. This sequence introduces the theme of the night which is how many ways can we hide Melissa Fumero’s pregnancy and it’s her activity that finds the most creative usage of props. Amy throws a trivia night which at first bores Rosa before she’s informed that it’s all questions about the bride to be and when you get one wrong you need to take a shot.
So, based on how little they know of Rosa, they all get loaded in no time.
This makes Charles’s event all the more hectic to watch play out as he brings them all to an abandoned bar that’s about to be torn down so that Rosa can have time to herself helping demolish a building.
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Boyle, of course, wins this one.
Meanwhile Jake is trying to hold a classy bachelor party for Pimento but it all spirals out of control the moment the latter hijacks the party bus to seemingly escape someone on his tail trying to kill him. Terry can’t take him seriously and worries that he’s a legitimate threat against Rosa so takes the backseat as Jake tries to help them bond. This grows increasingly difficult as Pimento grows more and more erratic as time passes. Much to Terry’s surprise though, Pimento was telling the truth and they manage to apprehend a hired killer who had been following them.
They plan to use a fake picture of Pimento being dead to track whoever put out the hint which then includes also delivering a tongue to further prove that he was killed and it’s fun seeing the detectives all work together after hours even if it leads them to shocking realization that whoever hired the hit is working inside the FBI, something that Pimento had been alluding to when he first rejoined the Nine-Nine team.
His decision to go on the run isn’t all too surprising considering Jason Mantzoukas was still a guest star on the series but the repercussions and Jake’s conversation with Rosa is no less touching, a sobering moment after a very silly episode. Sure, they manage to tag a joke at the end of it with Jake saying he didn’t know where to look when she and Pimento were kissing but Stephanie Beatriz really manages to sell the pain that the character is going through.
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I’m looking forward for his return but I’m even more excited to see if this storyline does in fact take multiple episodes to resolve itself. It looked the task team was all of our regular crop of characters so wouldn’t it also be a fun change of pace if they couldn’t automatically break the cast into three separate storylines? As exemplified tonight when the groups were paired down to only two, the cast works wonderfully off one another and manages to sell the group dynamic even when there are more characters to bounce off of and multiple personalities that could steal the spotlight.
While I’ve loved most of season three this could be a well needed shake up for the characters and show itself.
8/10
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