Brooklyn Nine-Nine Review: The 9-8 Invades
This was a particularly strong episode of Nine-Nine, helped out by the members of the 9-8 precinct joining our characters on their home turf, leading to some hilarious teambuilding moments as they faced off against their annoying counterparts.
“Us vs. them” situations always work well for this show, because it forces these people with very different personalities to work even closer together than usual, typically to amusing effect. It’s also no secret that I tend to like my episodes of Nine-Nine a little smaller in scope, so having all of the storylines at least somewhat connected worked very well for me here. At the precinct, Rosa, Holt, Amy, and Terry were each paired up with the 9-8 officer who would annoy them the most, and between Terry declaring full fat yogurt his “special treat”, Rosa mocking her recipe-seeking neighbor (“who has the time?”), and Gina characteristically avoiding it all by making her desk-mate sit on the floor, the entire team had me cracking up with their antics in this one.
It’s also fun when Captain Holt gets into the fray a little bit like he did here, though he wouldn’t be Holt if he didn’t at least try to make it work first. He and Gina had a lot of fun moments as he tried to convince her that the desk-stealing 9-8 captain wasn’t bothering him, even hilariously asking her about gossip and any boys in her life. I also love it when Gina gets to show off how sharp she is, so her calling the captain out on breaking the radiator was one of my favorite moments.
While his co-workers were banding together in their defense of the precinct, Jake found himself in the middle, as his 9-8 associate was his former partner Stevie, played by the always funny Daman Wayans Jr. Wayans and Andy Samberg had great comedic chemistry; I completely bought them as past bros. Stevie brought out Jake’s extra goofy, immature side, in contrast to his current partner Charles, who brings that out to an extent, but also knows when things need to be taken seriously, especially their police work. So, while Charles admitted that of course he was jealous (and I was dying over how matter of fact he was about it), Jake knew that he would never lie about Stevie planting the drugs, regardless of his feelings towards the guy, turning that story into yet another example of why Charles and Jake have one of my favorite friendships on TV.
