The Lockdown

Jake left in charge of the office is a storyline I'm surprised it took this long for Brooklyn Nine-Nine to do. It's an idea kind of reminiscent of Dwight being left in charge of the office, except that Jake is actually seemingly competent at his job despite being a pretty ridiculous person. So what could go wrong, right?

Initially, Jake's attitude towards the whole situation is to give everyone exactly what they want, and Amy points out that he can't just grant wishes to the employees and do everyone that's asked of him. He gathers everyone together expressing his desire to give everyone what they want, which horrifically leads to Charles saying “succulent” a whole lot.

But just like Holt suspected, things start to go wrong when an unknown powder is found which Gina is immediately convinced is Anthrax. Jake again tries to please everyone by not really taking control of the situation and being firm in what needs to happen, trying to pretend everything is okay and treat the situation like a fun summer camp. Jake tries to organize a movie night or talent show, leading to Boyle doing the single ladies dance and some random guy doing stand up with the megaphone. Amy points out to Jake that he's given the megaphone to the mob, and Amy is constantly telling Jake how badly he's screwing up throughout this episode.

But there's no heat and they're running out of food, so people start to get restless. Jake tries to go get heat, but comes back when he realizes heat is more of an idea than an actual thing he can go get. He tries to reason with the crowd, but again he isn't being firm, leading to one of the lawyers to let slip that the powder could be dangerous. Everyone freaks out and, as Holt predicted, there's an actual fire. Jake has literally almost let the precinct burn down trying to make everyone happy.

After a talk with Amy during which he considers giving the position over to her, Amy points out by doing this he'd still be doing what other people want. He needs to stop trying to make everyone happy and be firm in what people need to do. He assigns everyone a job, threatens to detain people who are getting out of line, and tells everyone this isn't a summer camp (though not without suggesting they should maybe play capture the flag.)

This is a pretty great episode in terms of seeing Jake in a leadership position, again showing that he can be pretty good as his job when he needs to be. If he fails, it's only out of a desire to please everyone and not just out of complete incompetence, and when he realizes he needs to step up he's really able to manage and take control. And sure there was a small fire, but hey, Jake really was able to be a leader, even if it's mostly because Amy is pointing out constantly how terrible he's doing.

Terry and Holt

Meanwhile, Terry and Holt are away, which is the whole reason Jake is left in charge of the office anyway. Terry's brother-in-law Zeke is in town, who is so ridiculously large that he makes even Terry feel small.

Holt needs to work there, leading to the amazing image of Captain Holt using Terry's exercise ball. Terry is fine with this, but Zeke interprets as Holt being a huge jerk. Now they finally have something to bond over: the fact that they both have a jerk boss, even though in actuality Terry and Holt get along very well.

Throughout the episode Terry tries to keep up the lie, and in a great moment he tells Zeke Holt wants him to make four sandwiches for him, and we cut to Terry eating all four sandwiches by himself.

It's hilarious seeing Terry for once feeling outmatched and small, and at the end of the episode, Holt agrees to go along with it and pretend to be a jerk in front of Terry's family. It's a big lie, but hey, it brings Terry and his family closer together, and there's something oddly sweet about Holt being willing to go along with this silliness.

Overall, “Lockdown” is a pretty good episode which shows Jake actually being able to take charge when he wants to, and further emphasizes the strong Holt/Terry dynamic. For once this season most of the characters are confined to the main storyline rather than having separate ones, and it's great to see the show having everyone play off each other like this. It's when the writers put these characters together and let them bounce jokes off one another that this show really shines as one of the funniest on TV.

Other funny moments
-In our cold open, Jake sends Holt an email expressing his condolences for Holt losing an uncle, only to forget to turn of his "from my stinky butt" signature.
-Jake doesn't like Thanksgiving "because the pilgrims were murderers and turkey tastes like napkins."
-In a great cutaway gag, the last time Jake was left in charge of something was a blood drive where he forgot to put up the posters and so he donated five pints himself.
-Hitchcock is trapped out in the balcony for literally the entire episode and manages to get hit in the face with a can of soda. Jake tells Holt he's trapped in there only for Holt to respond, “Good, sounds like we dodged a bullet there.”
-Jake thinks "I'm the captain now" sounds like a movie reference, and later on he and Amy have the same realization that it's from Captain Phillips.
-“I made number two...I hear it. Why would I ever say that?”