Jake and Boyle

Brooklyn Nine-Nine is a show about friendship, and one of the greatest friendships in the show is between Jake and Boyle. This week’s episode, “Stake Out,” puts that friendship to the test under some extreme circumstances.

Jake and Boyle are sent on a stakeout of a drop house for the Ukrainian mafia. It’s eight days, and originally Holt recommends sending two teams to work four days at a time. But Jake and Boyle volunteer to do the full eight, because they never fight and would be totally fine spending eight days in a small room together. What could go wrong?

It’s the classic issue of two friends who don’t fight spending so much time together that they both eventually crack. When we’re stuck with someone for so long, all the little things they do to annoy us pile up and become unbearable, and that’s exactly what happens here. It starts small when the two are eating and they both find each other’s eating habits a bit annoying. Boyle chews with his mouth open, while Jake is literally just eating butter and syrup.

But other than that, they’re doing pretty well so far. They’re joking around together and enjoying Boyle’s “stake me out tonight” theme song. But the annoying behaviors start to pile up, and they decide to write down a “no no” list of things that they do to annoy each other. That includes the weird eating, Boyle speaking in poetry, and Jake talking about the Die Hard movies.

And while the list starts small, Jake expands poetry to rhyming in general, and once adding to the list is a possibility, things spiral out of control and the list is eventually taking up the entire wall. Soon they’re at each other’s throats, but when Holt calls to check in, they refuse to admit anything is wrong, because they’re best friends! They never fight!

This is a really great episode for Jake and Boyle, though it’s actually pretty upsetting to see such a great pair fight the way they do in this episode even if we know they’ll be okay in the end. But some occasional conflict is a necessary part of any friendship. Brooklyn Nine-Nine has established a set of co-workers who are also great friends, and with episodes like “Stakeout,” it’s putting those friendships to the test. If a friendship can make it out of an ordeal like this, that’s how you know it’s really meaningful. Sometimes a huge fight is exactly what a friendship needs.

But in the moment, things seem to have taken a pretty dark turn for Jake and Boyle. Amidst their fighting, Boyle accidentally throws their basketball out the window and alerts one of the guys at the drop off site. Now the site has been abandoned, and they have to go after the guy on foot and end the stakeout early. They get him, thankfully, and in the final moments they make up while arresting the guy. Jake makes clear that they’re brothers, and they might fight sometimes, but they always have each other’s back.

Though it might initially seem odd for Brooklyn Nine-Nine to go into the holiday season with an episode about friends fighting, it kind of makes sense. Sometimes friends can grow even closer after a big fight, when you address all the things you wanted to voice about the friendship and come away with a stronger sense of the relationship. And when faced with the idea of not being friends anymore, you realize how much that isn’t what you want, and that’s exactly what happens to Jake and Boyle.

Terry, Santiago and Gina

Meanwhile, Terry is making a gift for his daughter’s birthday (not for Christmas though, and it’s kind of weird that the more Christmas themed episode aired last week instead of this week.) He’s drawing them a picture book, but Santiago and Gina notice two of the characters look exactly like them.

As Terry explains, that’s because he bases his pictures on real life because that’s easier for him to draw. There’s characters in the book for practically the entire office. But now Gina and Santiago are insecure about their portrayal in the book, and they both decide to read it while Terry isn’t looking. As it turns out, Santiago’s character is a huge pushover, and Gina’s character is rude to everyone, which does kind of line up with what we know about them just taken to the extreme.

Now, having both been made super insecure about these qualities in themselves, Santiago and Gina start actively going out of their way to go against those character traits. Santiago takes the coffee and throws it in the trash when Terry wants some, and Gina keeps pointing out how she isn’t judging anyone.

Eventually, Terry is forced to confront them on their weird behavior, telling them that the book is just a story, and that they shouldn't read so much into it because of course they’re friends. But Santiago is thankful for having been made aware that she can be a pushover sometimes, as she went out of her way to correct that potential flaw and be more aggressive. Meanwhile, Gina learned absolutely nothing because she’s perfect, and that’s pretty much true.

Holt and Rosa

Okay, this is weird. Holt’s nephew Marcus (Nick Cannon) is staying with Holt for a while, and when Marcus visits the office, Rosa actually looks up and says bye to him, which as Gina points out is basically a huge romantic gesture for Rosa.

Yes, Rosa is into Marcus, and Rosa finds this out through Holt in a very uncomfortable scene where he doesn’t want to get involved or be exchanging messages like a middle-schooler. Later, after a night with Marcus, Rosa interrupts at breakfast, and realizes this is weird and she and Marcus shouldn’t date. By the end, Holt tells Rosa he doesn’t want her to avoid dating Marcus because of him, though they should never talk about it again. And they should never talk again in general.

The weirdest thing about this storyline is the casting of Nick Cannon as Marcus. He’s signed on for a story arc, so presumably this is just to introduce him into the world of the show, but it’s still a little odd to introduce Nick Cannon only for him to do absolutely nothing in the episode and for his storyline to be by far the least important. It should be interesting to see Rosa in a relationship with someone who makes her happy, though, and this storyline will probably bring Rosa into some pretty interesting territory for the second half of the season.

Other funny moments

-The obvious highlight of this episode is the opening when Holt is accepting an award from Wuntch and stayed up all night writing the zinger, “Wuntch time is over.” Jake recommends he just say nothing and be the better man, which Holt does…until he can’t resist, and he bursts out with “WUNTCH TIME IS OVER! BOOM! DID IT! HA! HAD IT BOTH WAYS! No regrets.”
-Also, Holt says it shouldn’t be hard to turn the other cheek with Wuntch because she’s technically not a person.
-“How do we feel about scone zones?”
-Boyle observes a girl at the drop off wearing all grey which she calls Mrs. Peacock because male peacocks are the colorful ones. “How did humans get it so wrong?”
-After Rosa tells Holt Marcus will have to ask for her number herself, Holt asks himself, “But who will tell him that?”
-Terry delivers a great speech in the elevator and then presses the button so they all have to wait. “Instead of upping the elevator you could have walked off after your great speech. Now we gotta sit in it.”
-“I don’t even know what glib is.” “Is it something Garfield would say? Then it’s glib.”
-“Just BE arrested man, we’re trying to have a moment here!”