Brooklyn Nine-Nine: The Funeral
October 4, 2015 6:07 PM - Season 3, Episode 2 - Subscribe

(Official Fox synopsis) The Nine-Nine gets another personnel change that could put Jake and Amy’s budding relationship at risk. Meanwhile, Terry assists Holt with an important public relations matter, and Rosa and Gina try to convince Charles to rethink his affection for a fellow officer (guest star Archie Panjabi).

BONUS B99 STUFF!

Interview with Stephanie Beatriz:
Huffington Post: Stephanie Beatriz Talks 'Brooklyn Nine-Nine' Season 3 And Why Elaine From 'Seinfeld' Ruled

As mentioned in the HuffPo interview, Beatriz is a member of the LA City Municipal Dance Squad -- here they are performing during halftime at an LA Sparks game this summer. It looks like it's only a matter of time before the inevitable Gina/Rosa dance battle episode...
posted by Strange Interlude (12 comments total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
That was terrible. There have been very few, if any episodes of this series that I'd not watch a second time. But you can light this one on fire as far as I'm concerned. I like Michael Schur enough to trust that it's a blip. But so far Jake and Amy are not my favourite.

Also, what the hell was going on with Rosa? Her facial expressions during her scenes with Charles were bizarre as all get out.

The one bright spot was Captain Holt being all Captain Holt-y.
posted by dry white toast at 8:50 PM on October 4, 2015


Charles just seems way out of character to me so far this season. Everyone kind of does - except Holt - and I hope that it sorts itself out soon.
posted by nubs at 8:57 PM on October 4, 2015


I'm not at all clear on what they were doing with Boyle either. It's not so much that his behavior was out of character -- we can count on Boyle to have weird ideas about sex and relationships -- but that it was out of the ordinary enough for him that it should have been a signal that something was wrong there. But instead of an emotional payoff where we find out that Boyle is using the relationship to compensate for undisclosed emotional moop, suddenly it becomes all about how grossed out he is by veganism. I get that Boyle has been established as a man of rarified/idiosyncratic/unfathomable tastes with regards to food, but I don't remember him having a Swansonesque bug up his ass about vegans.

I might give it another watch later on to see if maybe I'm just in a mood, but nothing else in this episode really landed for me either. The Holt/Terry speech subplot seemed walled-off from the rest of the action, and the apparent A-plot with the Vulture felt weirdly inconclusive as well. Did anyone catch who the writer on this one was?
posted by Strange Interlude at 9:32 PM on October 4, 2015


Normally 99 is pretty grounded with the characters generally being smart/making believable mistakes. Everyone was wacky and dumb here, which makes the characters exist for the gag rather than the other way around. There were a few first season episodes that had some of this, but not every plot line.
posted by humans are superior! at 9:39 PM on October 4, 2015


idk it sounds like you guys need a message of hope
posted by poffin boffin at 10:54 PM on October 5, 2015 [12 favorites]


I'm willing to chalk it up to just being an off episode. The show does tend to get a bit wobbly like this in the early episodes of a given year; I remember having a similar reaction to the second episode of last season, so maybe it's just the writing staff pouring a lot of effort into the premiere and then going a little slack the next week.
posted by Strange Interlude at 5:45 AM on October 6, 2015


idk it sounds like you guys need a message of hope

Here's what I have so far: PAIN.
posted by nubs at 7:38 AM on October 6, 2015 [4 favorites]


That was kind of the show going "full douche," yeah. There was a marked difference, I think, between the pre-funeral part and the rest. The squad uniting against a common, terrible enemy = good; the squad screwing up someone's funeral with their own personal problems = terrible. We have to root for these people, and it's much harder to do when they're acting so poorly. Even Terry was more uncharacteristically terrible to Scully than usual (but at least he got some support from Hitchcock). It's much more entertaining to see Jake and Amy's subterfuge for case-related or more noble reasons.

I think this was one of the "squad needs to hit rock bottom before everything comes back together" episodes, which makes sense, but isn't going to be the happiest stretch to sit through.

"He let me choose the music on the way over here, which leads me to believe he's given up on life."

Amy asking Jake to use the Holt impression in the bedroom…yeah, I get that.

Archie Panjabi was wasted. Weird that the vegan didn't react to the "I'll 'meat' you" joke. I would argue, though, that the vegan thing was clearly a cover for Boyle's frustration with the lack of emotional intimacy, as his last scene with Gina and Diaz seemed to indicate.

One of my favourite recurring bits in the show is when Jake says "oh no" through the smile plastered on his face. It works on me every time.

Love the "painnnn" tag (amazing delivery) and Holt chugging Beaujolais from a Burgundy glass without a care. Oh, it's a Sauterne glass. We've seen Terry drink since he had kids, so the one-drink joke was weird. I liked the scenes with Holt and Terry in the bar in general, though, and the last scene with Holt was sweet. Disconnected, maybe, but more of the heart of 99, less funeral-ruining.
posted by ilana at 8:42 AM on October 6, 2015 [1 favorite]


I rewatched the episode on my tablet while doing dishes, and for whatever reason I enjoyed it a lot more this time out. A lot of the jokes that just kind of washed over me on Sunday night landed for me tonight, and even the stuff that felt out of character for Boyle, Holt and others worked in context once I knew where the episode was going, so I'm just gonna say I was grumpy the other night and move on.
posted by Strange Interlude at 8:11 PM on October 7, 2015


Strange, I thought this episode was fine.
posted by Pendragon at 12:28 PM on October 12, 2015 [2 favorites]


This episode actually got me kind of excited about an arc where Jake gets busted down to beat cop. I like the idea of the show continuing to tweak the status quo week after week, at least for a while.

And I agree that Boyle has felt off for the last couple episodes. Terry, too. His reaction to Scully's news about his wife seemed thoughtlessly cruel in a way that doesn't suit Terry.

And Holt's Beaujolais speech was wonderful.
posted by Banknote of the year at 9:36 PM on October 12, 2015


I have to wonder if Terry's spiel to the rest of the squad about acting sad was maybe meant for Gina before they realized that made no sense considering she's with Holt at PR right now.
posted by Navelgazer at 10:17 AM on December 2, 2018


« Older Continuum: Zero Hour...   |  Fear the Walking Dead: The Goo... Newer »

You are not logged in, either login or create an account to post comments