Brooklyn Nine-Nine: Coral Palms, Part 3

October 6, 2016 6:01 PM - Season 4, Episode 3

THE CORAL PALMS TRILOGY COMES TO A THRILLING CONCLUSION ... Following Greg and Larry's Holt and Jake's daring escape from the Coral Palms sheriff's lock-up, they're reunited with the rest of the Nine-Nine -- just in time for the big showdown with Figgis (special guest star Eric Roberts). Who lives? Who dies? Who sews up whose leg wound?
posted by Strange Interlude (8 comments total)

I have to say I loved, loved, loved the opening to the local news. High school sports! Lottery numbers! All it needed was the daily fire in Cheektowaga/Tonawanda/Lackawanna (scratch out the nonapplicable one(s)) and you've got the local Buffalo newscasts. (Sorry but American local news is something I find highly entertaining and/or sad depending on my mood.)
posted by sardonyx at 6:46 PM on October 6, 2016 [3 favorites]

Ye gods, that was sloppy. Fun in bits and pieces (agree that the opener was perfect), but the whole thing barely hung together and even the internal logic was incredibly perfunctory. It seemed like whoever wrote the episode didn't really understand the tone of the show, like, at all. Even though the show exists in its own comedy universe, some of the events and character moments in this week's episode just didn't ring true to that established internal tone. The gag where we watched Holt calmly sewing up his own incredibly gruesome impalement wound was a good example of the weirdness (and he only sewed up one side of the puncture? through his pants?).
posted by merriment at 12:52 PM on October 7, 2016 [2 favorites]

Wow I uhh disagree merriment, I laughed out loud and really enjoyed it more than the other two. I thought it came together well. The news was on point, the fact that they resolved the weirdness between Peralta and Santiago was great where a lesser show would have dragged it out all season.
posted by Carillon at 2:52 PM on October 7, 2016

I thought it was weak too. The tone between Jake and Amy was totally off - I wasn't feeling any of what they were feeling - and the incompetent captain just isn't that funny.
posted by Rainbo Vagrant at 8:14 PM on October 7, 2016 [1 favorite]

If they're switching to the night shift, can Judge Harry Stone and Dan Fielding become part of the Brooklyn Nine Nine Universe?
posted by wabbittwax at 8:05 AM on October 8, 2016 [8 favorites]

I agree, the logic of the episode over the first half felt very moment-to-moment. As merriment notes, Holt's impalement (which would be SUPER life-threatening IRL) was taken care of a little too quickly to the point that it undercut the comedy a bit. As was the Nine-Nine's rear-ender fender-bender (which you would think would be good for at least one short cutaway's worth of plot complications) but nope, everybody still arrives right on time.

I did a little Wikipedia research and found that this episode's script was credited to one Justin Noble, who also wrote S03's "9 Days". That one also featured a somewhat undercooked A-plot (Holt and Jake get the mumps) that didn't quite pay off, so I'm going to put this one down to a particular staffer's writing tics rather than any trend for the show itself.

Tomorrow's episode is the New Girl crossover; I haven't watched any of NG myself, so I'll be interested to see what those of you who are fans might think. (Sadly, FanFare does not appear to have regularly-posted NG episode threads, otherwise it might have been fun to do a crossover of our own...)

And of course in another week, we get "Halloween IV", so we're definitely getting a pretty front-loaded season in terms of the "special" episodes. I'll be curious to see what happens when the new season settles into its "normal" groove.
posted by Strange Interlude at 8:21 AM on October 10, 2016 [2 favorites]

DOUG JUDY TAKE THE WHEEL!
posted by Etrigan at 8:49 AM on October 10, 2016 [3 favorites]

I was rewatching this over Christmas break, and I am confused. Why did Amy shoot Jake? Does Figgis not think she is willing to shoot her gun or something? I admit I was cooking at the time, did I miss some plot point that makes it clear why this is necessary?

My favorite part was how when the 99 came and broke into the storage locker, Amy was ready for anything and immediately punched Jake.
posted by Emmy Rae at 7:47 AM on December 27, 2018 [1 favorite]