Brooklyn Nine-Nine: Game Night

December 13, 2017 6:42 AM - Season 5, Episode 10

The first half of the midseason-finale double header! Official FOX synopsis: "Rosa begs Jake to help her break some big news to her parents, but her plan is thrown off when they wrongly assume the two are dating." (With special guest star Danny Trejo as Rosa's dad, as well as the long-awaited return of [SPOILER]!)
posted by Strange Interlude (17 comments total)

Who was the return-spoiler?
posted by oh yeah! at 6:49 AM on December 13, 2017

Gina is Back, Bitches! Oh how I have missed Chelsea Peritti. This episode was great on so many levels. But especially Rosa and Jake. Rosa and her parents. Rosa and Capt Holt.

Capt Holt to Rosa:
Diaz, you should be very proud of yourself. Everytime someone steps up and says who they are , the world becomes a better, more interesting place. So, thank you.

TEARS
posted by pjsky at 7:37 AM on December 13, 2017 [18 favorites]

Yeah, I love how they kept the episode basically light and fun, while still working as an affirmative statement on coming out and the importance of allyship. It also avoided and directly addressed the problem of bisexual erasure, which is typically what happens when they put a character into a same-sex relationship on TV. (ex: Willow from Buffy)

This is a show that wears its inclusiveness very casually, but when it needs to take the audience to the side and really underline what it's saying (as in the end credits bumper with Holt) it doesn't feel like an obligatory public service announcement, it feels organic to the characters and series.
posted by Strange Interlude at 8:21 AM on December 13, 2017 [3 favorites]

Also, to hell with the haters, Gina is amazing and a treasure, even if she would be a challenging person to have as a friend/coworker IRL.
posted by Strange Interlude at 8:24 AM on December 13, 2017 [1 favorite]

Oh, duh, right, Gina. I guess I think of 'the return of X' as something to say about a guest star like Pimento or The Vulture, not a regular like Gina whose return felt so inevitable to me as to be unremarkable. (Like, as soon as she was back, I forgot she'd been gone, you know?)

Danny Trejo was such perfect casting for Rosa's father.
posted by oh yeah! at 9:14 AM on December 13, 2017 [2 favorites]

I was caught in the delicate position of wanting to hype Gina's return in the post without directly spoiling it for people who hadn't seen the episode yet.
posted by Strange Interlude at 10:30 AM on December 13, 2017

I love Gina, and she has a dynamic with Holt that we don't get to see with the other cops. I miss Gina/Holt storylines, and just hearing Holt say, "We didn't negotiate any of that," and Gina say, "We just did," was a nice tease for it.
posted by gladly at 10:56 AM on December 13, 2017 [1 favorite]

The fanbase's Gina-dislikers used to annoy me, but this episode made me feel more like one of them. It's like, even though during the first 4 seasons she might have made me laugh more than any of the others did, the show's tone is more to my liking without her.

The problem is, her attitude and word choices are just wonderful when she builds herself up ("human form of the 100 emoji")… and not so much when she tears others down, except when it's subtle (like her wardrobe "blackmail" on "I wanna say… Allen?").

For me, super-cynical snark has been done to death (part of what makes this, and The Good Place, so refreshing). At a certain point I do prefer a workplace comedy's "good" characters be wholly sympathetic, for contradictory reasons of escapism (so I can imagine working with them) and realism (in the sense that it felt unrealistic Amy and Charles would be so eager to bring back someone whose taunts get so personal).
posted by InTheYear2017 at 3:32 PM on December 13, 2017 [2 favorites]

If Gina could be 15% less mean, then she would be the perfect foil for the tone set by Jake.
posted by Marticus at 4:47 PM on December 13, 2017

I have grown to like Gina more over the seasons. I am happy she is back, in part because I think the show is more balanced when she is there.

I like when Rosa and Jake are paired, and though I wish we had more Rosa and Holt, what he said was perfect.
posted by jeather at 5:32 PM on December 13, 2017

I love how they kept the episode basically light and fun

except the part that they somehow just could not resist putting in where boyle was fucking gross and creepy and awful. why do they keep doing this, why do they want me to love this show less.
posted by poffin boffin at 11:54 PM on December 13, 2017 [1 favorite]

for reals though, it used to be that his creepy lack of boundaries was like 50% awkward/uncomfortable/gross personal oversharing and 50% being super creepily intrusive to his coworkers, but now it's like 10/90 and it's viscerally horrible to deal with.
posted by poffin boffin at 11:57 PM on December 13, 2017

My fear that Charles would spill the beans was . . . mostly averted? The scene would have been fine if he just left off the "sleep with lots of men" stuff. (I only don't mind when he's creepily intrusive to Jake, who mostly enjoys it, but not if it involves his relationship with Amy.)
posted by jeather at 7:55 AM on December 14, 2017

I have always thought Gina was much too nasty to be funny. And not nasty in the good way. I love Amy and I just hate seeing her get dunked on constantly. I don't see the humor in it at all. Her grandiose boasts about herself maybe would be funny if she wasn't such a deeply unpleasant person. The funny thing is that wanting to run her own company is very in-character and makes so much more sense than her working at the station.
posted by bleep at 7:23 PM on December 15, 2017 [1 favorite]

I don't get the Gina haters. I mean, Charles is right there !!
posted by Pendragon at 1:09 PM on December 16, 2017 [1 favorite]

This was incredibly touching. It was a great balance of Rosa being a natural stoic while still having some emotionality. And that HUG!
posted by jenfullmoon at 7:02 PM on December 19, 2017

So somehow the squad has figured out where Rosa lives now??

There’s a segment of B99 fandom that posits that every character is queer (at least bi), and the bit in the cold open where Jake talks about the hot perp will not do anything to quell that theory.
posted by dry white toast at 2:47 PM on December 23, 2017 [1 favorite]