‘Brooklyn Nine-Nine’ Recap: ‘Halloween’ Brings Out Everyone’s Weird Side

FOX

Brooklyn Nine-Nine recently received a full season order, and it’s hard not to see why, since the show has definitely been on a roll lately. The sixth episode, “Halloween” may not have been as funny as its previous two, but it was a solid half-hour of television nonetheless. It also brought back the Peralta/Holt dynamic that got the show off to such a great start, but it managed not to lose the supporting characters in the shuffle. 

It’s Halloween at the Nine-Nine, the busiest and spookiest night of the year, and when the cops are making fun of the idiots who have gotten themselves locked up, Peralta states that he is such a great detective that he would be a master criminal. Of course, when Holt comes along to refute that statement, Peralta issues himself a challenge: if he can steal Holt’s medal of valor from his office before midnight, Holt has to do all of his paperwork and publicly state that “Jake Peralta is an amazing detective-slash-genius”, but if he fails, he will work the next five weekends without overtime, and he won’t tell everyone about the time that he saw Holt on short-shorts outside of work. This sets off a chain of events that involves several costumes, a painful fall through a ceiling, and several kidnapped pigeons. 

Even though we really enjoyed seeing Peralta work with the other officers last week, it was nice to see Andy Samberg get a chance to play off of Andre Braugher again. They have a wonderful chemistry, and Holt’s stern nature worked well to balance out some of Peralta’s wackier antics. In fact, even when he was stuffing pigeons into the air vents above Holt’s office, Samberg was relatively restrained. It seems like the writers have finally found the perfect blend of zany and capable. The last two episodes have featured Peralta actually showcasing his smarts and talent as a detective, which was much needed in order to keep the character from flying off the rails. Having Peralta win the bet through an elaborate plan that involved all of the other officers was a perfect touch, and it allowed him to be the criminal mastermind he always wanted to be and still demonstrating how well everyone works as a team. 

During the bet, Santiago and Boyle were on costume duty, attempting to catch some drug dealers at a local party. Santiago, of course, hates Halloween, while Boyle loves it — his Mario Batali costume was just weird enough to be perfect for him — and so he’s determined to help her see past the drunken idiots that take over the holiday in order to see the good in it. Boyle’s speech about Halloween bonding friends together gave the episode a nice, sentimental touch, and the two had a great dynamic. It’s been great to see Brooklyn Nine-Nine play around with team pairings in the last few episodes, and no matter how weird they seem at first, the cast seems to have so much fun with each other that it translates to the screen. It was also a great chance to show off some of Melissa Fumero‘s comedic chops. Her crawling around on the floor of the club was one of the funniest moments of the episode, and her disgusted outrage on when she wonders how the drink spilled on her can be “hot and cold at the same time” was perfect.

The other great thing about “Halloween” was that it finally revealed some more information about Diaz, who previously seemed like the most one-dimensional of the characters. Like Holt and Peralta, Stephanie Beatriz’s deadpan delivery is a great compliment to Terry Crews‘ shouting, and even though the show didn’t reveal too much information about Diaz, it was enough to make her feel like a proper member of the team. 

Episode Highlights: 
– Samberg’s perfect delivery on “What would Bill say?” after Peralta is forced to keep Hillary Clinton and Kim Jong Un from making out.
– “Kind, Sober, and Fully Dressed. We’ve found the name of Santiago’s sex tape.”
– Peralta: “What does your skin taste like?” Gina: “Dina Lohan. I’m wearing her face lotion.”
– “Well, on the one hand I fell through the ceiling and onto a pencil, but on the other hand, I bruised my brain.”
– The best visual gag of the night was Peralta attempting to chase pigeons into a pillowcase with a baguette. 
– Gina and Peralta share a friend named Natasha, who recently had a baby and has a dog with lupus. 
– Peralta interrupting his explanation to Holt of how he and the team carried out the heist with, “And that’s when I saw a sexy robot, and we got our flirt on.” 

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