Brooklyn Nine-Nine Is Back! And It's Still Hysterical

I generally loved Brooklyn Nine-Nine when it was on Fox. While I watched it more or less consistently over its first two seasons, when it started moving around on the schedule, I didn’t follow it nearly as closely. When I watched it, I still found it one of the funniest and most original workplace comedies in TV, but I didn’t watch it enough. I’m not saying that I was responsible for Fox pulling the plug, but I didn’t help.

And then NBC – no doubt pulled by the outpouring of so many fans – decided to pick it up for a sixth season, and I decided: What the hell, it’s on right before The Good Place, I might as well see if its still as good as I remember. It’s not. It’s better.

Oh, a lot has changed. Jake Peralta (Andy Samberg) has married his soul mate Amy (Melissa Fumero). (I’m sorry I missed the Die Hard themed wedding after the wonderful Halloween five proposal.) Blissfully sarcastic Rosa (Stephanie Beatriz) has become bisexual, and Gina is leaving the precinct (NOOOO!!!) But, very little has changed. Captain Holt is still in charge and deadpan. (If you’d told me five years that Andre Braugher would be such a gifted comedian, I’d been as emotional as Holt gets in my disbelief.) Terry is still in charge, and freakishly big. And Hitchcock and Scully are still incompetent.

Rather the comedy remains in all the small details that make this series one of the most imaginative shows that I’ve ever seen. When Jake and Amy went on their honeymoon, Amy tried to reenact one of Jake’s greatest fantasies by dressing up as Holly Gennaro. Naturally, it was interrupted by Holt showing up saying he was quitting the police force, and it ended up with Amy berating Holt, while he was hogtied to the bed, saying: “I don’t give a hoot about you any more!” Holt took this as a charge, and has determined to help the Nine-Nine, which has gone to war with the Commissioner.  After five years of wondering how the biggest slobs on the unit backstory was, we finally learned Hitchcock and Scully’s story in the 80s – and, boy did we get a shock. Apparently, they were so ripped that Boyle and Jake could only ask: “What happened to those guys?”

And last night, we got a look at Jake and Gina’s twentieth high school reunion, where Jake tried to rid himself of a reputation as ‘The Tattler’, which everybody in his senior thought he was. Naturally, Amy tried to help him, and revealed just what a lovable geek she is. (She ended the night writing a book report for Jane Eyre.) Gina lied to everybody she met, nearly landed a Silicon Valley deal for an app called Toddler, and then had to deal with the fact that she had just been lied too. Meanwhile, Boyle tried to use the patented ‘Boyle decision making process’ to help Rosa choose between two lovers (it ended with her hanging from the ceiling like a bat – “the most decisive of all animals) and Holt and Terry getting involved in a ridiculous radio contest that somehow taught Holt the beauties of wasting time at work. It was ridiculous, profound, and very silly – in short, it was a quintessential night for the Nine-Nine.

If there’s a flaw in Brooklyn Nine-Nine, it’s that the series seems to follow a formula that was not uncommon in Parks & Recreation (co-creator Michael Shur’s earlier triumph for NBC), in which the series manages to partner people in the squad with the ideal soulmate, whether they work with them or not. But in a cynical age, I actually find it endearing. Michael Shur is one of the great creative forces for comedy in the Golden Age – this is the third exceptional series he has created this decade (why did you break my heart with the season finale of The Good Place?) This is arguably a Barney Miller for my generation, and  the best work-related comedy since Scrubs. I don’t know how long this series will last on its home, but at this point, any new adventures with the precinct are just gravy – and a pure delight.

My score: 4.75 stars.