TL;DR – A return from the blast of the past shows how far the show has grown

Score – 4 out of 5 stars

Review –

Way back in at the start of the show, Brooklyn Nine-Nine was still finding its feet. It was an experimental time, with this show exploring several different plot threads to see if they worked. Some of them worked like, Halloween, some of them did not, like Charles (Joe Lo Truglio) trying to date Rosa (Stephanie Beatriz), and some still were just lost to time. However, every now and again, one of those threads from the past gets born again, and this is just one such episode.

So to set the scene, Terry (Terry Crews) and Santiago (Melissa Fumero) have to leave the 99 for the day to do some departmental training. Thus they leave Peralta (Andy Samberg) in charge … but with no speech about being responsible because time has changed him. Now he is the guy that will buy the safe car and is trying to start a family. Well, no one gets to tell Jake he can’t be reckless, so it is now time for him to resurrect an even from the deep past the Jimmy Jab Games. Now we will be looking at the episode as a whole so there will be [SPOILERS] ahead. 

There was a lot of fun and silliness throughout this episode, mainly thanks to Charles’ several musical number interludes. But the one thing I liked is how under the surface there was a lot going on. There was Jake sort of having a mid-life crisis, but instead of buying the fast car he was throwing luncheon meats at a window and making reckless bets. This leads to a really interesting back and forth between him and Amy as they quasi change places in their relationship for a moment. It also leads to one of the funniest moments in the show when Jake is touched that Amy noticed something and she replied that she did, but not in a good way.

While this is going on we have the silliness of Hitchcock (Dirk Blocker) using Scully’s (Joel McKinnon Miller) many medicines to basically dope himself. Also, the banter between Rosa and Holt (Andre Braugher) is shown to have a deeper core, leading to a really touching moment in the end. The one twist in the episode I don’t think people will see coming, or at least I did was Officer Debbie Fogle’s (Vanessa Bayer) ark. I really liked that Charles was there to encourage her, to get her to find her voice both metaphorically and literally. However, it then all falls apart. One thing they don’t make clear here and it will be good to see is Fogle is really a good disguise or if it was that she took Charles’ advice a bit too seriously.

In the end, do we recommend The Jimmy Jab Games II? Yes, we do. It was a bunch of fun, but underneath it all there was some real emotion and the acknowledgement finally that the cleanings in the 99 might just not like Jake. Also, it has the moment that I think might shape the rest of the season going forward.           

By Brian MacNamara: You can follow Brian on Twitter Here, when he’s not chatting about Movies and TV, he’ll be talking about International Relations, or the Solar System.

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Credits – All images were created by the cast, crew, and production companies of Brooklyn Nine-Nine
Directed by – Neil Campbell
Written by – Vanessa Ramos
Created by – Dan Goor & Michael Schur 
Production/Distribution Companies – Fremulon, Dr. Goor Productions, 3 Arts Entertainment, Universal Television, NBCUniversal & SBS.
Starring in Season Seven – Andy Samberg, Stephanie Beatriz, Terry Crews, Melissa Fumero, Joe Lo Truglio, Dirk Blocker, Joel McKinnon Miller & Andre Braugher with Vanessa Bayer