This review contains spoilers.
6.13 The Bimbo
I’ve written about it a couple of times this season, but I always enjoy when Brooklyn Nine-Nine slots Jake Peralta into the straight man role, stuck observing and commenting on his co-workers’ idiosyncrasies. It’s not that Jake’s weird tendencies have grown stale, it’s just that his adolescent sense of humour and references usually serve as great reactions to odd or irregular behaviour.
In the Brooklyn Nine-Nine universe, Captain Holt is one of the most irregular characters around. He’s stoic, almost robotic at times, and incredibly intelligent and formal with no tolerance for whimsy, humour, or shenanigans. He’s pretty much the opposite of Jake in every way, which makes him just as ridiculous a person. The fact that he was able to find a partner in Kevin, someone who is also excessively formal and academic, is a small miracle. While the audience sees Holt and Kevin cut from the same intensely precise cloth, Holt sees himself as more blue collar and less brainy than his beau. This insecurity drives The Bimbo and adds another layer to Holt’s strange makeup.
Watching Holt get relegated to being the “Jake” of Kevin’s academic friends is a funny joke made better by Jake, in this case now a “Hitchcock,” watching alongside completely dumbfounded. Holt is the smartest person Jake knows, so seeing him torture himself for switching up ancient philosophers seems completely unnecessary. When Holt and Jake suspect the Dean of Kevin’s college is responsible for stealing priceless coins, Jake has to encourage Holt to keep pushing once the Dean outsmarts and shames Holt for being the titular bimbo. Holt is completely humbled and Jake is entirely out of his element, but Jake is still able to convince Holt that he’s not as intellectually inferior as the Dean makes him feel. Holt can be such a robot that it’s fun seeing him vulnerable, just like it’s fun to watch him eventually stand up to the Dean by causing a well-timed “kerfuffle” and solve the case.
In the B-plot, Terry and Amy’s natural competitive natures have them trying to one-up each other by providing the precinct with the best, fanciest lunch after the Nine-Nine’s refrigerator breaks. However, all the talk about Commissioner Kelly slashing the budget and the crowded bullpen floor makes this plot seem like it was meant to occur earlier in the season and got pushed back. No matter, it’s good stuff that finds Hitchcock and Scully as the judges of their lunch-off, which gets so intense and over the top that the entire precinct would just rather go back to having a solitary, boring break. The Other Two’s Drew Tarver pops back up as Santiago’s underling, who would prefer if he didn’t get shot by paintballs. As far as B-plots go, it’s satisfactory stuff.
This is a pretty lightweight episode, but I enjoyed it mainly because I always find the glimpses into Holt’s personal life, and his relationship with Kevin, to be illuminating and the perfect use of Jake’s straight-man talents. The Bimbo probably won’t go down as anyone’s favourite Brooklyn Nine-Nine episode, but it serves up the right number of laughs and adds new understanding to Holt, so it still qualifies as a successful instalment.
Read Nick’s review of the previous episode, Casecation, here.
