Brooklyn Nine-Nine - Terry Kitties - Review

“Terry Kitties” kicks things off this week with, you guessed it, kittens. When Terry gets upset after receiving a kitten at work, Jake questions him about it, and finds out that his old co-workers sent it to him. Twenty years ago, when Terry was a new detective at the 6-5, his colleagues, specifically Detective Holderton (Matt Besser), wouldn’t let him do anything until he solved a case. So he set to work on a string of high-rise B&Es, and found a suspect -- Dmitri Kuzkho, an ex-acrobat with a criminal record. He took a team to arrest Dmitri, and had the apartment building surrounded. Unfortunately, when they arrived at the suspect’s apartment, they found him in a wheelchair (he snapped his spine in half in a terrible trapeze fall). Terry tried to save face by suggesting that the man’s nearby cat might have done the break-ins on his orders. …Obviously this didn’t help the situation. And so the 6-5ers mercilessly tease him with kittens. Jake encourages him to stand up to those bullies (after all, Terry is a human mountain), but when he returns from his old precinct, he’s gained two kittens.

Jake decides to help Terry solve the old case in order to redeem himself. He sneaks the old case file out of the 6-5 after subtly drawing the officer away with lies that a man “yarfed” in the bathroom. They go and question the break-in victims that are still alive, but twenty years later no one can remember anything of use. Jake suggests they go out on the ledge to see how the perp got in, and has a major freak-out. Terry’s discouraged and about to give up when he notices that same man, Zerb Gudanya, inspected the elevators in all of the apartment buildings. Jake and Terry find him eating out at the Club International of Brighton Beach International Club (or C.I.B.B.I.C for short), and Holderton and Co find them. Turns out they could see right through Jake’s “yarf” story. They see their suspect get a signal from a waiter, and the whole group follows him into the bathroom…where Zerb is eating red meat while sitting on a toilet so his wife won’t find out. Naturally Holderton finds it hilarious that Terry’s messed up so badly, yet again.

Jake is not ready to give up, and stays up all night going over the case files (with the little kittens to keep him company). He plotted every burglary in Brooklyn over the past twenty years on a map, and concluded that the city is not a safe place to live. But more helpfully that he realized that the original suspect’s shoes in a picture from the failed arrest were produced after his accident. That wouldn’t necessarily mean anything, except that these shoes were clearly worn while walking, as the mud on the bottom would confirm. Terry and Jake go to pay Dmitri a little visit, and he answers the door standing, across the room from his wheelchair. Terry takes him down victoriously when Dmitri tries to run, but then ruins the moment a bit as he demands to see the cat from twenty years earlier, so that he can take the cat down to the station too. After everything’s settled, Jake asks Terry what he wants to do to retaliate against the 6-5, but Terry’s not interested in that. Having Jake help him out on the case, even braving his (previously unknown) fear of heights, and staying up all night to find a lead, really showed him that he has people that care about him now. He doesn’t need to get back at those fools who pushed him around. Unfortunately Jake couldn’t wait and already released a box of rats in the 6-5…whoops…

It’s always great to see Nine-Niners stepping up to help each other out, and this episode was no exception. Jake has really been on top of it this year, helping Boyle with his ex-wife/sperm situation, helping Holt with his loneliness, and now helping Terry reclaim his pride. He bonds with Terry over dad issues, and understands that he needs a victory with this old case of his. Jake may not always be the sharpest tool in the shed, but he’s a great detective, and a great friend, and he’s showed that over and over again this season. Also, he seems to be pretty good at closing cold cases -- I can think of three over the past few seasons.

Also, is anyone else curious what happened to the kittens? Is Amy allergic to those too? Because I have a feeling that Jake was ready to bring those little ones home with him…

This week at the precinct some of the detectives participate in a bomb diffusing class -- aka, a hilarious way to hide Melissa Fumero’s pregnancy. After Amy brags about her steady cross-stitch hands, Rosa and Amy place a $20 bet on who will do better in the class. The process ends up being a little more complicated than they originally thought, but that doesn’t stop them from racing to the finish. What does stop them is Holt’s admonition that they are not taking it seriously enough. Chastised, the two slow down a bit and focus on the task at hand…giving Holt the chance to race through and finish before them! He gloats as the duped detectives take in their own captain’s sneaky ways. In the end, though, it turns out that all three of the Nine-Niners failed, because the instructors didn’t feel that they were taking it seriously enough. Hitchcock and Scully were the only two who passed, and they didn’t even know they were diffusing bombs.

Watching Rosa and Amy together is always a blast, since they tend to operate in very different ways. Amy is a proud rule-follower and binder enthusiast, and Rosa is a little more confrontational. But they’re both very competitive, and this brings them together even as it sets them against each other. It was a nice little twist to see Holt jump in on the competition, faking them out with his authority in order to beat them without the detectives even knowing he was in the game. That’s the best way to win (even though in the end, they all kind of lost). The detectives in the Nine-Nine are always pushing each other forward in competition: the annual Halloween heist, Jake and Amy’s solved cases tally, the Jimmy Jab Games, and more. It seems like they all have some of that crazy competitive nature inside, though I’d be a little concerned about Amy…when it comes to competition, she always seems right on the edge of a mental breakdown…

Pimento gets kicked out of his apartment due to his extreme night-screams (because of his experiences undercover), and Boyle and Gina find him living in the break room. Boyle offers to help him out, and Pimento interprets it as an offer to stay with him. Not wanting to seem insincere Boyle reluctantly agrees to the arrangement. Pimento takes over “Chuck’s” apartment, skinning deer in his kitchen, sharing his underwear, and worst of all, eating all of Boyle’s specially-shipped Norwegian cereal. Gina advises Boyle to be the alpha and refuse to take Pimento’s craziness, but as we all know from “Cheddar,” Boyle is definitely not the alpha. He says that his strategy instead is to be the beta, and eventually the alpha will take mercy on you and give you what you want. Eventually he can’t put up with Pimento anymore and turns to Gina for help in getting rid of him. She suggests he stand up to Pimento, but Boyle crumbles once again. When Gina can’t watch Boyle get pushed around anymore, she stands up to Pimento and tells him that he can’t live with Boyle anymore, and that he even has to pay him rent for the night spent there. Although she thinks it’s her victory, Boyle asks her to consider whether he beta-ed her into protecting him.

It’s clear that Pimento is still struggling to readjust to normal life, though he doesn’t appear to be overly concerned with things such as his traumatic night terrors. (Also, where did he find and kill a deer in Brooklyn? Just curious). While his co-workers seem somewhat sympathetic to his plight, this does not extend as far as letting him stay in/destroy their apartments. One of the best parts of this story was Gina seemingly coming to Boyle’s rescue, and then Boyle leaving us all wondering whether he manipulated her into doing so with his underdog “patheticness.” Sometimes the dynamic between Boyle and Gina really does feel like that of a brother and sister, and the combination of protectiveness and manipulation in this episode really brought that out. Gina’s disgusted “Oh my god” as she walks away from Boyle, realizing that he tricked her into helping by being pathetic was genius.

(Side note: with Matt Besser as Detective Holderton in this episode, B99 has had 3/4 of the UCB troupe as guest stars. Is it too much to hope for Amy Poehler to make an appearance?)

Line of the week goes to Gina for this gem: “I worked at a sunglass kiosk at the mall for four years, so not only have I been through hell, I was Assistant Manager there.”

What did you think of the episode? Did it surprise you that Terry was bullied by his former co-workers? Could those kittens have been any cuter? Do you guess that Holt was just as competitive as Amy and Rosa? And did Boyle just mess with Gina, or did he really manipulate her into protecting him? Let us know below!

About the Author - Kimberly

Kimberly is a big TV nerd - willing to talk any show, any time. Her tastes are various and sundry, but she’s got a soft spot for comedy. She currently writes the SpoilerTV reviews for Brooklyn Nine-Nine.

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