Uncoolcoolcoolcoolcool! No noise! After eight glorious seasons, 153 episodes of 22 minutes full of bite, Brooklyn Nine-Nine ends tonight. This has happened before. Fox canceled it in 2018, five years after its online release, but a campaign on social media by outraged viewers – reinforced by prominent fans such as Lin-Manuel Miranda, Guillermo del Toro and Mark Hamill – saw that it was picked up quickly by NBC for three more seasons.
This time the farewell to the beloved detectives Jake, Amy, Rosa, Terry, Charles (yes, okay, Hitchcock and Scully too) and to their boss, Captain Raymond Holt, is real, as he retires with a double bill. end of episodes at E4. And it’s probably the best. It rises to the level it has maintained since it began in 2013, and before the radically changed real-life context hampered an American program based on the collective belief in the intrinsic goodness of police.
What a joy it has been. Blessed from the start with a flexible cast full of bright and generous players, even better together, in any combination, than separately, and from whom it is impossible to choose a better actor, favorite character or even favorite partner. Andy Samberg’s extraordinary energy as the impetuous, perennial teenager Jake Peralta could easily have turned him into a Jim Carrey figure, focusing and unbalancing the show. Instead, he – and creators Dan Goor and Michael Schur – made him warm and respectable, emblematic of the spirit of the ensemble.
Melissa Fumero, left, as Amy Santiago and Stephanie Beatriz as Rosa Diaz. Photo: NBC / John P. Fleenor
Melissa Fumero’s Amy Santiago could have been a simple nerd, an oppressive force in the enclosure and the ass of the jokes of all the coolest characters. Instead, she was just the target of Gina’s gags, and wasn’t everyone? His fetish for bookbinders was a long-running joke, but like all Brooklyn Nine-Nine jokes – perhaps the most difficult feat in the comedy – he emerged from the character and his relationship with the rest of the world. equipment.
The crossings of the enclosure could have been set in an augmented reality, and thank God, because that is what allowed us the extravagant delights of Gina (“a complete superposition of ego and identity”, as one of the psychiatric guests at a Raymond-Kevin’s party. You could escape into their world and settle down to see what your empowered (and pleasantly functional) family was doing without any fear of being evicted.
Sergeant Terry (Terry Crews) was the father figure (and, of course, a devoted father of the twins Cagney and Lacey) who tried to keep his undisciplined offspring online and safe. Crews, a mountain of a man who, on the inside, was softer than Scully’s belly, Crews brought one of the first stories to deal with a “headline” theme: Terry is looking for the lost toy of a twin on the street and is racially profiled by an aggressive and aggressive. then unrepentant officer. Politics and ramifications twist even further when his black captain initially deters Terry from filing a complaint in case he harms his career. In later series, other raids were made on discussions of racism, sexism (Amy detailing cases of harassment of her then-husband Jake that he had never imagined), homophobia, motherhood and fatherhood, and gun crimes, with varying degrees of success. but never derailing. the show or going down to clichés.
It could easily turn into these things, in part because of its different cast (on mainstream television), present from the start. Fumero spoke of her own disbelief and that of Stefanie Beatriz (Rosa) that there were two Latin women on the show instead of a boss, or a symbolic one. Crews and Andre Braugher (Holt), as two black actors, may have felt the same way.
Andre Braugher as Captain Ray Holt. Photo: NBC / John P. Fleenor
Holt is also gay and is married to Kevin (Marc Evan Jackson), a combination made in the pedantic paradise, and if he had to pick a favorite recurring character, he would probably choose this water snack teacher. And in the fifth season, Rosa painfully left her parents as bisexuals. The homophobia and racism Holt had experienced throughout her career were always part of her story, and Rosa negotiating her new identity became an equally organic part of her.
This makes it sound hopelessly serious and dignified. It wasn’t. It is not. It’s infinitely fun, from its famous and very lionish cold openings (you could see Dianne Wiest forever) to a perfect eccentricity, built in small increments over the seasons for you to believe in every inch of what is objectively crazy madness. , by Charles Boyle (Joe Lo Truglio) and the Halloween robberies, as immaculately plotted as any farce. It’s full of Holt’s demanding standards (the talk is for strangers and scammers) and eternal wisdom (“Don’t trust any child chewing gum with chewing gum. Don’t trust any adult chewing gum. Never vacation in Banff “.), And guest stars who were never sensational.
It is worth noting, however, two of them. Craig Robinson’s purity of vision and purpose as Jake’s nemesis / soul mate, career criminal Doug Judy and Jason Mantzoukas’ commitment to his turn as chaos agent Adrian Pimento (“No, no, no, I don’t care about computers, okay? Since I died of dysentery on the Oregon Trail, I said, no, thank you. I’m done with that. “
It has been wonderful. A rare gift – and even rarer as one that the whole family could enjoy, at least when Pimento wasn’t on screen – that will be lost, no matter how much the repeated views endure (and they do, the first five seasons in a loop of Netflix). they were all that stood between me and the pit of despair during two years of pandemic and confinement). Forgive the sentimentality, Captain Holt, but I love you all. New and new!