Spoiler alert! The following contains details from the first two episodes of "Brooklyn Nine-Nine" Season 8.
The Nine-Nine is back. And it doesn't look quite the same.
The eighth and final season of police precinct comedy "Brooklyn Nine-Nine" premiered on NBC on Thursday with a two-episode block, and it's not the same happy-go-lucky series it was when it last aired in April 2020. After the death of George Floyd a month later, the creators and stars said the protests against police brutality and racism deeply affected the show they were writing. Actor Terry Crews confirmed that four scripts were tossed and rewritten following "somber talks and very deep conversations" about reorienting the show as other cop series grappled with the racial reckoning.
Now, more than a year after that reckoning made national news, "Brooklyn" is back for a pandemic-delayed, 10-episode final season (paired on Thursdays, 8 EDT/PDT). And it wastes no time in adapting its tone for a post-2020 era.
The first episode, "The Good Ones," explains how the characters deal with the fallout from the pandemic and the police brutality protests, without claiming to have any sweeping solutions to racism in America. It is perhaps a little more awkward and somber than some "Brooklyn" fans are used to in the normally slapstick series, but the tone was always going to difficult to balance.
The series hasn't shied away from deeper topics in the past, including a lauded episode about racism in the NYPD from Season 4, and it does an admirable job here, even if things end on an awkward note.
The series picks up with a glimpse at the 99th precinct in June 2020, when everyone is wearing masks and Jake (Andy Samberg) and Charles (Joe Lo Truglio) have invented a socially distanced high-five. The antics end when Rosa (Stephanie Beatriz) announces she has resigned from the police force.
The episode fast-forwards to the present when the cops have been vaccinated and Amy (Melissa Fumero) finally returns from maternity leave after she was forced to extend her time at home due to the pandemic. Other changes: Hitchcock (Dirk Blocker) has retired, although he's still Zooming in to annoy everyone. Holt (Andre Braugher) is reacting strangely to Amy's dismay. And Jake hasn't seen Rosa, one of his best friends, in months.
Rosa makes it clear that she quit in response to George Floyd's death and protests against police brutality. She's set up shop as a private detective specializing in investigating allegations of police violence. Jake practically begs her to let him help with her latest case.
As Jake and Rosa look into the case of a Black woman who was assaulted by police officers for refusing to let them search her shopping bag, Jake's eternal optimism butts up against the harsh reality of the systems that protect officers from consequences. The pair runs up against a stonewalling, racist union rep (John McGinley) who won't let them talk to the one witness of the assault.
Canvassing the neighborhood and getting doors slammed in his face reminds Jake that public opinion against the NYPD has soured. Even when Rosa obtains crucial evidence proving the officers are guilty, their captain (Rebecca Wisocky), a friend of Jake's, wants to bury it to avoid the drawn-out process of trying to fire the officers. At the end of their efforts, all Jake and Rosa can do is get the trumped-up charges against Rosa's client dropped.
During their investigation, Jake admits that he is helping Rosa partly because he feels judged by her decision to leave the NYPD while he stayed. He wants to prove he's one of the "good ones" inside the system. Rosa forcefully reminds him that her decision, and the greater issues at play with police and race, aren't about him. She made a tough, personal choice to give up her career because she felt complicit in abuses against people who look like her.
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It was smart of the writers to put Jake and Rosa at the center of the episode. Their relationship is among the most nuanced in the series. Their conflict is not unlike others they've had over other ideological differences. At the end of the half-hour, things are still a bit strained between the friends, but Jake has an understanding he lacked before.
The episode also takes a more comedic spin with Charles, who makes every clichéd faux pas in his attempt to be a good anti-racist ally to Terry. In trying to support Black-owned businesses, he invades Terry's privacy at his barbershop. In trying to really listen to his friend, he talks right over him. Eventually, after Charles accidentally sends Terry $10,000 in "reparations" on Venmo Terry finally gets exasperated enough to tell him that his anti-racist work shouldn't be so performative. Charles gets it – almost.
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The episode also reveals that Holt and his husband Kevin (Marc Evan Jackson) have separated after, as Holt says, the hard year it's been to be "a Black man and a police captain and a human."
The second episode of the season returns the tone of the series to a more chipper place as Jake attempts to "Parent Trap" Holt and Kevin together during the gang's weekend trip to Holt's lake house.
That episode doesn't delve into the bigger issues in "The Good Ones," but "Brooklyn" has left the door open to keep discussing police and race as the final season plays out.
Contributing: Bill Keveney
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