Advertisement

Brooklyn Nine-Nine 4.13 review: Our favorite detectives return

*This article contains spoilers: Brooklyn Nine-Nine season 4 episode 13*

Brooklyn Nine-Nine finally returned this week with episode 4.13, “The Audit.” I don’t think it will go down as a season best for me, but a middle-of-the-road episode of Nine-Nine is still pretty darn good. In addition to the usual shenanigans, “The Audit” highlighted how good the show has become at mixing cases of the week with more serialized storytelling, as well as organically bringing back secondary characters in the Nine-Nine’s orbit.

We haven’t seen Amy’s ex, Teddy, in a while, and I wasn’t all that jazzed about his return. His entire schtick is that he’s Jake’s aggressively unfunny polar opposite. This made him a great catalyst to Amy realizing she was in love with Jake, but not that engaging of a character on his own. I enjoyed him more in this context, mainly because they leaned into how hilariously boring he is, completely oblivious to the idea that, say, liking jazz brunches is actually worse than liking Pilsners. He was also amusingly dismissive of his new girlfriend once he saw a chance with Amy, who is, of course, happily accounted for elsewhere.

Teddy again played a catalyst of sorts for Jake and Amy, this time making them discuss their obvious differences. Those differences clearly aren’t deal breakers for them—opposites attract and all of that—but it was nice to see them take it a step further and call them an asset to their relationship. Teddy’s proposal, or rather, proposals also made me think about when we might see one for Jake and Amy. I’m thinking end of the season isn’t an unreasonable bet, but you guys will have to let me know what you think in comments.

Back at the precinct, the threat of closure allowed for some of my favorite Nine-Nine teamwork scenes, with Terry facing off against a broken Japanese copier (the kind of zany plot point only this show could get away with) and Boyle devising an impressively ill-advised plan to get rid of the precinct’s rats. With the Nine-Nine’s fate up in the air, Holt got to be a little extra snarky and mean, to particularly humorous effect. Whether he was chastising Amy for her libido or getting mad at Boyle for not letting himself get eaten by rats, Andre Braugher was, unsurprisingly, in top form.

Holt also got to re-introduce one Gina Linetti to the world, and thank the lord she survived. The fallout from her accident led to some great comedic moments from Chelsea Peretti: dancing through her pain, acknowledging her short-term amnesia, and, my personal favorite, meditating to her own voice.

It seems pretty unlikely that both the first auditor and the next would have dated cops from the Nine-Nine, but this show has never claimed to be completely realistic. This was definitely a case where suspending disbelief was worth the hilarity that ensued with Teddy and, presumably, Terry’s ex in next week’s episode.

What did you think of Brooklyn Nine-Nine’s return? Let me know in the comments!