To pull off what’s essentially a double A-plot, something had to be sacrificed - including the big raid at the end, which gets offloaded to an offscreen SWAT team.
Of course, it’s rather convenient that all of the information and video on an eight-year-old cold case is digital. Things do get a little bit bickery toward the end, which is uncharacteristic for Holt, but the narrative gambit mostly builds the pair’s likability instead of moving to crush it, which has never been a good move for the show. But introducing the case early on provides a good framework around which to build a lot of physical-illness humor, since it’s easy for Holt and Jake to digest information in small doses between bouts of passing out, hallucinating spaghetti as snakes, and “ Beautiful Mind–ing” by repeatedly scrawling the word case in the window frost. Isolating two characters together (with occasional appearances by Amy, who’s characteristically up-to-date on all her vaccinations) often tempts writers to segue straight into bickering (see the aforementioned “Stakeout”).
The mumps also causes extreme testicular discomfort, leading to Jake’s first-ever collaborative “Cool cool cool cool cool” - literally the only circumstance in which I can imagine Holt joining in. I didn’t know anything about mumps, so this episode was both entertaining and highly informative! I was particularly crushed to learn, like Jake, that sour candy is apparently the worst thing to eat if you have it. Unfortunately, the very first interview in the case exposes the pair to mumps, a diagnosis they receive from a doctor played by The Office’s great Oscar Nuñez. Jake’s closed all his cases (and bragged loudly enough about it that Amy couldn’t hear the neighbors’ usual fighting and make-up sex), so he decides to un-bury a cold case about a mobster gone AWOL to distract Holt. Although “9 Days” covers a lot of well-trod territory for the show - which has also already had plots about Jake and Holt working a case from Holt’s house, and both Jake and Rosa trying to work through an illness or injury against their colleagues’ advice - this pairing works, thanks to sharp writing and the continuing genius of freshly minted Critic’s Choice Award winner Andre Braugher.Įschewing the show’s usual stand-alone cold open, “9 Days” dives right in, explaining that Holt’s a bit off these days because his husband, Kevin, is still away on a teaching assignment at the Sorbonne. Last year’s “ Stakeout” is the first thing that comes to mind when I think of Brooklyn Nine-Nine’s low points, so I wasn’t necessarily pumped for another episode that puts Jake and a second character in forced isolation. Andy Samberg as Jake, Andre Braugher as Captain Holt.
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