Welcome to the Squad, CJ
by: Alison Golub
If, like me, you were really missing the squad last week than have no fear! The squad is back and once again we have our ensemble! We missed you! Yes, even you Scully and you’re creepy need to stare at Rosa.
The second episode of season four is much stronger than the first, even though it is a little bit of a filler between the premiere and next week’s episode, which will inevitably be about the squad making their way down to Coral Palms and defeating Figgis. The jokes are funnier, the story is better strung together, and Jim O’Heir wins Episode MVP for his portrayal of an incompetent, sexist, homophobic, Floridian police captain (although is incompetent a fair description; after all the Newlywed game did work).
Ken Marino gets an honorary mention for his portrayal of CJ (or Captain Jason), the Nine-Nine’s new captain (why they’re finally getting a new captain after six months is a mystery) who is even more incompetent than O’Heir’s police captain down in Florida. He is lazy, unqualified, and basically acts as the squad’s “yes man”. So, of course, everyone lets him stay except Amy who does everything in her power to get rid of him.
Unfortunately for her, there’s only so much she can do on her own: her fulfilled colleagues (Rosa gets walls, Charles gets a treadmill desk, and Terry gets his own yogurt fridge) won’t help, and Gina and her new assistant, Emily, foil her letter-writing plan. Eventually, she manages to convince to them to talk to CJ. The squad encourages him to stop him from him being a “yes man” which of course comes back to bite them in the ass when Holt and Jake call for help.
Back in Florida, Holt and Jake prepare for the inevitable arrival of Figgis by buying guns, getting arrested for having said guns, and then breaking themselves out of jail using the best of their own “Suicide Squad” featuring a meth head, a public urinator, and a man with a glass eye. Holt gets some development when he admits to Jake that he was putting off calling the squad for help out of embarrassment for needing their help from saving him from Bob last season. It’s a nice moment if, ultimately, a little unearned and forced.
Jake and Holt also kiss for a little bit…it’s weird. Yeah. Not much to say, other than I assume that’s going to make the father-son dynamic they had be a bit awkward. But hey, as Holt says “It’s 2016” and there are plenty of shows and movies that have forced a heterosexual “fake out make-out” (to borrow a term from Danny Phantom), so it’s nice to see that at least that trope is getting diversified.
Overall, a solid episode that builds a nice improvement from the premiere. Hopefully, Figgis is defeated in Coral Palms, Part 3, so we can all go back to our regularly scheduled Brooklyn Nine Nine.
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