Brooklyn Nine-Nine Season Seven Review

Brooklyn Nine-Nine came back with a shorter run of 13 episodes for their seventh season.

After the events of the Season Six Holt had been demoted to patrolman by his nemesis, Madeline Wunch. He has to serve this sentence for a year before he can become Captain again. Jake and Amy decide it’s time to start a family and try to have a baby. And there was the usual array of crime-solving, office shenanigans and personal dilemmas throughout the season.

Brooklyn Nine-Nine is a series that provides solid comfort viewing. It’s easy to watch a repeat on TV or stream an episode on Netflix. It’s a show with a likeable cast of characters and the setting of a police station allows for a lot of story possibilities. Season Seven was no different.

The show has fallen into a formulaic trap. Like most of the previous seasons, there was a lingering plot thread that must be resolved: in Season Seven case it was Holt’s demotion. There were the compulsory episodes with Doug Judy tricking Jake and the Halloween Heist. The showrunners do try and mix some things up. Holt’s demotion lasts a lot longer than other lingering plotlines from previous seasons e.g. Jake and Holt having to hide in witness protection, and Jake and Rosa being framed for bank robbery. Whilst this season’s Halloween Heist extends beyond to Valentine Days and Easter.

The biggest development in the season was Jake and Amy having a baby. Melissa Fumero got pregnant in real life, so it properly forced the showrunners to make Amy pregnant on the show. Brooklyn Nine-Nine was always going to do a pregnancy storyline because in Season Six Jake and Amy debated on whether they should have kids and in a video on Twitter, Fumero revealed that she discussed with the showrunner, Dan Goor, on how to do a pregnancy storyline. The sixth episode, “Trying,” it played out just as Fumero described in her video: that Jake and Amy struggled to conceive no matter what they try. Amy is a character who loves planning and order, but despite her best efforts, she cannot force it. Amy came up with a regimented regime to conceive which led to the couple getting exhausted and reminded me of a Simpsons joke when Manjula said ‘all that sex for nothing.’

The best episode in the season was the finale where Brooklyn suffers from a blackout and Amy has to take over command whilst in labour. It was a logical endpoint for the season for Amy to give birth in such extreme circumstances. Amy taking control shows Amy’s evolution from a teacher’s pet in the early seasons to being a leader in her own right. Everyone gets a chance to help Amy during her labour with Boyle, Holt and Rosa having to go against their instincts to help their friend.

Since Brooklyn Nine-Nine moved from Fox to NBC there was a noticeable change in the humour because characters were allowed to swear as long the offending word was censored. I hate this because I find it to be lazy humour. The finale was turned this trait I hate into two hilarious jokes because it pushed the need to censor to an extreme.

In the third season of Brooklyn Nine-Nine, the showrunners did an excellent job at hiding Fumero’s first pregnancy. I didn’t even realise she was pregnant until much later. Fumero’s second pregnancy wasn’t so well-hidden like in the episode “Ding Dong” where Amy had to put on a choir gown. The episode “Admiral Peralta” the show even lamp-shaded this with the various ways Amy hides her belly. In the episode, “Valloweaster” Amy wears a pumpkin costume and I like to think it was a reference to the ‘Slutty Pumpkin’ in How to Met Your Mother.

The seventh season was more than just Amy’s pregnancy. This season introduced a new character, Debbie Foyle (Vanessa Bayer), Holt’s beat partner. As Jake described her having a kooky aunt quality. Her highlight episode was the episode “Debbie” where the title character gets in way over her head and shows off some impressive skills. But “Debbie” was the poorest rated episode of the season and fan reaction to Debbie as a character was negative.

The seventh season also saw the return of the Jimmy Jabs Games and it was one of the funniest episodes in the season. In that episode Jake makes a reckless bet, Boyle gets to act like a musical ringmaster, and Hitchcock was surprisingly capable. The episode “Dillman” had one of Brooklyn Nine-Nine’s biggest name guest stars with J. K. Simmons playing an old friend of Holt’s and formed a rivalry with Jake.

Brooklyn Nine-Nine should please fans of the show as it continues its status as a watchable sitcom with characters you want to spend time with.