Brooklyn Nine-Nine, "The Jimmy Jab Games," (2.3) - TV Review

Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Season 2, Episode 3, “The Jimmy Jab Games”

October 12th, 2014, 8:30 PM, FOX

Boredom is a pain. Everyone in the world knows this, and it doesn’t become less true for the 99 when the gang gets stuck on call in the precinct waiting for the Serbian president’s motorcade to come through Brooklyn. But boredom is, naturally, not an allowed emotion when you’re Jake Peralta; he proposes the crew participate in a contest called “The Jimmy Jab Games” (a competition he invented during a similar situation years ago) while they wait, which leads to yet another competition between Jake and Amy for top dog – and one between Jake and Rosa, for he wants her friend Katie’s phone number so he can ask her out on a date and Rosa wants Jake to let go, get a grip and stop flirting with Amy. Meanwhile, Holt continues to battle Deputy Chief Wuntch and preps a nervous Jeffords for a meeting with her to gain improved funding so that the precinct can form a drug task force to fight the influence of a new street drug in their neighborhood and Charles accidentally releases video evidence of his continued liaison with Gina through the department’s video camera and must strike a deal with Hitchcock to get it back before everyone finds out about their affair.

Brooklyn Nine-Nine continues to sparkle, and this episode does us the favor of building up a continuing storyline. The Wuntch/Holt conflict is funny and strong and continues to be one of the season’s best focal points; Holt’s intense dislike of Wuntch and his total inability to figure out how to correctly engage her in conflict continues to be hilarious.

The Nine-Nine’s various romantic entanglements continue to be intriguing, too. Everyone knows that Jake and Amy have a thing for each other, and it’s refreshing that the show’s not beating around the bush about it, even though Jake’s trying to be the mature one and move on with his life in light of Amy’s relationship with Teddy. It was fun seeing Rosa and Jake as friends, and Rosa’s buddy advice was pretty good – her plainfaced tell-it-like-it-is persona works quite well when paired up with Jake’s less mature off-the-wall attitude. I’m also, meanwhile, happy that Charles and Gina’s relationship continues to truck onward – which makes last week’s situation with Rosa even more confusing. Nevertheless, it works and works beautifully, and I won’t question it.

But the most interesting development is the personality infusion given Hitchcock as he battles Charles in the vain hope of being cool, of winning Jake’s approval. It’s about time Hitchcock and Scully got a little fleshing out, and watching Charles try and fail to relate to Hitchcock provided a lot of laughs.

“The Jimmy Jab Games” contains several strong laugh-out loud moments that make the rough spots worth traversing. While the Wuntch storyline is just starting to pay off, all of the romantic storylines are starting to cook in a fresh way. More importantly, the show remains consistently laugh-out-loud funny in every scene, which is an accomplishment no other sitcom currently running can equal.

The Roundup

There really are ten right ways to make paella! Charles is indeed right.

New lows in Charles’ life: he rear-ended the hearse at his uncle’s funeral and is still paying off the bills.

The first Jimmy Jab game took place in 2008 when the Iranian President came through Brooklyn.

The official title of this Jimmy Jab game is “Jimmy Jab 7: Circus of Fools.”
Events include the monster mouth bagel toss, the mouthathon (an eating competition involving rancid Chinese leftovers), bulky bulky fun run (a race held while wearing bomb suits), Keep your cover (everyone takes on a cover persona and has to talk to as many people as possible without breaking character) and the obstacle course. The prize is the Winchester 3000: the only good and intact chair in the entire office.

Next Week: Jake enters into a friendly wager with Captain Holt – he bets he can steal his boss’ watch, a dangerous proposition as the Halloween season rolls around. Meanwhile, Gina deals poorly with being kicked out of Floorgasm and Terry confronts Rosa about her bad attitude in “Halloween II”.