For our review of the last episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine, click here.
Synopsis: A visitor from Latvia causes Charles and Jake to investigate Nikolaj’s family. Holt and Amy bring in famed forensic scientist Dr. Yee to help close a case for Rosa. (IMDB)
Writer: Andy Gosche
Director: Linda Mendoza
Rating: TV-14
Running Time: 22mins
Airs: Thursdays at 8:30pm on CityTV (Canada)/9pm on NBC (United States)
This episode was not nearly as great as Terry’s eyebrows.
The cold open was of Jake and Charles. Jake was distracted by the man who was following them. He turned out to be Nikolaj’s birth father Gintars (Ike Bainholtz) who Charles was hoping to never meet. He would do his best Jake impression while letting out a few “cools” before fainting.
Gintars and Nikolaj’s relation would be unnecessarily complicated and he was not in a position to take care of him then but he claimed that he was now a successful businessman with a clothing business eerily similar to The Gap. Gintars didn’t want to take Nikolaj back, he only wanted to meet his sex result. Charles was against it, however, he was willing to wait for as long as it took. Jake and Charles initiated a meeting between Nikolaj and Gintars where Gintars was not to reveal that he was Nikolaj’s father but that didn’t last after meeting each other. Nikolaj was understandably confused. Charles was afraid that he had lost his son the longer he spent with Gintars.
Jake’s plan to get rid of Gintars was to catch him on tape admitting that he was selling counterfeit goods so he would get deported. His plan to do it at a bath house failed when he refused to remove his towel. However, his excuse for not doing so created enough sympathy for Gintars to admit to selling counterfeit goods anyway. Meanwhile, Charles was coming around on letting Gintars have a relationship with Nikolaj but that pretty much came to an end once Gintars got arrested. Charles was uncharacteristically mad at Jake.
Rosa wanted help from the FBI to find evidence that their lab techs couldn’t find at what she believed to be her crime scene but Holt and Amy were more interested in calling Dr. Yee for whom they would not stop gushing about and compete for his admiration. Terry and Rosa were definitely not looking forward to dealing with him again, especially Terry who shaved his eyebrows after Holt convinced him that they were harboring mites. Terry’s ever-changing facial hair was a recurring joke in the episode that just got worse and worse. Dr. Yee’s super-flies would find nothing at Rosa’s supposed crime scene, however, she exposed them as frauds and Yee would admit that they were. It took quite a lot for Holt and Amy to apologize to Rosa and Terry. Ultimately, Rosa solved her case on her own.
The episode ended with Jake and Charles reconciling their relationship with best bud hats while Charles came to terms with his relationship with Nikolaj.
Overall, Gintars was an okay episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine that never quite worked thanks to a pair of messy subplots. The best part of the main subplot was the relationship between Charles and Nikolaj, however, Ike Barinholtz’s cringeworthy performance (and bad Latvian accent) was painful to watch and sunk it. The B subplot was equally as painful because Holt and Amy’s exuberance for Dr. Yee simply wasn’t funny. It would be Terry’s eyebrows and Rosa that would help save it despite that. Not every episode can be a winner.
Score: 6.5/10
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The EIC of the coincidentally-named keithlovesmovies.com. A Canadian who prefers to get out of the cold and into the warmth of a movie theatre.