For our review of the last episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine, click here.
Synopsis: Charles gets Jake involved in a case where a therapist reports one of his patients missing; Holt learns that Rosa has a new girlfriend whom everyone else has met; Amy thinks she mistakenly received a package for Terry. (IMDB)
Writer: Jeff Topolski
Director: Rebecca Addelman
Rating: TV-14
Running Time: 22mins
Airs: Thursdays at 8:30pm on CityTV (Canada)/9pm on NBC (United States)
This great episode packs so much content in its 22 minutes.
The cold open saw Jake think of an elaborate b-word office bowling game, using Charles as a ball. An old woman came out of nowhere and contributed one more b with babushka.
Charles had a potential case where a woman was reported missing by her psychiatrist named Dr. William Tate (David Paymer) who believed that her husband may have had mental break and did something to her. The conversation then shifted to Jake never having gone to therapy before since he believed he didn’t need it despite everything that had happened to him. Also, he didn’t trust therapists.
When Jake and Charles met Dr. Tate, he told him about a call he received from the missing woman’s husband. Jake got defensive when unprompted by Dr. Tate. They had no evidence and their suspect was missing. Dr. Tate tagged along while they investigated the husband’s apartment (and brought up how Charles can be overly sexual sometimes and of course he would run off a few funny sexual references). Jake believed that Dr. Tate was having an affair with the missing woman and was their killer but Charles was skeptical.
While it was Charles’ case, Jake would go behind his back and search Dr. Tate’s office. In trying to escape, he found himself pretending to be another therapists’ patient who happened to have multiple personalities. Jake was forced to act out all the personalities so he could keep watch on Dr. Tate nearby. When Jake thought he had gotten away, Dr. Tate was waiting in his car with a gun. Jake was right and Dr. Tate had killed the missing woman and her husband (and a few more people). His time with Dr. Tate evolved into a suprisingly breakthrough therapy session.
Holt invited Rosa and her girlfriend Jocelyn (Cameron Esposito) to dinner at his house, however, she was not open to the idea because she believed he was too judgmental. Holt continued to try and prove to Rosa that he was not judgmental. She would find agree to bring Jocelyn to the bar with Holt but instead of Jocelyn, she hired an actress. Rosa and Holt weren’t close and she was afraid that Holt wouldn’t like Jocelyn. Rosa valued Holt’s opinion. After meeting Jocelyn in the break room, he liked her so Rosa agreed to take her to dinner at his house.
Terry got embarrassed by a delivery to him that Amy got by mistake, including a sex tip book. He would go out of his way to show that the book wasn’t his including putting up lost book flyers throughout the precinct. Scully later claimed the book, however, he was pretending so he can secretly give it to Terry.
While Jake was talking to Dr. Tate, he was using his skill of texting without looking at his phone to alert Charles (or at least that’s what he thought but Charles eventually got the message) who saved him and arrested Dr. Tate. Jake was now open to therapy while Charles made one more sexual reference.
Overall, The Therapist was an excellent episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine that managed to fit in three compelling subplots while allowing Jake to grow as a character. Either way would have been nice but it was fun to watch Jake’s arc over the course of the episode. The Terry subplot was strong and the episode had just enough of it to keep it from being too mean-spirited. Rosa and Holt are great characters because of Stephanie Beatriz and Andre Braugher so it was nice to see them grow closer here. Episodes that utilize all the characters in effective ways have been the most successful and lets hope we get more of the same.
Score: 9/10
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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.