This week’s Brooklyn Nine-Nine continued the show’s streak of holiday-themed episodes (starting with last week’s Thanksgiving) with, you guessed it, Christmas. Just in case you really weren’t sure what holiday Christmas was going to revolve around, the cold open kicks off with a good-old fashioned Santa fight (think Jingle All the Way minus the candy cane nun chucks and a manic, toy-obsessed Arnold Schwarzenegger).
Similar to Thanksgiving Holt and Peralta were given their own story, allowing the rest of the characters to deal with their own hilarious neuroses rather than trying to clean up Peralta’s messes. Once again the captain and his often annoying underling played off of each other really well. After receiving numerous anonymous death threats, Holt is ordered by his own captain to choose a bodyguard.
Holt insists he doesn’t take the threats seriously and chooses Peralta as his “savior” because prior experience has shown that Peralta will probably ignore his job and let Holt do whatever he wants. This blows up in the captain’s face when Peralta joyously accepts his role, going so far as to trick Holt into bringing them both to a safe house (a motel room – because movies have taught us that no one ever gets murdered in motels) and handcuffing himself to Holt.
Boyle eventually comes to Holt’s rescue, but only after Peralta gives Holt a life-saving tip (“A safe house watching “Safe House” is a safe safe house house” – try saying that five times fast). Unfortunately for the captain/hostage, Boyle gets so flustered by the conflicting commands he’s being given to release Holt (Holt) and to leave them alone (Peralta) that he takes out his own pair of handcuffs and inserts himself into the group. After a bit of detective work the trio learns that the threats are being issued by Collin Haimes (a.k.a. The Freestyle Killer, so named because he once murdered a swim team), a man who Holt arrested and severely taunted during his hip afro days.
Meanwhile, back at the precinct Santiago is trying to get a picture of Diaz smiling for a secret Christmas card she’s photo shopping for Holt. The closest Santiago’s able to get is a terrifying picture of Diaz with her frown flipped into a smile on photo shop (courtesy of Gina) and a picture of herself frowning (“isn’t that what you wanted?” – Scully).
Terry’s once again given some time to shine with his own story and it’s wonderful. He’s ready to go out on duty again, but he can’t do so until passing a psych evaluation. Terry’s doomed to fail from the start when he gets so nervous he squeezes a pillow until the stuffing bursts out of it. The rest of his evaluation goes further and further downhill until you’re sure he’s not going to pass (every word association, even “kitten,” ends with “gun” and “die,” while the picture he draws of himself is something children see in their nightmares). Fortunately Gina comes to the rescue when she bursts into the meeting saying that Holt and the rest of the team are in danger, forcing Terry to approve himself back into duty.
Terry eventually finds his friends and helps save the day by tackling an armed Haimes just before he can shoot Holt (with a triumphant cry of “Terry’s back! Terry’s back!”). Sadly he’s a few minutes too late, as Haimes has already shot Boyle in the butt (after he dives in front of a bullet meant for Diaz). Sure, this leads to Santiago getting her picture of Diaz smiling, but the whole situation sure was a pain in the butt for Boyle (I’m not sorry). It was a hilarious and heroic ending to the episode for Terry and Boyle, the two characters who probably deserve the most praise out of the Nine-Nine crew.
Amazing image(s) of the night: Retro Holt arresting Haimes at a swimming pool (“Marco. Now you save Polo, punk”) and Holt and Peralta popping and locking while at the hospital visiting Boyle. Oh, what the heck, Terry’s pillow-popping was amazing, too. The man is like a jolly Hulk.
Follow Jessica Kane on Twitter @jesskane31.
