Brooklyn Nine-Nine: Balancing (8x04)

This one was just kind of "blah"' to me.

Cons:

The main conflict here is about Jake and Amy juggling between work and childcare. Things get chaotic when an outbreak of lice shuts down daycare and forces them to have Mac with them. Amy is working on a big presentation that could lead to important police reform. Jake is working on a long-running murder case with a murderer who provides fun clues and riddles that Jake loves to solve. I guess I really just noticed the triviality of it all? Especially Jake, upset that he was missing out on the "fun" murder case. Like. People are dead, though? And Amy's reform presentation was unsurprisingly vague, it was just clear that she was a good guy fighting the good fight, while her opposition was one of those bad racial profiling proponents. It all felt a little too neat to me.

The entire concept fell a little flat, too. The struggle was Jake and Amy each having to potentially give up important work moments for the sake of raising their son... but at no point did they go to the obvious solutions. When Charles is standing right there, basically it's like... Jake could take lead on the case or Charles could. Why didn't Charles offer/why didn't Jake ask, for Charles to watch the baby while Jake went? And Amy has Terry following her around as a cheerleader while she's preparing for a presentation. That she's giving alone. Terry seemed to have nothing else to do - why didn't he watch the baby? Meanwhile, Holt and Rosa's subplot is happening in the background - they certainly didn't seem busy! Why not ask one of them? The whole thing just fell apart for me.

Pros:

The main plot, while mostly pretty tepid in my opinion, did have one or two good moments. I liked Jake explaining to Amy the whole thing about Charles validating Jake whenever he has to miss out on something. It's always funny to me when the obvious dynamic is stated out loud, proving that everyone involved knows what's really going on. The payoff was also sweet, with Jake being there to witness the moment that Mac pulled himself up to standing for the first time. He and Amy lament that it sucks that they both have to miss stuff: Amy had to miss this great parenting moment, and Jake had to miss an exciting work moment. But between the two of them, they're getting it all done, which is sweet!

After episode two, wherein it seemed that Holt and Kevin's failing marriage plot line was resolved way too quickly, we here see that things aren't smooth sailing. Holt is staying with Rosa, and bothering her with his incessant Kevin talk. She suggests they get drunk, which leads to Holt sending a dick pic. Shenanigans ensue, and it looks like Kevin and Holt are maybe on the path to coming back together, in their unconventional way.

The reason most comedies work for me is that kernel of emotional truth at the core. Hearing Holt ramble on and on about Kevin was funny, as was Rosa's exasperation. But then, the moment where he looks at her, baldly emotional, and says that Kevin was his husband for twenty years, and he can't erase him from his mind? That really got to me. It was quite beautiful, honestly.

So there you have it. There are little glimmers here and there of a show that I had a great deal of fun watching over the years... but overall it's collapsing under its own weight at this point. I like the two episodes a week thing. It feels mean to say, but perhaps ripping off the band-aid and saying goodbye to this show sooner rather than later is the right move.

6/10