Brooklyn Nine-Nine: The Golden Child (6x09)

Ahhhh Lin-Manuel Miranda!

Cons:

This was a really amazing episode, so I'm not really sure what to put in the "cons" section... maybe just a desire for a little more? The subplot with Charles was funny, but could have been even more outrageous. Lin-Manuel got lots of great comedy, but could have had even more. Mrs. Santiago was underutilized too... I didn't get much of a sense of character out of her, other than just the obvious preferential treatment she showed for David. None of this is really a complaint about the quality of what we did get, though.

Pros:

Starting with the subplot - it's the return of Straight Captain Holt. This bit will never get old. I love it. Holt's personality is so dead-pan all of the time, so when he's acting as another character, and he's just stating blatant lies out loud to build a character, it's hilarious, and so, so, bad. This is the kind of thing that Holt would be realistically bad at, and not realize it. I also like that Terry isn't a great performer either. He might have pulled something off that was halfway decent, but Boyle wanted the best actor possible, which is where Rosa comes in. It's hilarious to me that Rosa is barely in the episode, but she swoops in with a great punchline right there at the end.

The main plot this week is all about Amy's competitive nature with her brother David (Lin!). I love when Jake and Amy get plot threads where they can work off of one another. Lately, we've seen the focus be on Amy, with Jake as the supportive husband, and I for one am all about continuing that trend. The two of them have such good comedic chemistry, and they can easily trade off either taking the spotlight, or being the supportive figure.

Lin-Manuel Miranda did a great job with this character. I think they made a smart decision to write him into the episode like any other guest star, without doing anything to highlight him as a celebrity. He doesn't rap, he doesn't make any Hamilton or Mary Poppins references, he's just playing the character that he's playing. However, there's this sort of meta-level to his character being super good at everything while still being a seemingly genuine guy. That's Lin, at least in my opinion! He does get plenty of moments of  comedy, of course. The dance-off is especially great.

I also like how sincere he's playing the character. He actually manages to pull off being confident and good at everything without being conceited. When he's being nice to Amy, he really does seem to be grateful to her. It's not part of his effort to beat her. That frames the situation so that Amy is the one with the problem, which I think was ultimately a smart move, especially since David is just here for one episode.

Amy gets a lovely little personal journey in this episode. She starts off totally fixated on the bad blood between her and David, but when Jake is in trouble, she puts her competitiveness aside and lets David save the day, since he's the better shot. Obviously I'm in love with Jake and Amy's love, so that moment at the end where Amy expresses how worried she was about Jake was very touching.

A few other moments of comedy to mention: Jake yelling at Mrs. Santiago was an awesome comedy spiral. The recurring bit about Brazilians being ridiculously attractive: Jake is super bisexual, just saying. Jake hyping Amy up to everyone, in order to combat David's achievements, but then being unavoidably impressed by David anyway... the list goes on. This show is just such a delight.

I think I'll stop there. I wish Lin could be on more than just the one episode! Maybe he'll come back with the rest of Amy's brothers some other time!

9/10