Brooklyn Nine-Nine: Ding Dong (7x07)

Oh my goodness! I'm going to miss Madeline Wuntch!

Cons:

I mostly liked the subplot about Terry and Charles competing for movie premiere tickets for their kids. Mostly. The one aspect I didn't enjoy? Well, Charles is supposed to be Jake's best friend, and Terry is a good friend also. So why were they cracking jokes about Jake not being a father? That felt really tonally strange, like the writers forgot the story they were trying to tell. They mock him for being in over his head taking their kids to the movie alone, and they yell "you don't have kids!" when Jake accuses them of overreacting. I don't know, it just felt very strange to me, given last episode's more serious look at the subject.

I also felt a little strange about the fact that Amy is already pregnant, as she reveals to Jake at the end of this episode. Maybe they should have waited juuust a bit longer, after last week they were struggling so much? Feels weird to do a reverse on that so quickly.

Also, there's a moment in this episode where we learn that Holt is back up for a promotion as captain, now that Wuntch is gone. This felt strange to me. There was one early episode where they had a new captain for half a second, and since then Terry has been in charge. That's fine, but I was looking forward to a fresh face, a new type of energy to add to the group. Last week's episode covered six months, so we zoomed right through Holt being a uniformed officer again. I feel like we could have gotten more out of that scenario. 

Pros:

Despite having more complaints than I generally do on episodes of this show, I actually thought this particular installment was pretty strong.

Holt is over-the-top hilarious the whole way through his plot thread. There are so many funny jokes I couldn't possibly name them all. His continual insistence that Wuntch is a terrible person, even after he's accepted that she's dead, all work because you can tell he's just locked in to this mindset without nuance. Rosa and Amy are great as the Greek chorus with differing opinions on the situation. Amy, emotional because of her pregnancy (that she doesn't know about yet), is horrified by Holt's escalating cruelty. Rosa, predictably, is amused and delighted by all of his creative insults.

Of course, this show manages to inject some actual depth into the ridiculous situation. A woman has actually died, and Holt spends most of the episode delighting in her demise, and frustrated with her attempts to thwart him from the afterlife. But at the end of the day, she was an important part of his life. She pushed him and challenged him. Of course he'll miss her. Of course he wishes she wasn't really gone. I loved the actually emotional ending, and how it didn't feel too saccharine.

Charles and Terry's escalating competitiveness over the movie tickets was pretty funny. Charles has an established bad-ass streak that comes out when he fights Terry. I like that Jake gets to play the straight man for once, reacting with bemused frustration at his friends' escalating shenanigans. He's still Jake, though - his biblical lesson with ripping the tickets in half was pretty cute, and his pouty reaction when it didn't work was even moreso.

I realized what the solution would be long before we reached it, but I think that Jake taking all three of the kids to see the Kwazy Cupcakes movie was the perfect resolution. We got to see all three kids buttering up "Uncle Jake" earlier in the episode, and I wish we could have seen even more - I bet they all had a great time at the premiere! And it paired nicely with that final scene, of Jake learning he's going to become a father.

Despite thinking the pacing is off, having Amy become pregnant so soon, I'd have to lie if I said I didn't adore that final scene. The look on their faces... Jake and Amy are going to be such good parents! I get so emotional, thinking about how far they've come.

That's all I've got for this one!

8/10