Brooklyn Nine-Nine: The Last Day (8x09/10)

I wish I felt more, I honestly felt kind of disconnected from this finale, just like I did the whole season! It wasn't bad, but it didn't really spark joy.

Cons:

This season tried to clumsily address issues of police brutality, only for the finale to have no mention of it. I'm not trying to be a party pooper here but if this season is meant to talk about the desperate need for reform, and then the finale is... well, Amy and Holt got those promotions, Terry gets a promotion, Jake's going to be a stay-at-home dad, the end? The show's status quo hasn't really shifted here at the end. It's a little bit more of the same.

It's hard to articulate, but the comedy just didn't really hit for me in a lot of the heist scenes because it was actually too convoluted to follow. Whenever we saw somebody win out over someone else, turns out there were still three or four layers of betrayal until we uncovered who actually had the lead all along. I know it's meant to be more comedy than an actual mystery to solve, but if it's this convoluted, it's not even clever anymore, it's just a lot of chaos being thrown at the screen until the episode ends.

Pros:

Okay, sure, there were some cute moments. I liked the magnet suits, I liked Hitchcock coming in with the win. While I honestly think Gina's return was somewhat wasted here, the repeated t-shit gag did make me giggle. Amy being offended that Jake went to another notary, Rosa falling off of Gina's van... these were funny little joke-y moments for sure.

And on the sweeter, more sincere side, of course it was sweet that Terry gets to be the Captain, and Holt stood up for him for the job. Of course I got a little weepy when Holt said that he would have been proud to have a son like Jake. Of course Jake's decision to stay home with the baby so Amy could pursue her career was moving to me. What a great way to come back around from the earliest days of the show, when the two of them competed so much at work.

I also liked the little subplot where Rosa pretended she wanted to get back together with Pimento as part of the heist, but in the end she says she doesn't want to settle down, and doesn't need a relationship to feel complete. With all the call-backs in this finale, I was  little worried that they would try to send Rosa off into the sunset with an old flame, so I was glad they preserved the integrity of her character instead. If Rosa wants to have a partner in life, I hope she can have that with someone wonderful! But if that's not what she wants, I am also in full support!

So that's all I can say for the finale. There's nothing wrong with it, really. It's not some offensive pile of garbage. It's sweet, how things are changing for so many of the characters, but how they'll be in each other's lives forever. I just... didn't feel much of anything at all. So I'll give it a "meh" score...

7/10

And now for the show as a whole: if this last season didn't exist, I think I'd give it even higher marks. Of course it's not perfect, but to have a show like this, with a character like Captain Raymond Holt at the center of it, felt especially meaningful back during season one, and there continued to be some really funny, smart, charming episodes all the way through. I'm not going to dock the score too bad just because this last season didn't work for me much. I can look back on the show with fondness over all, for sure!

8/10