Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
“Ugh, Halloween is the worst,” Amy Santiago (Melissa Fumero) states at the beginning of “Halloween”, Brooklyn Nine-Nine’s first Halloween episode in season 1. Ain’t that the truth! It’s not hard to imagine why the holiday would be an actual nightmare for cops, what with all the drunk people running around the city in disguises, getting caught up in the spooky spirit.
That alone could’ve made for interesting Halloween episodes for the Fox comedy. They explore this theme just a bit in their first ever episode acknowledging the madness of October 31st by showing adults dressed as babies, nuns, and bananas all interacting with members of our favorite precinct. And then they throw it right out the window.
Brooklyn Nine-Nine has perfected the Halloween episode by ignoring it completely. Every season, the show’s signature “heist” episode stands out as one of the most clever half-hours they produce. In “Halloween”, they introduce the idea of a Jake Peralta (Andy Samberg) v. Captain Holt (Andre Braugher) bet, and every year since then, they’ve managed to make it BETTER. They’ve one-upped themselves in both the comedy and the surprises, highlighting all the other members of the Nine-Nine in some way throughout in the process.
Season 1’s “Halloween” finds Amy and Charles (Jo Lo Truglio) out in the costumed field; Amy as a skeleton, and Charles as Mario Batali, establishing the recurring joke that his co-workers can never tell who or what he is dressed as. But the real spooky stuff goes down in the office, where Jake is tasked with stealing Holt’s Medal of Valor. If he succeeds, Holt must do all of Jake’s wretched paperwork for the night, and if he fails, Jake will work five weekends without overtime. High stakes!
After several “unsuccessful” attempts, Jake devises a thorough, teamwork-dependent plan to nab the medal, and the episode ends with both the characters and viewers feeling like Halloween might be ok after all. Not that it matters: in season 2’s “Halloween II”, the show moves even further away from the typical Halloween hijinks. While the cold open kicks off the episode with Charles asking the team for help determining his Halloween costume, and Terry (Terry Crews) enlisting the staff to make “safety pumpkins”, they just as easily could’ve been consumed with making pumpkin spice lattes. It’s seasonal, but it’s not specifically pegged to intoxicated, scantily-clad adults they’re dealing with. Oh, and fun fact: the forecast for Brooklyn on Halloween night is usually in the 45 degree range.
B99 was smart. They immediately set up a rematch bet between Holt and Jake, Halloween’s newest and most exciting tradition. If Jake steals the Captain’s watch from his wrist by midnight, Holt will do all his paperwork for him. If not, Jake gives him five weeks of overtime for free.
Jake not only ropes his colleagues into the action but adds a pick-pocketer to mix as well. Things don’t quite go according to plan for Jake like they did the previous year. However, they go great for Holt, who had been planning his very intricate revenge for the past 365 days.
With the score even for Holt and Jake, season 3’s “Halloween III” had to switch it up, and that they did. The cold open covers Charles and his affinity for costumes, and then Halloween is hardly even mentioned for the rest of the episode. They get right to setting the terms for what is set up as a “tiebreaker” bet this year, an “epic battle of the wits” to determine once and for all who is the “amazing detective slash genius”, Holt or Jake. Teams are decided and they set off with the same mission: to obtain a crown locked in a briefcase, locked in the interrogation room, and determine who is the true “King of the Nine-Nine.” There are somersaults, photobombs, and a suspicious janitor involved, and it all results in the same thing: a surprise ending, a detailed explanation, and the desire to do it all again next year.
“Halloween IV”, as expected, is as trusty and entertaining as we depend on it to be. Jake gets “turned on a little” by something random yet again as the crew splits into teams to recover a plaque held in a caboodle, mostly for bragging rights, at this point. Oh, and Cheddar the Corgi is there too! While Cheddar is technically not the champion of the heist, the answer remains as satisfying as the three previous face-offs.
Brooklyn Nine-Nine has perfected the Halloween episode because they’re not afraid to go gimmicky; they just don’t go Halloween gimmicky. They’ve taken an annual national event and figured out a way to make it special for their show, in a way that doesn’t require costumes or boos or candy. Each heist is smarter and more complicated than the last, and each cast member is given an opportunity to shine. It’s a fun way for the show to establish something unique for them each year, a premise that they can build on without ever having to go corny. For that, we thank you, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, for being amazing humans slash geniuses.
