The good news is, though, whatever a single half-hour broadcast comedy could possibly do to chip away at America’s hero-cop mythology, Brooklyn Nine-Nine is, in this final season, committed to at least trying. Bad news: Brooklyn Nine-Nine is still a cop show. But it’s hard to argue, even in light of the shitshow that was 2020, a left turn that sharp would be staying true to the characters-nevermind the personal, socially conscious growth they’ve all dedicated themselves to for the last eight years. It was nice to dream about Jake, Rosa and the rest of the 9-9 resigning en masse to, I dunno, start a pizza empire or something. On the other, though, I don’t know what more we could reasonably have expected.
The bad news is, for all the fun fans and critics had imagining the most audacious turns the series might take to get away from the taint of the NYPD- USPIS, anyone?- Brooklyn Nine-Nine still looks committed to ending its run as a cop show. Having screened the first five episodes of this final season, I can officially say: I have good news, and I have bad news. Still, with only a 10-episode order in hand to tell that Season 8 story, and a literal century of collaboration between cops and Hollywood to confront while doing so, it was at the same time hard to imagine how they might possibly pull it all off. Given the series’ consistently progressive approach to what justice both can and should look like-well, and the fact that Goor, together with the cast, donated $100,000 to the National Bail Fund Network, stating explicitly that they “condemn the murder of George Floyd and support the many people who are protesting police brutality nationwide”-it was easy to imagine what direction that new story might take. Already deep into the writing process for what will be the series’ final season when the Black Lives Matter protests kicked into high gear last summer, the creative team (as star Terry Crews told Access Daily in late June), made the decision to scrap the four episodes of Season 8 they had already broken in order to start a new story from scratch. Unsurprisingly, this is a sentiment that showrunner Dan Goor, along with the rest of the creative team behind B99, both empathized with and anticipated. I can’t speak for every longstanding Brooklyn Nine-Nine fan out there, but even in the darkest moments of the winter surge, the very last thing I wanted to do was queue up Jake Peralta’s Greatest Hits. The conditions in our actual timeline being, of course, the murder of George Floyd, the righteous anti-police protest movement of mid-to-late 2020, and the damning sea of copaganda all those goofs, gags and mutually supportive hangs were swimming around in.
Full of warmhearted goofs, silly running gags, and the kind of mutually supportive workplace friend group that just about everyone in the world has either been too socially isolated (working from home) or too hazardously harried (working on the pandemic front lines) to be able to enjoy IRL since March of 2020, the NBC ( née FOX) comedy could well have been a binge-y balm during some truly dark times.Ĭould have been. Title of my sex tape.”īrooklyn Nine-Nine‘s Season 7 finale, which featured the arrival of the #Peraltiago baby, aired April 23 of last year.Īre you looking forward to Brooklyn Nine-Nine‘s farewell run? Drop your Season 8 wish lists in a comment below.In another timeline, I imagine a lot more of us would have spent our pandemic winter mainlining Brooklyn Nine-Nine.
I know some people will be disappointed it’s ending so soon, but honestly, I’m grateful it lasted this long. At the time, executive producer Dan Goor released a statement, which read in part: “I’m so thankful to NBC and Universal Television for allowing us to give these characters and our fans the ending they deserve… Ending the show was a difficult decision, but ultimately, we felt it was the best way to honor the characters, the story and our viewers.
NBC announced in February that B99 would wrap its death-defying run with a shortened eighth season. Soon after, Andy Samberg confirmed that the series was “taking a step back,” as the cast, writers and producers contemplated “how you make a comedy show about police right now.”
“Jake and the squad must try to balance their personal lives and their professional lives over the course of a very difficult year.”īrooklyn‘s 10-episode sendoff was delayed when the first four scripts were scrapped in light of last summer’s nationwide protests against police violence, following the horrifying murder of George Floyd.