Wednesday, March 2, 2016

Brooklyn Nine-Nine 3x18 Recap: “Cheddar” (Operation Dog-Sitting and Boyle-Watching) [Contributor: Alisa Williams]

“Cheddar”
Original Airdate: March 1, 2016

This week’s episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine begins with Jake learning he received an inheritance from his late uncle. Unfortunately, it’s one million shares of Blockbuster stock. Poor Jake. The odds are never in his favor.

Captain Holt has a trip planned to visit his boyfriend, Kevin, in Paris, but is afraid he’ll have to cancel because his trusted dog-sitter is sick. Jake volunteers to dog sit with Amy. They’re also supposed to babysit Boyle who is about to undergo laser eye surgery. Personally, I wouldn’t trust Jake and Amy to babysit a goldfish, so having them watch both a precious pup and a bumbling Boyle bodes trouble.

Fortunately for Amy, Captain Holt left a gigantic binder full of instructions on how to take care of his dog, Cheddar. Unfortunately for Amy, Cheddar shows no respect for the binder or the instructions contained within. When Jake arrives at Captain Holt’s house with a temporarily blind Boyle in tow, he finds Amy wrestling a cashmere sweater away from Cheddar, her allergies in full gear, and the house in a state of utter destruction.

In the midst of all the chaos, Jake and Boyle leave the front door open and when Cheddar is done “turning a turtleneck sweater into a regular-necked sweater,” he promptly escapes. Amy and Jake don’t notice though because Boyle has managed to set himself on fire by standing too close to the space heater that’s been set up because the furnace is broken.

Captain Holt gets a call from his security company when the smoke alarm goes off and calls Jake to say he’s cancelling his trip and is on his way back home from the airport immediately. Jake sends Gina to pick him up and delay his trip home. Gina borrows Jake’s car and promptly wrecks it to prevent them from getting home.

Jake calls in the rest of the Nine-Nine as reinforcements to help find Cheddar before Holt gets back. Hitchcock and Scully promptly eat all the dog treats, Boyle is rendered useless because of his eye surgery, and Rosa and Adrian Pimento have some weird and creepy flirtation going on that is distracting them from the case at hand.

Boyle is angry that Jake and Amy tell him to wait in the car so he wanders off, convinced he can find Cheddar without sight now that his other senses are heightened. Unfortunately, the only thing he manages to find is an opossum and possibly rabies.

Meanwhile, Gina has done everything in her power to delay the trip back home. She ran over parking garage spikes that slashed all of the tires on Jake’s car. Just when those were about to be fixed by the mechanic, she ripped out a bunch of random wires from under the hood. Holt is sure something’s going on, but doesn’t seem to realize it’s anything more than Gina being weird. If I were him, I would have taken a taxi by now, but that’s just me.

As Jake and the team reconvene at Holt’s house after a failed afternoon of searching for Cheddar, Boyle voices the best option they have: to all dress up in Holt’s clothing and wander the neighborhood, hoping Cheddar is lured out by Holt’s scent. “Everyone, prepare to enter high society,” Jake says while donning Holt’s burgundy velvet smoking jacket (Holt would have a smoking jacket).

Unfortunately, even after Gina ripped out all the wires in Jake’s car, it still works and she and Holt arrive at his house just in time to see the team strolling out, all dressed in Holt’s clothes. Holt immediately knows they lost Cheddar (because why else would they have raided his wardrobe).

After consulting the binder one last time, Jake and Amy realize that Cheddar has been missing Kevin too, and they find him at the park where Kevin used to take him on walks. Once Holt is reunited with Cheddar he admits that he and Kevin have been having a hard time being long distance and part of him was afraid to go to Paris. But realizing how much both he and Cheddar miss Kevin, he knows it’s the right thing to do.

I thought this was a cute episode, with the whole team banding together to locate Cheddar. I am still not loving Adrian Pimento, though. He is so super creepy and this weird thing he and Rosa have going on is not hilarious or even slightly amusing — it’s downright unhealthy and un-humorous. Unfortunately, it looks like he’ll be sticking around for a while.

Bullets on the Bulletin Board:
  • “He was so rich he had a whole room in his house just to eat in.” “You mean like a dining room?” “Yeah. But in Manhattan.” “Oh, dang!”
  • “This is horrible! We aren’t ready for this! This is a Level One responsibility. I’m a Level Two! And you’re not even a level!”
  • “I have got to stop living my life out loud.”

2 comments:

  1. RE: the opening 'inheritance' bit - it simply fell flat for me :P *insert toilet flushing here* (hehe)

    ...that is, after Jake (aka the show's writers et al.) had already exposed the punchline back in S01E21:

    If you notice, in S03E18 after 'Tiny' Terry states the 1 Million shares 'inherited' by Jake are for "Blockbuster Video stock" - whereby afterwards we are left to be made to believe Jake is apparently 'unknowingly surprised' via proclaiming to question: "What? Is that bad? I still have a Blockbuster card. WHAT HAPPENED TO BLOCKBUSTER?"

    Yet, previously in S01E21 while apparently under clear faculties, and of sober mind - Jake is talking with Terry about 'de-unsolving' a cold case: "Case 52ABX-32QJ", using the argument he and Terry are 'better detectives now', stating: "We're smarter. Computers are faster. No more Blockbuster. Drones."

    Thusly, Jake had already answered his own futuristic question of 'what happened to Blockbuster' vise-a-vie his own past statement of fact that true as it was then, and still is true now - there is 'no more blockbuster'. BOO-URNS!! :-D (haha)

    (_8(|) D'OH! Comedy fail! :-P

    From here - I won't speculate whether the writer's are trying to convey some kind of subtext w.r.t to Jake's memory and/or state of health, nor more than believe they are trying to unwittingly recycle jokes aimed at the lowest common denominator within the viewing audience (while picking on poor Blockbuster over n over) - Right guys? ;-)

    PS: LOVE the 9-9! So, Please keep up the great work with some new jokes :-P Cheers!

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    1. PPS: *Full Disclosure - I live in 'suburban Ottawa,' Canada, and as a matter of fact: YES! ...we Absolutely Do have Pizza here in Canada :-P TYVM Jake (and Not just our deliciously sweet "Manitoba sauce cake" :-D Yum!).

      ...and of course: Charles would be more than welcome to come here and start a National Capital-based pizza blog :-) He can even exchange links my poutine blog :-P haha

      WHAAAAaaaa! The Trash Heap has spooooo-ken ;-)

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