“The Honeypot”
Original Airdate: February 21, 2019
Now that Gina is officially gone, it’s time for Holt to choose a new assistant and it’s a struggle. After hiring and firing three assistants in three days, Jake steps in and offers to find Holt someone great. Sure enough, Jake quickly finds Gordon Lundt, who has recently moved from Philadelphia, where he worked as an assistant in a precinct. He looks perfect on paper and even better, he has the exact same personality as Holt: super serious and straight to business. Holt doesn’t like him from the start, and is convinced that Gordon is flirting with him, and feels it’s inappropriate.
Jake doesn’t see it, but agrees to look into Gordon and actually check his references (not realizing that he should have done that before hiring him). It doesn’t take long for Jake to discover that Gordon lied on his resume. He never worked in Philadelphia, and in fact, he actually works for Commissioner Kelly! Jake determines Gordon is a spy who has been sent to the Nine-Nine to discover what Holt is up to. Now that they know, Jake and Holt hatch a plan to uncover evidence against Gordon and Commissioner Kelly.
Meanwhile, Terry, Rosa, and Charles enlist Amy’s help to declutter the Nine-Nine, which has been a mess since Commissioner Kelly closed the first floor and all the uniformed officers had to move into the bullpen. Amy pulls out all sorts of organizational tricks to try and whip everyone into shape. First, she tries to Marie Kondo the office, but it doesn’t work well because Terry and Boyle insist everything on and in their desks brings them joy and they can’t part with anything. Hitchcock and Scully have the opposite reaction and try to throw out all their paperwork, because it does not bring them joy.
Next, Amy tells the team about the Norwegian organizational art of “Munkensmat,” where you get rid of all personal possessions except one. Then, you incinerate all of them. Amy leads the purge, and even convinces Boyle and Terry to join in, despite the fact that they have more personal clutter than anyone else. Terry has a difficult time parting with a fancy pair of suspenders still in the box, and Boyle has a hard time parting with, well, everything, including his great-grandfather’s shoes and eight framed photos of his father.
Meanwhile, Holt agrees to accompany Gordon to the Barrel Making Exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum of Industry so Jake can snoop on Gordon’s laptop and look for email exchanges between him and Commissioner Kelly. A thoroughly ruffled Holt returns hours later, relaying all the subtle ways Gordon flirted with him while they were there. Jake still can’t believe a lengthy discussion on barrels is what passes as flirting in Holt’s mind, and much to Holt’s dismay, it seems it was all for naught anyway, because Jake couldn’t find anything on Gordon’s laptop.
But just then, Gordon comes in and admits that he was sent to spy on Holt by Commissioner Kelly, but has had a change of heart. He tells Holt he’s fallen in love with him and just can’t bring himself to spy on him any longer because he cares too much. Jake decides they can use this to their advantage and “double dragon” Kelly. He asks Gordon if he’d be willing to turn double agent. If they can stage a meeting between Gordon and Kelly where Kelly admits all the dastardly things he’s been up to since taking office, they’ll have the proof they need to go to the mayor.
Gordon readily agrees, saying he’d do anything for Holt, and meets up with Kelly at a cafe. But Gordon triple crosses them! As soon as he gets to the cafe, Gordon tells Kelly that Holt asked him to wear a wire and spy on Kelly, and that Jake and Holt are sitting in a surveillance van right now wearing terrible mustaches as disguises. Holt and Jake rush in and Kelly threatens to go to the mayor with this if Holt doesn’t resign. But Holt has a trick or two up his sleeve. He tells them he knew Gordon would “triple dragon” them and was prepared. He set up multiple recorders and cameras in the cafe before the meeting and says he will show the mayor these tapes which clearly show Kelly and Gordon plotting and threatening him unless Kelly agrees to Holt’s demands. Holt then demands that Kelly re-open the first floor of the Nine-Nine and allow the uniformed officers to clear out of the bullpen.
Between Holt’s win with Kelly and Amy’s Munkensmatting, the bullpen is looking incredible. Amy asks Terry if she can take a photo of his desk to submit to “Organizer’s Quarterly.” He begrudgingly agrees but when she says she’ll need the drawers open too, he freaks out. She pulls one of the drawers open and discovers that Terry didn’t Munkensmat his fancy suspenders after all! He finally confesses that he just couldn’t do it because he bought them the day of his lieutenant’s exam. He failed the exam and could never bring himself to wear the suspenders, but part of him still hopes that one day he will earn the right to wear them. Amy relents and admits that Munkensmat is stupid, and even buys Terry a bunch of study materials so next time he takes the exam he’ll ace it.
Bullets on the Bulletin Board:
- “You don’t have to turn everything into a Thomas Cruise film.”
- “Do what I do: embrace the mess.” “You have a bagel stuck to your sweater.”
“He Said, She Said”
Original Airdate: February 28, 2019
But Amy convinces Carrie to press charges anyway, and says they will find evidence, she’s sure of it. Carrie hesitantly agrees. When Rosa finds out what Amy did, she completely disagrees with Amy, which shocks Amy, who thought Rosa would have her back on this. Amy says that Carrie’s courage will get other women who might have been sexually harassed or assaulted by Seth to come forward, too. But Rosa says she’s a realist and it’s Amy’s job to put this victim’s needs first. Even if they can find evidence, winning at trial is a long-shot and meanwhile, Carrie is out the settlement money and probably a job by the end of it, not to mention having her whole life torn apart. Rosa says Amy needs to think about the victim right in front of her and her needs, rather than hoping this will be the case that changes the world.
Next, Amy and Jake pay a visit the finance firm, where they interview all of the employees to try to get someone on the record about Seth and establish a pattern of behavior. Everyone has the exact same thing to say, though: that the office is “extremely professional” and Seth is “a really good guy.” The boss also tells them that the $2.5 million settlement is now null and void and they’ve terminated Carrie.
This makes Amy dive into the case even more than before, and after working for three days straight and not coming home, Jake starts to worry. He reminds her that sometimes the evidence just isn’t there for some cases. Amy finally admits that this isn’t just any case for her. When she was a rookie, her mentor and boss helped her get detective, but as soon as she did, he took her to dinner and tried to kiss her, telling her that after making her career for her, he deserved something in return. She ran out and the next day put in her transfer request for the Nine-Nine. She never told anyone because she was afraid he would sabotage her career if she told. So this case hits really close to home for her. Jake tells her they’ll find the evidence they need and they get to work again.
Meanwhile, Charles and Terry bring Captain Holt news that Ernest Zumowski, a.k.a. The Disco Strangler, a serial killer who terrorized New York City for six years in the 1970s, has died. Holt is the one who brought him to justice and ended his reign of terror, and everyone in the Nine-Nine has heard the story a thousand times. Holt asks Terry and Charles how Zumowski died and they tell him he was on a prison transport van which burst into flames and he burned to death. After hearing this gruesome tale, Holt is convinced that the octogenarian criminal escaped and staged his death. Terry and Charles are convinced Holt is just trying to relive his glory days and isn’t able to admit that the most notorious criminal he ever put away is dead, but they follow Holt on his hunt anyway.
First, they pay a visit to the medical examiner’s office. The ME tells them he couldn’t match any dental records because Zumowski didn’t have any teeth left (because he was so old). Holt demands to know why the burned body is five centimeters shorter than Zumowski’s record says he is, and the ME has an answer for that too (old people tend to shrink a bit as they age). Next, Holt demands to know about the yo-yo string that was discovered in the wreckage. This was, after all, the Disco Strangler’s preferred method of strangulation and Holt is convinced that it was left to taunt him.
The ME can’t speak to that, so they pay a visit to the woman who was driving the transport vehicle. Even though she barely survived the crash and is covered in burns, Holt has no mercy. He’s convinced that she was seduced by the Disco Strangler and helped him escape and stage his death. Terry and Charles are horrified by how unmercifully he interrogates her, but she convinces them she doesn’t know anything and Zumowski truly did die in the crash. Deflated, Holt returns to the precinct and admits he was having a hard time letting go. But just then a fax comes through and it’s an aerial photo from a highway camera that clearly shows the Disco Strangler. He’s alive!
Holt, Terry, and Charles lead a huge manhunt and tell all the dozens of officers not to underestimate this guy, or to be lured into a false sense of security by his elderly appearance. He’s a wily killer and won’t hesitate to take them all down! They corner him in the city and re-arrest him, though Holt’s big moment of confrontation is rather anticlimactic for him since Zumowski is deaf and can’t even hear Holt’s taunts. But at least they’ve gotten a dangerous criminal off the streets, and it turns out the transport driver did help him escape after all. Holt is vindicated!
Back at the Nine-Nine, Amy and Jake finally have an employee who gives them the evidence they need: a group text that outlines exactly what happened that night and where Seth admits he assaulted Carrie. This employee comes forward not because he’s interested in doing the right thing, but because he knows if Seth gets fired then he’ll get his job, which would be a great promotion for him. They’re able to arrest Seth, and Carrie gets her job back. But when they go to follow up with her, they find that she’s packing up her things anyway. She tells them she’s just quit. The whole atmosphere has changed and everyone at the firm looks at her as either a traitor or a victim. She’s being left out of team outings and activities, and it’ll only be a matter of time before that means she starts being looked over for opportunities and promotions. She tells Amy that despite this, she’s still glad she pressed charges and that Seth got fired. She feels good knowing she did the right thing.
When Jake and Amy return to the precinct, Rosa has something to tell them. It seems Carrie wasn’t the only woman Seth harassed, and another victim has found the courage to come forward, just like Amy hoped would happen. Rosa tells Amy she was right after all, and that “two steps forward, one step back is still one step forward.”
Bullets on the Bulletin Board:
- “You can never watch too much DuckTales. It’s my dream to have a gold coin pool.”
- “You’re lying! You’ve succumbed to his groovy voodoo!”
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