Tuesday, September 20, 2016

Brooklyn Nine-Nine 4x01 Recap: “Season Premiere -- Coral Palms Pt.1” (Greg and Larry Go Viral) [Contributor: Alisa Williams]


“Season Premiere - Coral Palms Pt.1”
Original Airdate: September 20, 2016

In the season premiere of Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Jake and Holt are still living undercover as Greg and Larry in Coral Palms, Florida, hiding out from Figgis “The Butcher,” who has threatened to kill them for bringing down his crime organization last season. It’s been six months and they’re both making the most of it. Neither Jake nor Holt (or should I say Larry and Greg) are what you’d call very adaptable, so six months in Florida hasn’t exactly been a cakewalk.

On the outside, Holt (a.k.a Greg) is taking things in stride. He has a power walking group with the little old ladies on the block, is getting in on local gossip and doing a terrible job at pretending to be straight. He’s moving up the corporate ladder, so to speak, aiming for Assistant Manager of Frank’s Fun Zone, a Chuck E. Cheese-esque establishment.

Jake (a.k.a. Larry) isn’t doing quite as well. Apparently, he’s been depressed and the highlight of his six months has been sobbing in his hot tub while eating a soggy burrito. But things are looking up – he’s recently started selling ATVs. He’s also rocking some unfortunate highlights, reminiscent of Justin Timberlake’s 'do, circa the early-2000s.

As part of being in witness protection, Jake and Holt must meet regularly with U.S. Marshal Karen Haas, played with epic hilarity by Maya Rudolph. She asks them the standard questions: have they been in contact with anyone from their past life, has anyone questioned their identities. (The answers to both are no.) She’s also a fan of pop quizzes to makes sure they’ve fully embraced their alter egos. Naturally, Holt passes these quizzes with flying colors. Jake, not so much. Haas informs them that the Marshals conducted a raid on a warehouse where they thought Figgis was hiding out, but their intel was completely wrong, he was never there, and Jake and Holt will continue to stay in Florida indefinitely.

After their meeting with Marshal Haas, Jake plays it off like he’s totally fine with staying in Coral Palms indefinitely, but then sneaks off to a storage facility where he’s been secretly going over files on Figgis, trying to locate him. Holt follows, steals his files and then confronts him. Jake never had a job selling ATVs – it was all a lie so he could sneak off each day. After an angry blowup, where Holt’s mad that Jake is endangering their lives and Jake’s mad that Holt is seemingly content with their banal and humid existence, Jake says fine, he’ll get a real job and make the most of Florida. But he’s not done exacting his revenge on Holt – he swoops in and takes the Assistant Manager job at Frank’s Fun Zone that Holt had his eye on.

Jake vows to make Holt’s life as miserable as possible until he relinquishes the Figgis file. Holt refuses and is subjected to all of the worst chores Jake can think of. Jake also steals Holt’s walking group. As they’re arguing about this in the middle of a go-kart course, Holt is suddenly run over by said go-kart. Unfortunately for them, a woman catches the whole thing on video and says she’s going to post it on the internet, which would be a very bad thing since they have a killer hunting them. Just as Jake’s about to make his way toward her, he gets hit by a go-cart too. The lady catches this on camera as well and then takes off.

Now the hunt begins to find the woman before she can post the video. After a couple failed leads, they are able to track down the high school she went to by the class ring she was wearing. Jake poses as an exterminator to gain access to the high school, which proves quite easy since the school has a legitimate snake problem that needs to be dealt with. While Jake takes care of a very real snake infestation, Holt sneaks in and downloads alumni information.

They get the lady’s address and go to reason with her. She hasn’t uploaded the video yet because she ran out of data but she’s planning to post it tomorrow. She’s hoping to make $10,000 off of the video and buy herself a nice, mid-range tanning bed. Jake offers to give her the money in exchange for the video. They agree to $15,000 and make the exchange at Frank’s Fun Zone. Jake, who doesn’t have access to that kind of money, tries to trick her by wrapping gift certificates up with a few $20 bills. She catches on but he grabs the phone, is promptly tackled by one of the friends she brought with her, but manages to switch the phones anyway without them noticing. After the woman and her friends are gone, Holt – who doesn’t realize Jake successfully switched the phones during the scuffle – yells at Jake for bungling the mission and endangering their lives again, saying he wants nothing to do with Jake anymore. Jake hands him the phone with the video on it and stalks off, saying he’ll never bother Holt again.

Jake quits the Assistant Manager position and Holt gets promoted. But Holt quickly realizes that this isn’t what he wants – he misses working cases with Jake, misses the excitement, and their real lives. He apologizes to Jake and hatches a plan: instead of destroying the video, they’ll post it themselves, Figgis will see it and come after them, and they’ll be able to take him down. The episode ends with them uploading the video. We’ll have to wait until next week to see how it all turns out!

Bullets on the Bulletin Board:
  • “As you know, I’ve been here for four months, and I think I’m a model employee.” “Oh, no doubt, no doubt. You had the idea to install sinks in the bathrooms. I loved that.”
  • “Larry, what’s your favorite movie?” “Uh, Diehard.” “WRONG.” “Jake’s favorite movie is Diehard. I asked you for Larry’s favorite movie.” “Two people can have the same favorite movie.” “They can. But they don’t. Larry’s favorite movie is Failure to Launch. Say it. Say, ‘my favorite movie is Failure to Launch.’” 
  • “How did you get here so fast? You were walking!” “I was power walking.” 
  • “I have to get out. This town’s claim to fame is that its mayors keep dying and no one knows why.”
  • “How did you even get this job? You have zero experience. I guess you lied on your resume.” “OF COURSE I lied on my resume. Our entire lives are a lie. I straight up said I was that guy who landed the plane on the Hudson.” 
  • “I don’t care about you. A great viral video like that could fetch me ten grand, and do you know what type of tanning bed I could get for that kind of money? A mid-range one.” “Not necessary. Your tan is great as is. You look like… an evenly stained deck.”
  • “These machines are death traps. If you purchase one, you will be maimed.” “You won’t be maimed! Most of the injuries are internal.”

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