Characters / Brooklyn Nine-Nine: Jake Peralta

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Main Characters (Jake Peralta, Raymond Holt) | Other Government Employees | Family Members | Other Characters

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Det. Jacob Jeffrey "Jake" Peralta

Played By: Andy Samberg, Miles Platt (child), Benjamin Steinberg (teenager)

"Eyes closed, head first, can't lose!"

A cocky, arrogant and immature but talented NYPD detective stationed in Brooklyn's 99th Precinct. Although extremely capable, he refuses to take his job seriously. His disdain for the rules and authority figures and his drive to single-handedly prove his superiority to everyone around him brings him into immediate conflict with his new commanding officer.

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• '90s Hair: He sports some questionable looks in Flashback scenes, and one part of his disguise during his brief Florida exile were some really chunky frosted tips.
• All Love Is Unrequited:
  • The Season 2 premiere sets Peralta up to be this towards Santiago. Unlike many cases, however, although he initially attempts to deny he ever felt anything for her and has no desire to ruin her relationship, he eventually decides to be open and forthright about it with her. It's also implied that Santiago is not entirely unreceptive to his feelings, since when he tried to deny them she was clearly a bit disappointed about it.
  • Santiago is confirmed to at least have had feelings for him in the past, when Jake had moved on. As of Season 3, this trope is no longer in effect, when the two begin dating. And definitely no longer in effect by the end of Season 5, when the two become Happily Married.
• Always Late: Jake's tendency to show up late for work puts him in conflict with Captain Holt, on top of his goofy attitude and lack of maturity. While the fact that he is such a good detective stops him from getting fired, Holt points out these tendencies could keep him from advancing in his career.
  Jake: [runs in] I'm here! I'm here, I'm here. You can start the meeting now.
• Ambiguously Bi:
  • Jake asks Holt's art teacher out in "The Wednesday Incident", although it's not made clear whether it's a serious proposal. Given that both times Jake asked someone out, male or female, was after they'd revealed that Holt had vented at length about him, he could also be trying to make friends and give them his version of events.
  • He also has no qualms about kissing Holt to escape jail in Florida and confesses to Santiago that Holt has really soft lips.
  • The way he looks at his former partner Stevie Schillens isn't much different from how he often looks at Amy.
  • Additionally, he gets very into roleplaying Rosa coming out to her parents in "Game Night." And in that same episode, he calls a male perp hot.
  • In "DFW", he's quick to claim that of Amy's seven brothers, Tony has the best body, after Amy hesitates to respond.
    Jake: Tony, right? It's very clearly Tony, I don't know why she hesitated. Tony got bod!
  • He has a Stupid Sexy Flanders moment with the two Swedish cops:
    Jake: [...] Awful, for sure... All tall and beautiful...
  • Cites "Hard boobs on both men and women" as a positive of the The Fast and the Furious movies.
  • The first three episodes of the sixth season each see him comment on men being hot. In "The Tattler", he's shown having behaved as though he had a crush around a male high school classmate.
  • In "A Tale of Two Bandits", he says that he and Doug Judy look like "the hot twins from The Matrix" while wearing dreadlock wigs.
  • In "The Golden Child", Jake gets captured by a bunch of Brazilian mobsters because he was Distracted by the Sexy.
    Jake: [to a male mobster] My God, you're even more stunning up close.
• Ambiguously Jewish: In the first season, at least; it's heavily implied that he's half-Jewish on his mother's side, but he's not actually confirmed as Jewish until "Charges and Specs" (the last episode of Season 1), where we cut to a scene at his Bar Mitzvah.
• AM/FM Characterization: He's really fond of Taylor Swift's music, as well as music from various other female pop stars, showing that he's In Touch with His Feminine Side.
• Angst? What Angst?: Deliberately Invoked by him. His preferred method of dealing with negative emotions is to, in his own words, "repress the hell out of them." He also applies this to his friends, as whenever they're going through something, his go-to response is to try and distract them and take their minds off of it.
• Bad Impressionists: Played for laughs; Peralta prides himself on his spot-on impression of Holt, but this is pretty much limited to barking "Peralta, that's enough!" in a slightly stern voice. Gina seems to like it, though:
  Gina: Captain Holt, is that you? No, wait — it's Jake, nailing your voice exactly.
  Jake: Right? The trick is to find a key phrase you know exactly how he'd say. Mine is, "Peralta, that's enough!"
  Gina: Seriously, Jake, this is getting scary.
  • In Season 3, Amy also seems to like Jake's impression of Holt, although this is implied to be less to do with quality and more to do with Amy's infatuation with Holt:
    Amy: [slightly seductively] If you ever want to bust out that Holt impression at home... I'd be okay with that.
    Jake: [surprised] Oh! Okay. Duly noted. Super disturbing, but I'm definitely gonna do it!
  • That said, he actually does a spot on impression of Gina in season 2 and later he is trained to impersonate Kevin in a later season.
• Bad Liar: For a police officer, he's surprisingly terrible at bluffing, especially people he knows in real life.
• Beware the Silly Ones: As mentioned above, in "Old School", Peralta punches out his former "hero" for derisively calling Holt a "homo."
• Big Brother Instinct: He cares about his half-sister Kate a lot.
• Big Ego, Hidden Depths: Lampshaded, so far.
  Jake: Humility over! I'm amazing!
• Birds of a Feather: He and Amy, for all that they appear to be an Odd Couple, are actually more alike than they are different. They're both highly intelligent, competent, and driven detectives with a serious competitive streak, who enjoy stroking their own egos, who are nonetheless still both strongly compassionate. They're both Pop Cultured Badasses, with Jake favoring movies and TV with Amy favoring books. And they're also both surprisingly immature: While Amy is more organized, she still has a childish need for constant approval from her superiors and has difficulty standing up for herself, while Jake tends to hide his need for approval while still quietly basking in and benefiting from it.
• Blood Knight: Whenever he realizes he got himself involved with or targeted by violent criminals (armed robbers, serial killers, mobsters, etc), his first reaction is sheer excitement.
  Terry: I guess... someone's trying to kill him.
  Jake: That's right, someone's trying to kill him. Whoo! [gets stares] I mean, a man's life is in danger. Probably shouldn't be so pumped.
• Book Dumb: He's only read fifteen books in his lifetime, is very bad at basic math, and his spelling and penmanship leave much to be desired.
• Breaking the Cycle of Bad Parenting: Jake's dad walked out on his family when Jake was just a child (and has at least four illegitimate children whose lives he is also generally absent from), his grandfather was emotionally abusive to Jake's father, his great-grandfather abandoned his grandfather at a fair, and his great-great-great-grandfather was apparently bad enough that his great-great-grandfather murdered him then fled to America. Season 8 has Jake trying his damnedest to be a present and attentive father to his newborn son, Mac. By the series finale, he decides to retire altogether to be a househusband so that he can focus on raising Mac.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: Whenever he has to do any actual paperwork far from the action, or soldier through a "slump", he's in agony. But in truth, he's one of, if not the best detective in the precinct when he wants to be and can solve cases thought to be cold that have been open for years. Even Amy admits Jake is just as smart as her (specifically, in "The Puzzle Master"), if not smarter, but as indicated by this trope, he often doesn't apply himself and hides his intelligence beneath his goofy exterior. If he wanted it and applied himself, he could've easily been at least a Lieutenant by now, but he's happy doing what he does.
• Broken Pedestal: Poor Jake seems doomed to discover that every man he idolized before Captain Holt is an irredeemable jerk:
  • In "Old School", he's is initially thrilled to meet his idol, reporter Jimmy Brogan, who wrote a true crime novel about 1970s New York cops that inspired Peralta to become a cop. He gradually becomes disillusioned with Brogan's ways until he eventually punches Brogan after Brogan makes a homophobic slur about Captain Holt.
  • In "Captain Peralta", Jake is aware of, but glosses over all of his father's flaws, being excited to spend time with him. Even when he realizes his dad is only visiting to ask for a favor, he remains desperate to win his dad's approval. By the end of the episode, he finally acknowledges that his dad was never a good father, and is willing to tell him so.
  • In "The 9-8", Jake discovers that his first partner on the force, Stevie, to whom he was very close, has a habit of planting evidence on suspects he "knows" to be guilty if he can't prove it legitimately.
  • Gender-flipped. In Season 4, he finds out that Lt. Hawkins, a cop that he idolized, is behind the bank robberies he and Rosa are investigating and addicted to cocaine.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Magnificent at crime-solving, but it comes so naturally to him that he doesn't have the patience to actually work through cases when he isn't instantly successful. He tends to goof off and play around at work, particularly reenacting his many favorite cop films. He gets over this in later seasons, though he is still goofy as hell.
• Butt-Monkey: His co-workers tend to make him into this sometimes by blaming him for things that aren't actually his fault. And surprisingly for his character, he usually just accepts this as true and tries to fix the mistake. For example, in "Ava", both Terry and his wife continually get angry at Jake for everything going wrong whilst she's giving birth, even though he is literally the only character taking things seriously and trying to help her. His response to the criticism is to just work harder.
• Cannot Spit It Out: For most of the first season, Peralta has this regarding his feelings towards Santiago; in "The Bet" Boyle likens his childish trolling of her to a fourth-grader who pulls the pigtails of the girl he has a crush on because he doesn't know how else to express what he truly feels, and in "Operation: Broken Feather" he gets very closed-off and cagey when Santiago presses him about the real reasons that he's so vehemently opposed to her accepting a promotion to the Major Crimes Unit. Does spit it out right before he goes undercover in "Charges and Specs".
• Can't Hold His Liquor: Possibly implied in "Old School" after an epic evening of drinking with 'old school' reporter Jimmy Brogan. His increasingly incoherent drunken texts to Santiago suggest that he finds hard liquor a bit difficult to cope with, and the next morning he's a shattered hungover wreck for hours.
• Casual Kink: Jake is turned on by his partner being mean to him (as seen in HalloVeen), and being physically hurt/dominated by them, as seen in The Puzzle Master. Both times, he's very appreciative of his partner doing it to him and asks them to do it more/harder. He also referred to Sophia's code word "Jericho" as a safe word in The Road Trip, so he knows at least that part of the terminology. He also says as a joke: "Oooh, 'tied to my desk'. Mr. Grey will see you now, Sarge."
• Character Catchphrase:
  • He has a tendency to refer to things he finds brilliantly practical as "smort." (Not "smart", "smort.")
  • He also tends to pronounce "Nice" as "Noice."
  • "Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool..." comes up a lot. Especially when he's nervous or stressed out.
  • "No doubt, no doubt, no doubt, no doubt, no doubt."
  • "Sweet. Sweet, sweet, sweet."
  • Often follows an Accidental Innuendo (from himself or others) with "... title of your sex tape."
• Celebrity Paradox: Spider-Man was referenced a few times in the show, with Jake even making a Spider-Man reference himself. Andy Samberg voiced Ben Reilly/Scarlet Spider in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.
• Character Development: Over the course of the series, he becomes more responsible, well-read, and considerate of others, as well as a team player.
• Character Tics: Bites his lower lip a lot, especially when nervous.
• The Chessmaster: In "HalloVeen". This is ironic, considering his chess experience comes from learning how to shoot chess pieces with a BB gun. He doesn't even know how the pieces move.
• Chick Magnet: Has attracted the attention of Dr. Rossi, Amy, Sophia Perez and Debbie over the course of the series. Both Amy and Debbie were attracted to him while he was already with someone else. Amy herself was with Teddy at the point when she started realising she may have been attracted to Jake.
• Childhood Friends: With Gina. Andy Samberg and Chelsea Peretti are also this in Real Life.
• Cloudcuckoolander: A mild example; he has some very strange ideas about how the world works. Some things like wasps and carwashes? He flat out doesn’t believe exist
  Jake: Is the sky just a big blue hat that the world wears?
  Rosa: No. And no one has ever thought that.
• Consistent Clothing Style: A leather jacket paired with a plaid or plain button-down (usually in cool colors) is his go-to outfit.
• Cowboy Cop: He claims that he doesn't like following the rules. It's played with, however, as several episodes demonstrate that while he wants to be a 1970s-style Cowboy Cop so much, he's actually more by-the-book than he appears and despises the stereotyping that came with the '70s Cowboy Cop detectives.
• Crappy Holidays:
  • Hates Thanksgiving with a passion in the first season. He doesn't want to celebrate, he just wants to eat disgusting food and watch football. He actively badmouths the holiday during the entire Thanksgiving episode. This is down to having miserable memories of them growing up, with his mother being too busy at work and his father having left them.
    Jake: As you all know, I hate Thanksgiving. The Pilgrims were murderers and turkey tastes like napkins.
  • By the Season 5 episode "Two Turkeys", he seems to have gotten over this, and says that he's dreamed of having a big family Thanksgiving someday. He even includes a Thanksgiving turkey and stuffing among his post-prison feast.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: His immaturity, arrogance, disdain for certain police protocols, and slightly out-there personality aside, Peralta is very good at his job, to the point that Terry called him "my best detective." Best shown in the first episode where he is introduced playing around for several minutes at the sight of a crime scene, only to then reveal he'd already solved the case before his partner even got to the scene. Likewise, despite his youthful appearance and average build, he has no problems holding his own and coming out on top in fights.
• Deadpan Snarker: He can never stop himself from snarking even when it's not appropriate.
• Deep Cover Agent: Becomes one for the FBI in "Charges and Specs" in order to take down the Ianucci crime family.
• Defiant Captive: He was one in "Sabotage". He was held at gunpoint, kidnapped, and was Bound and Gagged for half the episode. Him being tied to a chair and held at gunpoint never stopped him from trying to reason out with his captor and making a daring escape.
• Disappeared Dad: His dad walked out when he was a kid. This actually causes a temporary truce with the fire department, as Fire Marshall Boone's dad did the same thing, and is the reason why he's so jittery about Terry getting back in the field — he doesn't want Terry's daughters to grow up without a father. In contrast, Jake is a very devoted father to his son Mac.
• Distracted by the Sexy: In "The Golden Child", he constantly gets distracted by the bodyguards of the Brazilian mob.
• Distressed Dude: He gets into danger more than anyone else in the show, being kidnapped or held at gunpoint by criminals on a regular basis.
• Ditzy Genius: Amy, Holt and Terry have all cited his intelligence and detective skills, he made Detective shockingly quick, and can formulate a plan for almost any situation... yet his penmanship and spelling are awful, his literacy leaves something to be desired and he tends to act before thinking.
• Dreadful Musician: His singing voice goes from decent to terrible when he tries jumping octaves or impersonating specific singers. Invoked as an interrogation tactic where he strums blindly on a guitar and just screams "AAAAAAA" off-key at the suspect, which never actually works.
• Dude, Where's My Respect?: He can come in for a bit of this treatment. While his own immaturity and irreverent behavior don't help matters, the people around him can sometimes look down on him or assume that's all there is to him without considering his tremendous loyalty, competence and determination. For one example, in "Ava", Sgt. Jeffords is driven to panic by the thought of his wife giving birth while under the care of Jake, whereas in fact, Jake was tremendously calm, helpful and supportive, and it was in fact everyone else in the precinct who made things much harder than they had to be.

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• Embarrassing Nickname:
  • It turns out his mob nickname while undercover is "Jake Lady-Hands".
  • His grandmother calls him "Pineapples" and Amy enjoys using it against him.
  • Loses it in "The Tattler" when people from his high school keep calling him the Tattler.
• Eagle-Eye Detection: Jake's success as a detective relies a lot on this. He's very good at noticing when the details fit together and when they don't.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: He retires in the end of the series to be an attentive father to Mac so that the boy doesn't feel neglected missing his father as Jake himself did, with Amy being able to bring much needed police reform to the city.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • He'll snark at everyone, but draws the line at anything genuinely offensive as seen when he punched Jimmy Brogan for calling Captain Holt a "homo" and makes no effort to hide his disgust with a man he questioned who admits to ogling women in a yoga studio.
  • For all his levity with crime scenes, even serious ones, he still tells Charles to knock it off when he sings "if you like piña coladas" in front of a dead body in a flashback in "Full Boyle".
• Evil Counterpart: The Pontiac Bandit aka Doug Judy, who shares his Pop-Cultured Badass and Agent Peacock tendencies and love of Batman Gambits, except in the role of a Lovable Rogue rather than a Cowboy Cop. "Evil" may be stretching it a bit, though, since even when he opposes Jake, he is nothing but amicable towards him. Over time, the two end up becoming good friends, and Judy eventually goes straight.
• Extremely Protective Child: To his mom, Karen, especially when matters of his father are concerned (whom he definitely isn't this to). She lampshades this, saying it's one of the reasons he became a cop (which he denies, but it seems to be true).
• Fair Cop: Peralta is a fairly attractive man who gets a lot of attention from women in-show. He refers to his good looks several times, though it's clear that he's more or less joking.
  Kevin: Because he's gay, Raymond has been put through hell by his colleagues, many of whom, quite frankly, look exactly like you.
  Jake: ...Devastatingly handsome?
• The Fettered: For all Jake's desire to be a Cowboy Cop he is a firm believer in law and order. Likewise Jake has shown on multiple occasions that underneath all his love for his job, he is motivated by a very strong sense of justice, and his zealousness in the pursuit of it is honestly incredible. Jake also really dislikes anything that interferes in justice's path, be it office politics or clever defense lawyers. Jake is always willing to suffer in the pursuit of what is right.
• Fictional Fan, Real Celebrity:
  • Jake's favorite film is Die Hard, which inspired him to become a cop, and he's a big fan of Bruce Willis.
  • He's also a fan of John Wick, presumably for its similarities.
  • Taylor Swift is his favorite artist (and he's required to stay fifty feet away from her), though he tries to claim that it's Jay-Z.
• Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: Surprisingly, considering his general personality, he is the responsible sibling to his half-sister Kate's foolish sibling.
• "Friends" Rent Control: The only reason that Jake can afford to live in the apartment he's in at the start of the series is because it used to belong to his grandma and it was rent-controlled, and she left the rent-controlled apartment to him. He ends up losing it anyway when the building goes co-op and he's unable to get together the money to buy it.
• Freudian Excuse: It's implied a lot of his issues with authority and his Manchild tendencies stem from his Disappeared Dad and the fact that his mother had to work long hours to support them, often leaving him alone for long stretches of time. His mom believes that Jake spent so much of his childhood trying to protect her that he wanted to do the same for the world, though Jake insists it's because of Die Hard.
• Freudian Slip:
  • The aforementioned Freudian Excuse leads to Jake inadvertently blurting out "Thanks, Dad" after Holt briefs him on one of his cases — within earshot of the whole precinct.
  • While trying to ask Amy out in Season 2 and becoming increasingly frustrated by her inattention, he tries to riff on the Running Gag where he takes a mildly suggestive comment of hers out of context and adds "...the name of your sex tape!" Only on this occasion, it comes out as "...the name of our sex tape! [Beat] What?! No!"
  • Season 5 has him telling Holt "I love you, Da— aptain. Daptain. It's the cool new way of saying Captain. It's from the world of hip hop."
  • By Season 8 he doesn't even hide it anymore. When he calls Holt and Kevin his dads, Rosa asks if they are just dispensing with subtext now, which he straight faced admits. He then proceeds to accidentally call Amy his mom, which he quickly acts like he didn't say when she's understandably unhappy.
• Geek Physiques: Jake is noted to be physically weak, due to his terrible diet.
• Genius Ditz: An incredibly competent detective, but has only ever read 15 books and thinks 'coitus' is pronounced 'colitis'.
• Genius Sweet Tooth: His diet is absolutely terrible, consisting mostly of candy. At one point, he eats a "breakfast burrito" that is just a bunch of gummy bears wrapped in a fruit roll.
• Guile Hero: While he has no problems resorting to violence when it’s required, Jake’s go-to tactic when dealing with situations is to rely on charm, persuasion, manipulation and trickery to achieve his goals. This ranges from sweet-talking information out of potential suspects, to using misdirection tactics to force others to show their hand.
• Graceful Loser: In the second Halloween episode, after Holt explains how he beat Peralta in their bet.
• Hairstyle Inertia: Averted for laughs. In a flashback, Jake from eight years ago has Andy Samberg's distinct overgrown curls from 2009.
• Happily Married: To Amy, from the Season 5 finale on.
• Has a Type:
  • As stated by Boyle, Jake's type is "beautiful Latinas", and seems to be especially true for smart, pantsuit-wearing Latinas. In Season 2, Jake briefly dates Sophia, a Latina defense lawyer. At the beginning of Season 3, he begins dating Amy. Averted, however, with Rosa. Even though Rosa is Latina, Jake is simply good friends with her and not attracted to her.
  • He apparently has a fetish for a Hot Librarian... and for the regular kind as well. Which makes his attraction to Amy quite understandable upon reflection.
• Height Angst: No. Definitely not a thing.
  Holt: I didn't realize you had a thing about your height.
  Jake: I don't, because I'm average height. Why would I have a thing about my height when I'm above average? It doesn't make any sense.
• Hell-Bent for Leather: Wears a leather jacket almost all the time.
• Hero with Bad Publicity: As of the Season 4 finale, he's falsely believed to be a Dirty Cop and a bank robber by everyone except the Nine-Nine.
• Hero-Worshipper: For all his irreverence and apparent disrespect, he clearly looks to Holt as a father figure and idol.
• Heroic BSoD: Season 4 ends with him entering one. It's incredibly sobering to see Jake of all people pushed to the point of despair.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: With Charles.
• Hidden Depths:
  • In "The Bet", Boyle suggests that his teasing behavior towards Santiago is concealing genuine feelings for her.
  • It's also been indicated at times that his Manchild behavior is a defense mechanism stemming from a rather sad childhood and lonely adulthood. And for all his goofing off, he's genuinely devoted to being a good cop to the point of almost being The Perfectionist — in "Undercover", he considers his undercover operation a complete failure and is driven to misery because one of the targets got away. To put this in context, there were sixteen targets, and as Boyle, Holt and the FBI point out, Peralta's work directly led to the other fifteen being arrested and convicted.
  • He named a mouse that lived in his desk drawer Algernon.
  • Despite being Book Dumb and his current reputation for being Always Late, he actually had a perfect attendence record in school. He also did a lot of community service back then.
• Honorary Uncle: He's this to Terry's daughters and Boyle's adopted son, all of them calling him uncle Jake. He's also the godfather to Terry's youngest daughter Ava.
• Hyper-Awareness: Downplayed; he can miss things (such as the fact that his Captain was gay, despite an article declaring it being framed on Holt's wall), however, Jake is incredibly observant and often picks up details that the others miss.
• Incorruptible Pure Pureness: In "NutriBoom", Jake refuses a bribe to drop his investigation into NutriBoom, citing his "Big-ass moral compass" before ripping up the check.
• Informed Poverty: Jake is in, to use his own words, "crushing debt" and according to Gina, he has a "debilitating spending problem." Neither of these things ever really seems to impact the show all that much and Jake is still able to live a relatively comfortable life.
• Insufferable Genius: He's arguably the most brilliant detective in the department and doesn't hesitate to toot his own horn about it.
• In Touch with His Feminine Side: Took tap for three years, is a proficient ballroom dancer, likes being the little spoon, once broke his wrist from petting a horse too hard, and his favorite artist is Taylor Swift.
  Peralta: I was detained once by Taylor Swift's security team, but that was a misunderstanding. [dreamily] She's probably gonna write a song about me.
• It's All About Me: Peralta is a good detective, but he has a gigantic ego; he often tries to shut out his team-mates from investigations so he can collect all the glory (which backfires on him in "The Vulture" when his delays in solving a high-profile case due to this create an opening for Major Crimes to seize jurisdiction away from him just before he solves it) or tries to take over if someone else is the primary detective (and if he can't, tends to slack off instead).
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Down to a tee, although the 'jerk' part becomes less applicable as the series goes on and Character Development kicks in. In the first couple of seasons, his arrogant self-absorption, immaturity, and conviction of his own brilliance are balanced with a genuinely friendly, likable and empathetic nature. He's genuinely a very caring friend, if a bit thoughtless at times, and frequently pulls out all the stops to make the people he loves happy. Even if his plans go wrong and he makes things worse for them, he doesn't try to defend himself or pass off the blame as he does with many other things — he just works non-stop to make things right.
• Jewish and Nerdy: He's Jewish from his mother's side and is a movie buff who, in particular, loves Die Hard and Nicolas Cage movies. He's also begun reading Harry Potter when he started dating Amy who's an even bigger nerd than he is.
• Jumped at the Call: He's wanted to be a cop since the first time he saw Die Hard. He never hesitates to volunteer to do anything heroic or cool. Sometimes, he takes it too far and needs to be reminded that life is not an action movie.
• Kansas City Shuffle: Misdirection seems to be Peralta's go-to strategy for his Halloween heists, and overall one of his favourite tactics:
  • In the first year, Jake wins the Halloween bet with Holt by distracting Holt with a series of lame attempts to break into Holt's office while the other detectives worked their way through Holt's security precautions and stole his Medal of Valor.
  • In the second year, he and the rest of the squad make an elaborate attempt to steal Holt's wristwatch to distract Holt from the pickpocket Jake had hired to steal the watch.
  • In the third year, he and Charles distracted Gina with a failed attempt to break into the Interrogation Room so that she wouldn't notice Rosa breaking into the Interrogation Room and stealing the crown.
  • In the fifth year:
    • Jake and Charles have Bill pretend to be Gina, and he claims (as Gina) to have taken the belt and wants them to set up baby toys in exchange for clues. They use this opportunity to get away with the belt themselves.
  • Later, Jake pulls off an AMAZING quadruple-shuffle; he has people dressed as handmaids from The Handmaid's Tale to distract them while he seemingly takes Amy's safe key, where the belt is. In reality, he really had Bill swap out the safe with an identical one, who took the real safe to the evidence locker, extracted the belt, removed a tracker placed on it, hid the belt, and then led everyone else on a wild goose chase via the removed tracker. Then Amy followed Jake to the evidence locker and found the belt quickly, but didn't realize it was his plan all along to have Amy find it, which he altered to say "Amy Santiago, will you marry me?"
  • His plan to steal a phone with an incriminating video in "Coral Palms, Part One" rests upon Jordan Crafton discovering they were trying to pay her in fake money, so that he could switch the phone in the confusion created whilst he seemingly tried to escape.
  • The biggest was the interrogation of Bob Annnderson. When trying to get Bob to turn on Figgis, the detectives attempt several ineffective and downright laughable techniques. It turns out none of them were actually meant to work, they were just buying time for Amy and Charles to set up the Real Stitches for Fake Snitches gambit.
• Keet: He's very energetic and upbeat.
• Like Brother and Sister:
  • More or less has this dynamic with Gina, as they've been friends since childhood. As a result, she's a lot gentler with him than anyone else, and he generally doesn't snark as much at her.
  • To a lesser extent, Rosa. The two have no romantic chemistry and he feels weirded out while briefly pretending to be her boyfriend (though part of it was the surprise and the fact he was engaged to Amy), but he's easily her closest male friend and they have a lot of history working together as they were both in the police academy together.
    Jake: [to Rosa] Yes, this workplace is my family, was that not clear? Holt is my dad, you're my mean older sister...
• Literal-Minded: When he was a beat cop, he used to rap with his former partner.
• Loophole Abuse: In the pilot, Peralta first skirts the "must wear ties" rule by wearing it tied around his torso under his shirt. Later, he puts on the tie but isn't wearing pants.
• Loving Bully: His relentless teasing of Amy in the first season is a manifestation of his crush on her. Boyle likens him directly to a kid pulling a little girl's ponytails because he likes her. Thankfully, Jake grows out of it and just tells her how he feels.
• Magnetic Hero: Implied as backstory. Jake has a special relationship with almost all of the other main characters, and it's this as much as his since-downplayed brilliance as a detective which has made him The Heart of the group in an odd way. In chronological order:
  • He's known Gina since childhood and they grew up in the same neighborhood together.
  • He was at Police Academy with Rosa and they've been close friends ever since.
  • He's BFFs with Charles. Along with Terry, they've all been at the Nine-Nine together since at least 2007.
  • He and Amy were partners and rivals in the year before the series started, began dating in Season 2, and finally got engaged and married in Season 5.
  • He becomes Holt's favorite and pet project, despite their mutual hazing.
  • Surprisingly, Terry takes the longest to come around considering him just a work friend well into Season 2... up until he and Sharon make Jake the godfather to their third daughter Ava in Season 3.
• Madness Mantra: Season 4 ends with him entering a Heroic BSoD, and repeating his usual Catchphrase of "Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool..." over and over again when he and Rosa are found guilty of a crime they did not commit, and are sentenced to fifteen years in prison. You can just see him breaking.
• Malaproper: He tends to mangle common analogies and sayings. However, he often does it on purpose, like saying "tushy" instead of "touché".
• Manchild: Very immature and Book Dumb. Also cracks jokes at the wrong time and teases his co-workers.
• Men Can't Keep House: His desk and locker are extremely messy, and his horrendous spending habits are reflected in his apartment. This is in contrast to Santiago, who's more of a Neat Freak, and Holt, who's a stickler for the rules.
  Holt: Here are two pictures. One is your locker, the other is a garbage dump in the Philippines. Can you tell which... is which?
  Peralta: ...That one's the dump?
  Holt: They're both your locker!
  Peralta: Gah! I should've guessed that. He's good.
• "Metaphor" Is My Middle Name: Jake's middle name is Sherlock. He legally changed it.
• Momma's Boy: Jake is clearly very devoted to and protective of his mother Karen, to the point that he initially scares off his father when they reveal they got back together at Jake's birthday party. When Jake accepts their new relationship, he threatens his father with being imprisoned if he does anything to hurt Karen while hugging him.
• Money Dumb: One of Jake's (many, many) problems with living as an adult is that he loves to spend money on all kinds of unnecessary things such as multiple massage chairs, a DJ table, etc. He also has no idea of how in debt he is because he throws away letters containing that information.
  • According to one episode, he has a credit score of 100 (which he doesn't realize is bad).
• Motor Mouth: Jake tends to run his mouth at inopportune moments, especially when he's nervous or excited about something. Unfortunately, he simultaneously disengages the filter between his brain and his mouth, with predictable (and hilarious) results.
• The Movie Buff: Specifically, cop movies, with his favorite, of course, being Die Hard.
• Must Have Caffeine: Downplayed, but Jake rarely enters the precinct or a crime scene without coffee.
• My Sister Is Off-Limits: He throws his half-sister's ex-boyfriend out of his apartment when he starts forcing her to be in a relationship with him. Justified by the fact that said ex-boyfriend is a horrible person.

N-Y

• Narrating the Obvious: No matter what, Jake seems to think out loud and describe things as they are happening. Being Jake, it actually makes it even funnier.
• Never My Fault: Reflexively blames others when he's at fault. Often he admits to it immediately after (although primarily because it is, in fact, glaringly obvious who is really at fault and the people he's talking to are not complete imbeciles), but his reflex is to shift the blame.
• The Nicknamer: Frequently gives nicknames to people and he's quite good at them, such as calling twelve criminals "The Dirty Dozen". In the cold open from "Boyle's Hunch", Jake makes his entrance spitting rapid-fire nicknames for his new pet tarantula: "I call him Jake Junior, AKA Spidey-Klum, AKA Mrs. Doubtspider, AKA Joe Spiden, AKA Tarantula Basset, AKA Spi-Dermot Mulroney."
• Nightmare Fetishist: Downplayed and played for laughs. He tends to comment that he gets a little aroused by things that he shouldn't.
  Holt: I will slit you both open from mouth to anus and wear you like jackets.
  Peralta: Huh, is it weird that that turned me on a little bit?
• No Social Skills: Peralta is on the "lesser" side of the scale; he can be very charming when he wants to be, but his immaturity and Cloudcuckoolander tendencies frequently get in the way.
• Nostalgia Ain't Like It Used to Be: In Season 1, he has a romanticized view of the old school cops that used to drink, ignore proper procedure, and arrest the criminal with violence if needed. Soon, however, he is faced with what was truly there - Holt explains it was a time of open misogyny, corruption, and brutality where he wouldn't have achieved the rank of captain, nor would Amy or Rosa. The spell is fully broken when the man that is advocating for the "Old School" cops style uses a homophobic slur to talk about Holt.
• Not So Above It All: For all his vocal dislike of everything related to the fire department, he jumps at the chance to have a turn on the fire pole when Fire Marshall Boone offers it to him.
• Odd Couple: He tends to generate this dynamic with his co-workers:
  • With Holt, he's the irreverent young white detective to Holt's stern, serious and experienced African-American captain.
  • With Santiago, he's a childish, laid-back foil to her driven, professional go-getter.
  • With Boyle, he's the cool guy to Boyle's awkward bumbler. Despite this, they're best friends (although Boyle's Yes-Man tendencies towards Peralta no doubt help here).
  • With Diaz, he's the friendly, sociable one while she's... not.
  • With Jeffords, he's a head-in-the-clouds and immature bachelor while Jeffords is a grounded and devoted family man.
• Odd Friendship:
  • He is a friendly, hyperactive goofball while Rosa is a grumpy and aggressive badass. Despite this, they've been close friends ever since their police academy days and have an unshakeable trust in each other.
  • An even greater example of this trope at play is Jake's genuine, mutual friendship with child-murdering cannibal Caleb. Despite the latter's crimes and his repeatedly trying to bite Jake, Jake openly admits to seeing Caleb as a friend.
• Official Couple: He and Amy begin dating at the start of Season 3 and get married in the Season 5 finale, and have a son together by the Season 7 finale.
• Older Than They Look: In Season 4 Episode 17, when the team is at a police convention in Rochester, NY, Boyle tries out an ultrasonic crowd control device that causes intense pain in "anyone under 35". Rosa immediately recoils in agony and puts her hands over her ears, but Peralta and Boyle look at her for a brief moment, baffled, then immediately put their hands over their own ears and talk unconvincingly about how painful it is because they're so young. Therefore, Peralta and Boyle must be 35 or over by Season 4.
• The One That Got Away: In Season 2, he's in his thirties and still obsessed with Jenny Gildenhorn, the girl who dumped him at his Bar Mitzvah. He tries to date her in Season 2 and is unsuccessful.
• Only Sane Man: For all his goofiness, childishness, and immaturity, he takes this role a lot more often than you'd think (which might give you some idea about the general level of sanity operating within the Nine-Nine). Sure, he has some slightly strange ideas about the world, some gaps in his knowledge base, and he's riddled with daddy issues, but he's in many ways a lot less eccentric and a lot more down-to-earth than several of his co-workers, lacking Holt's robotic stoicism, Amy's dorky neuroses, Charles' Creepy Goodness, Rosa's aggressive lack of social skills, Gina's all-consuming narcissism, and Scully and Hitchcock's dimwittedness.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: He is very moody in Episode 20 of Season 5, Justified as Rosa is in a shooting and Jake is scared out of his mind that something happened to her.
  • He also drops all of his silly antics when Amy confides in him about how her previous captain before the Nine-Nine sexually harassed her.
• Pants-Free: In the pilot, Peralta at first resists putting on a tie as Captain Holt asked him. Later, he is seen at a desk in records wearing one, and Holt commends him for it. Then Peralta stands up, revealing that all he has on under his waist is a Speedo. Then Holt calls everyone in to see Peralta's hard work...
• Parental Neglect: His dad abandoned him when he was seven and his mother was forced by this to work more in order to support them both, leaving him alone for long periods of time. Both of which have clearly caused several of his issues.
• Parental Sexuality Squick: Seems to form a lot of his Freudian Excuse, due to his father's relentless cheating on his mother.
• Perpetual Smiler: "Shit-eating grin" is his default expression and it takes a lot to knock it off.
• Pet the Dog: Even early on, when Jake was far more of a Jerk with a Heart of Gold, he was never anything but kind towards Boyle (if sometimes Innocently Insensitive) despite him being, well, Boyle.
• Platonic Life-Partners: With Rosa. They knew each other from the police academy and trust each other completely, yet there is not even a hint of romantic attraction between them.
• Pop-Cultured Badass: He prefers Die Hard, but he'll reference everything from Captain Phillips to Game of Thrones at the slightest opportunity.
• Power Dynamics Kink: He is very into it when Amy acts domineering, which increases when she's promoted to Sergeant. For instance, when she's twisting his thumb around during the Halloween Heist, he asks her to "do it harder".
• Quirky Curls: He's energetic, zany, and fun-loving, and he has the curls to match.
• Running Gag:
  • Jake has a tendency to never finish watching films, and when he brings them up in conversation he often uses the reference wrong or has come to the wrong conclusion on how the film ends.
  • He also brings up several former classmates and teachers in his life in a way that suggests he disliked them or they were mean to him, before admitting that he was actually on pretty good terms with them or he knows what they are up to now and is happy for them.
• Sad Clown: For all his goofiness and laid-back demeanor, Jake is a mess of self-esteem and abandonment issues who deals with emotions by making inappropriate smartass quips.
• Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: The Manly Man to Charles' Sensitive Guy. Jake is cocky, athletic, and wants to be seen as an Action Hero, while Charles is a clingy Extreme Doormat who likes cooking.
• Shutting Up Now: He often finds himself doing that when he makes a quip or drops a one-liner during an otherwise serious moment.
• Significant Wardrobe Shift: Peralta preferred zip-up hoodies and t-shirts towards the start of the series (one flashback showed him in an oversized windbreaker jacket and pants as a younger detective). Holt issues a mandate that all detectives wear ties, which Peralta balks at initially but eventually comes around. He still often wears a hoodie but at least has a button-up shirt.
• Sizable Semitic Nose: In the episode "Moo Moo," the day after Jake and Amy babysit Terry's daughters, Terry gives them a thank you card that his daughters made for them. Jake is Jewish, and he points out that while he appreciates the card, the fact that the girls drew him with a gigantic nose feels a bit odd, especially after they'd had a conversation about racism the previous night.
  Jake: Pretty sure my nose isn't quite this big, especially with all the racial sensitivity talk, but I appreciate the effort.
• Slut-Shaming: A rare example of a character who does this to men.
  • He is horrified by the number of women his father has had sex with (more than 400). Some of this is due to Parental Sexuality Squick and the fact that a lot of them are women he cheated on Jake's mom with, but still, Jake seems to feel that the number is way too high.
  • In "He Said, She Said", the suspect's friend tells Jake and Amy that the suspect is a good person because he never had sex with a prostitute. Jake thinks this is Wants a Prize for Basic Decency, but that in turn means that Jake believes having sex with a prostitute automatically makes someone a bad person.
• Sore Loser: A self-admitted example; in "The Bet", when Holt expresses concern over the effects that the bet between Peralta and Santiago might have on their working relationship (granted, he seems to have outgrown this by Season 2).
  Holt: You are colleagues, and the fallout from this bet has the potential to put a strain on your professional relationship.
  Peralta: Only if I lose. I'm a terrible sport.
• Spanner in the Works:
  • When Jeffords and Holt were trying to make the Precinct run more efficiently in "Operation: Broken Feather", everything falls apart when Peralta comes back from his case.
  • Holt has repeatedly found himself outfoxed by Madeline Wuntch's use of the Batman Gambit. The only times Holt managed to come out on top against her was when he had Jake's help.
• Stalker with a Crush/Stalker without a Crush: Peralta seems to keep a lot of tabs on both Jenny Gildenhorn, the girl he had a crush on as an adolescent, and Eddie Fung, the boy who stole Jenny away at Peralta's Bar Mitzvah.
• Stepford Snarker: Brought up in "The Party" where he admits it's a defense mechanism.
  Kevin: Because he's gay, Raymond has been put through hell by his colleagues, many of whom — to put it frankly — look exactly like you.
  Peralta: Devastatingly handsome? [Kevin frowns] Sorry, I'm not comfortable with emotions.
• The Storyteller:
  • He's a variation of this — he jumps at the chance to invent elaborate fake identities, each complete with a Troperiffic backstory.
  • Double Subverted in "Tactical Village", where he abandons his "Agent Rex Buckingham" persona when things get serious.
    Jake: I'm playing a new character — a no-nonsense detective whose only goal is to set this course record. [beat] His name is Vic Kovack, he's an ex-Navy Seal who was double-crossed and Left for Dead. I don't have time to go into his backstory!
• Sweet Tooth: His idea of a healthy breakfast? Gummi bears wrapped in a Fruit Roll-Up.
  Holt: I pity your dentist.
  Peralta: Ah. Joke's on you, I don't have a dentist!
• Technician Versus Performer: The Performer to Santiago's and Boyle's Technician.
• That Came Out Wrong: He's on both ends of the spectrum:
  • His Motor Mouth tendencies often lead to him regretting the words that just flew out of his mouth. But...
  • ...On the other hand, he also lampshades when the others, especially Amy, make an Innocent Innuendo with: "[X], title of your sex tape".
• Therapy Is for the Weak: His opinion for a very long time. Subverted in the episode "The Therapist" as Jake says he needs to see a therapist for his trust and abandonment issues. In Season 6, it is revealed that his attitude towards therapy is because his family was made to go to therapy due to his behavior as a child and he blames it (and, by extension, himself) for their divorce.
• This Loser Is You: Book Dumb, has a terrifyingly unhealthy diet, and is in crushing debt.
• Trash of the Titans: His desk and locker are the filthiest of all the precinct, even more than Hitchcock and Scully's, to the point Jake couldn't tell apart a photo of his locker from a dumpster in the Philippines. Holt reveals that both were pictures of his locker.
• Too Clever by Half: A common Aesop of the show is Peralta realizing that he's bitten off more than he can chew and that he needs to remember he's part of a team, and the rest of the precinct can help him.
• Took a Level in Kindness: He begins the series firmly in Jerk with a Heart of Gold territory, but by Season 5, he's almost a straight-up Nice Guy, in addition to becoming a team player rather than the lone wolf he started off as.
• Undying Loyalty: For all his competitiveness and immaturity, he's a very good friend when it comes down to the crunch. He'd walk through fire for the people on his squad and, if he ever oversteps the line, will pull out all the stops to make amends.
• Unsportsmanlike Gloating: He really rubs it in when he wins his bet with Santiago. He also makes a point of gloating to Holt after he wins his bet with him in "Halloween". It's lampshaded by Holt, and Peralta concedes the point:
  Holt: Huh. A poor winner. I would never have guessed.
  Peralta: Yeah, you would have.
• Verbal Backspace: He engages in this when trying to correct his more unfortunate That Came Out Wrong quips.
• Vitriolic Best Buds:
  • With Santiago. For all his teasing and pranking, he clearly respects and admires her a great deal. They even begin dating, get married, and eventually have a son together.
  • A downplayed example with Boyle. Jake can get pretty snarky concerning Charles' eccentricities, and the latter's Yes-Man tendencies can at times make their friendship appear one-sided, but there've been plenty of moments throughout the series which indicate that Jake genuinely values Charles as a close friend.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy:
  • Since his real father is a waste, he compensated by trying to get respect from Holt, who he considers to be more of a father to him. Whenever Holt praises him, Jake lights up.
  • We see it Played for Drama in "The Box", where Jake's desire for Holt to see him as smart nearly jeopardizes the case.
• Workaholic: It's pretty clear that while he may not appear to take it seriously, he doesn't actually have much in his life outside of his job. He also has a noted tendency to bury himself in work as a way of distracting himself from problems in his personal life (such as his unrequited crush on Santiago).
• White Male Lead: The detectives of the 99 and the supporting and one-shot characters are diverse in terms of race and gender, but Jake is the principal protagonist and is young and white. He does subvert the "vaguely Christian" part by being Jewish, though.
• White Sheep: Of the Peralta family. Of the three members we see on-screen, his father is a philandering jerk, his half-sister is a selfish conwoman and his grandfather is a heartless dick with the added bonus that unlike the first two, he doesn't even slightly redeem. In contrast, Jake pre-character development, despite his arrogance and immaturity, was still relatively principled and selfless.
• Will They or Won't They?: With Amy, after first realizing he's falling in love with her after calling off his plans for the worst date ever in order to finish a stakeout with her, and they have their first kiss while pretending to be an engaged couple while following a perp. Jake admits his feelings for her at the end of Season 1... just before going undercover with the Mafia. Their ongoing UST throughout Season 2 ultimately tanks Amy's relationship with Teddy, before the two of them finally get together in the uncertainty of what's going to happen to the Nine-Nine following Holt's departure back to Public Relations. They're officially a couple through Season 3 and beyond, getting married at the end of Season 5.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: Downplayed, in that he generally manages to be a competent police officer despite it, but he desperately wants to be the protagonist of a Die Hard-style action cop movie. At several points he has to be reminded that real life police protocol doesn't work that way, like when Captain Holt explains to him that slamming his gun and badge on the captain's desk is not what an officer is supposed to do when they are suspended.
• Yes-Man: In "Lockdown", he temporarily becomes the commanding officer of the precinct. He's over-working to keep everyone calm and happy during the quarantine and reluctant to set boundaries and rules. At first, this is harmless when he agrees to his co-workers' requests, like lifting the ban preventing Boyle from saying the word 'succulent' (shudder), but devolves into a precinct-wide riot and where Hitchcock's nap couch is set on fire.

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