Headscratchers / Brooklyn Nine-Nine

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• In the episode 48 Hours, Jake arrests someone without any evidence and they have 48 hours to find proof. Here's a question; If Jake didn't have any proof, couldn't they just release the guy, find evidence, and re-arrest him? Did they really need to keep him there for 48 hours? Could they have just released him upon finding out Jake didn't have any proof?
  • If they release him then, knowing Peralta is onto him, he has time to hide or destroy the evidence they need. Plus there was an insinuation that Peralta was probably going to be in trouble if they didn't find something to charge the guy with before the timer ran out.
  • Peralta arrested him because of their pre-existing history and knowing his MO, even if they released him such a thing can be construed as police harassment and Holt said early in the episode it opens the door for a lawsuit. Right at the deadline his lawyer was there talking about just that. The 48 hour window exists to sequester suspects (especially flight risks) so they can get the case paperwork squared away before officially charging them with the crime, it's not to arbitrarily badger a civilian into a confession. Arresting him, releasing him and arresting him again, even with proper evidence, doesn't look good on the precinct either (it's not exactly double jeopardy but infringes on similar rights).

• How has Gina not been fired? She's constantly rude to everyone except Holt, gets next to no work done, assaults other employees, steals workplace supplies, hits on Terry repeatedly even though she knows he's married, throws important case files in the garbage, and generally makes work harder for everyone else. Any real secretary would've been fired within a week.
  • Holt's predecessor let the squad run riot under him, and that means the squad just got used to her antics; classic broken step syndrome. If nobody is prepared to lodge an official complaint (which it seems they are not) then nothing is going to happen. She seems to do her secretarial work just fine, so Holt seems happy with that.
  • There's also a bit of Bunny-Ears Lawyer going on; she's an annoying jerk, but she does her job sufficiently well to cover it. Some of this can also be put down to Gina being a Troll or just general Rule of Funny.
  • Fired? How is Gina even still alive? Some of her antics would have merited a beating at least by an enraged coworker (spiking everyone's drink with cement when they were all distress at the imminent closing of the Precinct comes to mind) let alone people like Rosa or Pimento who could easily sweep into homicidal rage when pushed at the wrong time.
  • Well, she's alive/unbeaten because these characters are still cops, and aren't exactly homicidal nutcases (well, maybe Pimento). Note also that Gina tends to save her really mean pranks for the targets she's pretty confident won't retaliate with violent rage — Amy and Boyle are many things, but they're not exactly hot-headed. She tends to treat Rosa quite well, however (by Gina's standards, at least), and unlike the other two Rosa would probably have no problem with kicking the shit out of Gina if she ever went too far. In other words, Gina like most bullies tends to pick on people who are less likely to fight back.
  • In a (rather cynical) Doylist explanation, Gina has frequently been accused of being a Creator's Pet (or at least Creator's Favorite). It's possible that she gets away with all her horrible actions simply because the writers like her too much to inflict any meaningful punishments on her.
  • Part of the issue is one of Flanderization. Initially, she skirts around the edges of acceptable workplace decorum, but does her job well enough that her eccentricities are tolerated. It's implied that she is actually an excellent assistant despite her foibles. A prime example is her behaviour when choosing a new IT person. However, as the series goes on, she becomes more obnoxious and insubordinate without a corresponding increase in utility, while the script continues to have everyone react as though she's the same flighty but effective scamp from the earlier seasons.

• How has Wuntch not been fired, either? She's made it clear that she doesn't care about the community, only ruining Holt's career, she constantly abuses her position, is willing to ruin the career's of Holt's employees just to spite him, and once even broke the law by hiring a spy to spy on the Nine-Nine.
  • Same as with Gina. She does the rest of her job fine and unless Holt is going to complain himself (and he's put himself at risk of counter-complaint with his own petty acts against her, so he really can't) then nobody is going to care. Bad behaviour on its own is not enough to get a person fired, somebody also has to lodge a complaint about that behaviour before anything happens.
  • Wuntch also benefits from being the boss. As many an underling will tell you, a jerkass boss can be very hard to get rid of because (a) they're the ones who are in charge of setting and enforcing the rules, (b) the other bosses are generally going to be more inclined to close ranks and protect their own if anyone complains unless the jerkass boss is really bad, (c) a jerkass boss is usually the kind of person who'll spitefully go after anyone who tries to undermine or complain about them out of petty revenge and (d) is in a position to make a subordinate's life a real misery if they really set their minds to it. So junior subordinates will be discouraged from reporting her and will just likely keep their heads down and not make waves unless Wuntch does something she really can't wriggle out of.
  • It's been made clear that Wuntch and Holt are not so different. We see that whenever Wuntch is around, Holt devolves into a petty, childish, obsessive version of his true self. Since we never see Wuntch separate and apart from Holt, it's entirely possible that off-screen she's just as good a person, cop, and boss as Holt is on his own (or, at least, is less of a Jerkass).
  • Also, whatever her other flaws, Wuntch at least seems to be a pretty good police officer. Careerist tendencies, disproportionate grudge-holding and tendencies towards being a Bad Boss aren't in and of themselves fireable offenses as long as Wuntch is sufficiently good at her actual job of, well, being a police officer.
  • There's also the fact that most of her abuses of power only look that way on the macro level. Re-assigning Holt, for instance, would look like a perfectly reasonable promotion to the higher-ups and only comes across as an abuse of power if you actually KNOW Holt. Which their superiors clearly do not.
  • Also, also. The NYPD is horribly corrupt.

• At the ceremony where Boyle gets his Medal of Valor, a police horse gets the same Medal. How could a horse have also gotten a Medal of Valor? I know that the horse was there to get all the attention because of Boyle's bad luck but are police horses ever given high-honor medals? If so, what for?
  • Rule of Funny, mainly. Although it's worth noting that there actually is a bravery medal for animals (it's run by a British animal welfare charity, however; the NYPD doesn't award them that I'm aware of), usually for ones which do something incredibly brave and/or risk their lives to benefit their human handlers.

• How in Gods green Earth did C.J. become a captain!? All he did was accidentally help a drug bust as, most likely, a beat cop! He is clearly incompetent and lacks the brains and ability to do even a half-way decent job! He also took nine years to complete a 6 month program!
  • A combination of Rule of Funny and, unfortunately, Truth in Television. Quite often people are promoted because they can't do anything else, removing them from the ground-level work and letting their subordinates get on with the job. Of course, it often ends in disaster, but it's usually just a quick-fix method of removing someone from a job without firing them. Given that the Nine-Nine have a reputation for chaos, the high-ups probably just dumped C.J. there and thought it couldn't get much worse.
  • The guy is likeable and knows the rules, he knows enough to skate by if you are not listening him to closely. He could certainly rise based on that, plus he seems good at taking credit for others work. It happens often enough in real life that people can get promoted based less on competence and more on personality. Exaggerated for comedy, of course, but not that unbelievable.
  • He became publicly known as a result of the publicity around the accidental drug bust help, and there was probably some pressure to give him a visible reward to show the public that 'heroes' get recognized in the NYPD. So they stuck him in the 99's suddenly-vacant Captaincy. The thinking was probably that if he turned out to be great, then excellent. If he royally screwed up, they could shunt him out the way quietly once he was no longer in the spotlight. If he was merely ineffectual, then considering the 99 functioned fine under McGinley, there wouldn't be much trouble there, either.

• Related to the above, how did the Vulture make Captain, and ostensibly in such a short time frame (just about two years)? Sure, when Amy and Jake see him in "Operation: Broken Feather" he mentions Amy having to report to him at Major Crimes (alluding to him already being Detective 1st Grade), but he wasn't a Sergeant like Terry. So he would've had to sit for the Sergeant's Exam (which draws a lot from patrol standards, something Pembroke would seem loathe to dirty his hands with), be pulled from the Sergeant's Promotion List, then sit for the Lieutenant's Exam (a beast even superhuman Terry is struggling with, let alone a lazy ass like Pembroke), then get put on THAT promotion list, sit for yet a THIRD exam, and finally yes, be assigned to the 99.
  • The answer basically boils down to the more realistic timeline being compressed for reasons of Rule of Funny/Rule of Drama. We can perhaps assume a Hand Wave that Pembroke is a sufficiently good suck-up to have the ladder greased, or that someone pulled some strings somewhere (most likely Wuntch, in order to spite Holt), or introduce a retcon that Pembroke held a higher rank than his earlier appearances had suggested.
  • Or, if we want to go the WMG route, since Pembroke's first name seems to change from Warren to Keith in his later appearances, we can speculate that there are two Pembrokes, they're twins, Warren is just a Detective while Keith is higher ranked, both have had dealings with the Nine-Nine, and both are incredible dickheads.

• Why do Holt and Kevin have separate last names? They're married and very much in love, yet they haven't taken each other's last names yet.
  • There are many reasons why a couple might not want to take each other's last names. They both appear to have had well-established careers by the time they got married (they'd been together for many years, but couldn't legally marry until 2011), and some people find changing their name in a professional setting to be more trouble than it's worth. Some people also see the practice of changing names as an outdated tradition which is no longer necessary, and it's not unlikely that, as an interracial gay couple, they'd feel little obligation to keep every marital tradition.
  • It's also possible that they do use each other's last names, but only in their social/family circles and not professionally. If you look closely, when Holt and Kevin are at home, their bathrobes have are monogrammed "RHC" and "KHC", respectively, where the "HC" most probably stands for "Holt-Cozner".
  • My mom kept her name after marrying my dad. It's not uncommon.

• It's a lovely, heartwarming moment, but... in "HalloVeen", when did Jake find an opportunity to have his message engraved onto the Championship Cummerbund?
  • It's possible that he made a second plate for the Cummberbund beforehand and simply switched them when he got possession of it after stealing Amy's safe.
  • But did he ever have time to do that? It doesn't seem like the Cummerbund was ever back in his possession since Charles betrayed him right at the beginning of the heist.
    • He re-recruited Bill in order to escape and during the whole handmaiden's tale decoy Bill, and therefore Jake, took control of the Cummerbund, if he informed Bill when he re-recruited him then Bill could have switched the plate, either that or he made the proposal belt Cummerbund and hid it, and presumably Bill took the Cummerbund and put it somewhere else. As a side note, while it doesn't matter much, who technically won the bet that year? It's either Jake or Amy. If we think it was the original Cummerbund with a changed plate then it could be either Amy or Jake, as while Amy found the belt, it's clear Jake hid it in a way that would ensure she found it. If it's a duplicate Cummerbund then Jake and Bill were the last ones to have it. (yes I know I'm thinking far too much into it.)
  • its possible he had a second belt with the revised message the entire time, and hid it in the evidence locker, meanwhile the actual belt was in fake Charles's possession the entire time (making either Jake or Fake Charles the secret winner of the Halloween heist)
  • Most likely, Jake had a second belt plate made, hid it in the evidence locker, and when Bill (fake Charles) stole the safe and extracted the belt, he swapped the original name plate with the second, and then re-hid it in the evidence box where Amy would find it, then ran off with the tracker.
    • It is clearly mentioned in Cinco De Mayo that Jake had two cummerbunds and Holt later found the original cummerbund, which he keeps in his living room and insists that he is the only two-time Halloween heist champion.
• How could Charles and Genevieve adopt a kid together without being married?
  • You don't have to be married to adopt. The primary criteria is to be able to provide a safe and stable home life for the child.
• Why the blazes did Scully, when serenading Holt and Kevin, sing the line as "O sola mio"? Isn't it sole (sun)?
  • In a Doylist sense, Joel McKinnon Miller probably just slipped up slightly on the pronunciation (especially as sola and sole can sound rather similar) or might just sing the song in that way, but on the whole the production team judged the take good enough to be included or didn't pick up on the error. If we're looking for an in-universe explanation, then he's still Scully. Hell a voice he's got, but it's not exactly matched with a bounty of intelligence. He probably just doesn't know any better.
• So here's a question I've been bouncing through my head: does Gina secretly hate Amy? Only asking because a lot of the actions throughout the past five seasons (locking Amy int he supply closet even though she knew Amy was claustrophobic, mocking her wardrobe countless times, telling her to lower her voice for the baby despite she herself speaking pretty loudly, and even wanting to wear white to Amy's wedding (or not even caring about it the day of it) when women are not suppose to other than the bride) seems to suggest this.
  • Considering that Gina frequently does all of the above to Amy's face, it's hard to call it a case of Gina secretly hating Amy. In any case, this is all just part of Gina's character; she's basically a narcissistic Alpha Bitch, Amy's the introverted nerd-girl, and in time-honoured high school trope fashion, the Alpha Bitch must mercilessly torment the nerd-girl. If anything, it seems to be more the case that Gina secretly likes Amy more than she's willing to let on.
• Jake is Perpetual Poverty and Amy is obsessively careful with money. They both live on cop's salaries in Brooklyn, which is famously (1) expensive and (2) crisscrossed with subways and buses. So why do they both own cars?
  • In Jake's case, his original car was pretty much a trophy of his first success as a police officer, and Jake is characteristically careless with his finances. In Amy's case, she may want to own a personal vehicle for her own preference or convenience (she may enjoy driving, for example, or she may prefer to control her mode of transportation herself rather than relying on the potential vagaries and inconveniences of public transit, or she want to have one she wants to travel somewhere outside of New York's metropolitan transit network). In a meta-sense, it's probably so that any storytelling opportunities for the characters aren't limited by them having to catch public transportation everywhere. Also, the show is filmed in Los Angeles / California, where IIRC personal car ownership is more common.
  • The fact that even someone "obsessively careful with money" might want a personal vehicle doesn't really seem like a headscratcher. In fact, it makes even more sense, since if there's one person who almost certainly carefully budgeted and planned ahead in order to ensure that she could afford to buy a car with a minimum of financial hardship, it is Amy Santiago.
• Something from Lockdown has been bugging when, and that's when Jake asks Amy to take over as temporary captain as the crisis is getting worse, but she refuses. Why though? I thought Amy likes organization, and being able to control any situation. Plus, considering the two's relationship by that point, she could have easily lord it over Jake as he caused the situation to get worse (said situation was keeping a bunch of people in the precinct due to an unknown powder being spilled, and Jake not being straight with said people). Am I missing something?
  • Amy likes organisation, but that doesn't mean she likes cleaning up other people's messes for them. Jake's the one in charge, he's the one who let the situation get out of hand, he's the one who should fix it. Simple.
  • Okay, but what about the rubbing in part? She did express annoyance in Season 1's Thanksgiving that she hates how Holt is more focused on Jake than on her, and in Tagger, she mockingly told him to arrest a higher ups son at the risk of tanking his career. I'm not trying to discredit Amy, but given that they didn't date until Season 3 kind of makes me wonder why she didn't let Jake get into major trouble in Lockdown, have Holt deem him a lost cause, and she gets the more focus from him.
  • Character Development. The episodes you cite are fairly early in Season 1, when Amy is very insecure and dependent on other people's opinions, and is incredibly desperate for Holt's approval. Then, towards the end of Season 1 (in the episode where they do the self-evaluations), she realizes she's too needy for other people's approval and outright tells Holt that she's going to be less concerned with what he thinks of her from that point on. Early-Season 1 Amy probably would have latched onto this incident to try and suck up to Holt (and may even have tried to sabotage Jake herself), but Season 2 Amy is less desperate for Holt's approval, at least to a point where she doesn't feel the need to step over or pull down Jake in order to acquire it. Besides which, she might not be his girlfriend at that point but Amy, well, is still Jake's friend. She might have a more-or-less friendly rivalry with him, but that doesn't mean she wants to utterly destroy him and his career for her own advantage.
• Why not use Nikolaj as ring bearer at Jake and Amy's wedding? Or at least consider it?
  • Given the snafu with the bomb threat, Charles, being the Papa Wolf that he is, wouldn't allow anyone to think of it. Better safe than sorry.
  • Also, given how intensely obsessive Charles get get on the subject of Jake and Amy's relationship, it is far from unlikely that neither of them wanted to give him any more reason than he already had to get intensely obsessive on the subject of their wedding, which giving Nikolaj a role would likely do.
• How does Amy's Shoulder Nova from "Into the Woods" actually work? It implies that there is either a magnet underneath her suit (which is impractical) or that a clip is attached to the flashlight with a magnet (in which case glue or some other adhesive is not only more permanent but also more efficient). Additionally, the latter proves impossible as Amy and Gina are shown simply sticking the flashlight to their shoulders without clipping it at all.
  • Sometimes things like that come with a magnet you put under the suit. Long-term it's impractical, but for a few hours it's great. The only real problem is when you change clothes, because it will probably fall out.
  • In my first job we used a magnet beneath the shirt to hold our name badges. It was fine for us.
• Why does Amy tell Jake and her dad off for their emphasis on parent approval in a relationship when Amy was so keenly looking for Karen's approval the previous season?
  • I think it's because they framed it as Amy's father having the final say on the matter. Jake acts as though if he doesn't impress Papa Santiago then the relationship is over, and Papa Santiago seems to behave the same way, and Amy is furious that they didn't recognize that it's ultimately her decision. Amy did want to impress Jake's mom, but she didn't phrase it as Karen deciding whether or not they dated at all.
    • The funny thing is, her father never actually said he would forbid them from seeing each other. In fact during the speaker phone call he was clearly about to say that the decision IS up to Amy, but she interrupted him. I assume what he was going to say was, she can date Jake if she wants but he doesn’t have to like it.
    • Except he clearly told Jake earlier that he is a screw-up and "I don't want my only daughter dating a screw-up!" Which leads to Jake's epic Lame Comeback "Oh yeah? Well I don't want my only girlfriend daughtering a jerk dad! Burn on you!"
• Does the show's treatment of Holt and Wuntch's relationship make anyone else uncomfortable? She claims that her enmity towards him has nothing to do with him sexually rejecting her, but she pretty clearly sexually harasses him on screen — twice. Once when she gives him an unnecessarily long pat-down and again when she kisses him on the lips after trumping him. And both of these incidents seem to be played for laughs. This just seems weird considering how the show otherwise deals with things like this quite seriously.
  • It's an abuse of power from Wuntch as she's his superior, and feels that she can do whatever she wants to him (hence why she gave him the Sadistic Choice in the Season 2 finale). Also, there might be some lingering feelings from her, and maybe resentful that Holt's gay.
  • Your mileage may vary, but the kiss at least doesn't seem to be played for laughs, more likely it's there to illustrate what a sadistic and fucked-up person Wuntch is.
• How the fuck is Boyles's ex-wife allowed to blackmail a cop to try and get him to intimidate someone? Yes, Boyle is a spineless doormat and idiot who signed a ludicrously one-sided divorce contract, but the principal conflict of "Hostage Situation" could have been avoided completely if Jake had just said "How about instead of us intimidating this 90-year-old priest, you give us the sperm or we'll run you in for trying to blackmail a police officer?"
  • The very process of saying that would put Jake and Charles on the wrong side of the law, as they'd be extorting a suspect. Cops aren't allowed to demand favors in exchange for not reporting crimes. They could have arrested her for making that demand, but she would have still be within her rights to destroy the sperm. They could have arrested her after they decided to give up on getting the sperm, but that probably seemed too petty (most prosecutors would probably brush it off as a family dispute, and not bother to pursue the charges).
    • As well, the episode specifies that she received a bunch of zany rights to Boyle's life in the divorce. Even if she could be tripped up on blackmail charges, she has enough over Boyle that she could make his life a living hell if he pursued it (not to mention she could still destroy the frozen sperm even if they brought her in).
• Before Santiago's promotion to sergeant, she and Diaz typical worked together as partners. But after the promotion, when Diaz is seen working with someone, it's always Peralta, even though it's implied Boyle is still Peralta's regular partner. Didn't Diaz get a new partner at all?
  • I might be wrong on this, but I'm not sure if the detectives were officially made partners. Sure there are sometimes where they have to work together on a case, but it's mostly through Holt's orders on who gets what. That and it depends on what the plot of the day entails.
  • I'm not a cop myself, but from what I've read, real life police don't necessarily tend to strictly partner up in the sense that TV often depicts them as doing — i.e., in the sense that you only ever have one partner ever. Cops tend to work in squads and kind of interchange "partners" from other members of the squad depending on the situation. While obviously some officers might find they work particularly well with other officers and might tend to work with them more frequently, in other cases it might just be as simple as grabbing the nearest person from your squad who happens to be there and doesn't look like they're doing anything at that particular moment when you catch a case and need someone to work with. The B99 squad is apparently just flexible in that way; note we've also seen Boyle work with Diaz (especially in the earlier seasons), Peralta work with Santiago (before they hooked up / Santiago got promoted), Peralta work with Terry, and Santiago work with Boyle on occasion.
    • It's also possible that they do get to work with other cops. However, thanks to the things that you pointed out and because the show doesn't focus on the other cops in the precinct (the gang does acknowledge the other cops in the precinct and treats them as friends), we never get to see their side of the story.
• One thing I don't get is why Jake puts up with Gina's antics. Yes they're childhood friends, but it comes off annoying that Jake never chewed her out for; slacking off on her work, mocking Boyle and Amy (his friend and wife), not calling him after she left the 99, and not telling him the truth about what happened at high school. Why hasn't Jake done any of that?
  • You just have to accept it as a part of the comedy with Gina's character. The stuff she does and says is often so arrogant, rude, and self-absorbed that in real life Holt would've fired her ages ago, and she would most likely have no friends. But the humor comes from seeing such a strange person interact daily with friends and co-workers, and obviously that wouldn't work if she was unemployed and friendless. So it's just one of those Acceptable Breaks from Reality.
  • Also, let's be blunt here; Jake himself isn't exactly without his arrogant, rude and self-absorbed side either. Perhaps not to Gina's extent, but they're still birds of a feather to a degree. Real-Life Jake would probably be a lot more insufferable to be around than Charming On The TV Jake is. Also, he does (initially) call Gina out on not telling him the truth about high school, at least; he just, for better or worse, comes around to accepting her explanation for it.
  • Personally I got the impression that Jake and Gina were the kind of friends that were like siblings (in "The Apartment" Gina refers to Jake's grandmother as "Nana", and there are a few references to them being raised together over the show's run). If we assume that then it makes sense that Jake is more tolerant of Gina's behavior if he sees her as a sister.
• This isn't important, but I just gotta ask... In "The Therapist", Jake mentions that while he was living in New York, he's lived in a place where the toilet was literally in the refrigerator... Does such a thing happen in Real Life (specifically New York), or is that a thing that only happens in the Brooklyn 99 universe?
  • It's quite obviously just a joke.
• How old is Captain Holt supposed to be? It's been established in various flashbacs that he was already working as a detective in the 1970s. For that to make sense, he must have been born in the mid-1950s or earlier... But that would mean he should be very close to retirement age if he hasn't already reached it. Yet he never talks about retirement and is still very much trying to reach the position of the Police Commissioner. Doesn't the NYPD have some kind of mandatory retirement age?
  • Captain Holt probably isn't the type to want to retire, as per Truth in Television. His ambiguous age is probably left unanswered to avoid this kinda thing happening in a realistic way. It could also just be Rule of Funny: Captain Holt is old-years-old. That's all you need to know. That, or this show is set in an alternate universe where things work differently. There's some stuff in this show that may suggest this to be the actual case.
  • He considers retiring in the final season, which is explicitly set in 2021. Which actually does line up with a birth in the late 50s if we assume he's in his early to mid 60s (for example if he's 64 in 2021 he would have been born in 1957, potentially hitting the streets as he turn 20 in 1977). For what it's worth the actor was born in 1962.
  • The flashbacks to the 70s and 80s are pretty clearly just excuses to get as much comedy value as possible from dressing dry-as-dust Raymond Holt in the flashy and colourful fashions of the disco and Miami Vice eras. In other words, this is pure Rule of Funny.
• In Episode 21 of Season 1, why does Rosa think someone is lying to Gina when she claims to know Papa John (as in, the guy the pizza chain is named for)? It's not like they just randomly chose that name, there really is a Papa John: John Schnatter, who founded the chain.
  • Rosa probably thought the Papa John that Gina met wasn't the real Papa John, and Gina got lied to.
• When C.J puts the squad on night shift for going to Florida against his direct orders, why didn't Captain Holt just take them off the night shift and back on the day shift?
  • IIRC when Holt gets back CJ has been put in charge of the day shift, while Holt is moved to the night shift, so he's not really in charge of the day shift any more. In any case, while C.J is an idiot and the characters had good reasons, they nevertheless genuinely did disobey a direct order from a superior officer, and as Holt is the person they disobeyed the orders for there's a clear conflict of interest there. Holt is often shown to be rather Lawful Good in inclination, and a key theme of the series is often how a real police department often doesn't work like it does in the movies — namely, that the characters don't always have Hero Insurance when they break the rules in service of the plot. While Holt obviously doesn't like being on the night shift and is happy to ensure that the punishment doesn't last any longer than it needs to, they still rightfully had some punishment of some kind coming and it would be inappropriate for him to intervene on their behalf to get them out of it entirely.
  • But why is CJ still there at all? The precinct didn’t previously have a “day captain” and “night captain.” Why didn’t Holt just get his full command back after he and Jake returned?
    • You answered your own question. Since Captain Holt was gone they needed someone to fill in his spot, so they got CJ to do that.
    • But when Holt returned, they no longer needed someone to fill in anymore. So this doesn't explain why the Nine-Nine now had two captains when they never did before. Why didn't they transfer CJ to a new precinct once Holt came back from witness protection?
    • The Nine-Nine has always had different shifts (we see the weekend shift in the episode with employee evaluations), and Holt can't work 24/7. It's likely that they always had a night captain, and we just never saw them because they weren't relevant until the crew came back from Florida.
• In the first episode after Florida, Jake uses a cane because he’d been shot in the leg. But Holt had been impaled on rebar earlier that day and he seems fine. His injury was most likely worse than Jake’s — why did he recover so quickly?
  • The only logical In-Universe explanation is that it didn't. Reminder that Captain Holt has a tendency to mask/lie about his injuries.
    • There are also 2 other factors to consider; firstly Holt can spend most of his shift sitting down, whereas Jake has to be on his feet most of the night. Furthermore Jake's injury might weaken his leg more than Holt's rebar injury would (I'm not sure, not a doctor).
  • Holt probably followed his doctor's instructions and physical therapy regimen to a T, while it's not out of the question that Jake didn't, setting his healing and recovery back a bit.
    • Not to mention that Jake spent at least two minutes hooked up to a blood bag with the wrong blood type (incredibly dangerous even though it's Played for Laughs), which could have caused him some complications that Holt didn't have to deal with and delaying his transition into physical therapy.
• Why are Captains the only candidates for Commissioner? The series has shown several Deputy Commissioners. Are they ineligible for the top job?
  • We might be overthinking this a bit. No one ever says that captains are the only candidates or that Deputy Commissioners are ineligible for the job; it just so happens that on the main occasion we see a main character apply for that particular position, the other candidates for that job happen to be fellow captains. Presumably whatever evaluation board was responsible for making such decisions happened to settle on them.
• Why did Figgis only threaten Jake and Holt? The whole squad worked to take him down, not just those two. If anything, wouldn’t Figgis want to target Rosa, who was Pimento’s fiancé at the time?
• Why couldn’t Holt testify at Jake and Rosa’s trial? He’d mentioned that the investigation into Hawkins was off the books and wasn’t official, but that shouldn’t mean that he couldn’t testify about it. And Jake also texted Holt for help when he realized that they were about to hit up the bank. Why wasn’t that considered evidence?
• Something just hit me: You'd think that Holt's gay pride flags (at least I think he has about two of them) would immediately make Wuntch realize that Holt is gay, right? Is she really as blind as Hitchcock and Skully, in denial or what?
  • Holt has pride flags in the present day. He told Wuntch about his sexuality back in the 70s (something that required a lot of dutch courage). In The Tagger, he says he's been out since 1987. He wouldn't have had a pair of pride flags anywhere in his working environment before coming out.
    • So Wuntch kissed Holt knowing he's gay? Horrible.
    • I mean, the series outright states on numerous occasions that Wuntch is a pretty horrible person. So this shouldn't come as too much of a surprise.
    • I know she is, but previously I never imagined that she would take it that far. Though I guess I should've looked into those Villainous Crush cues a bit harder.
• In the episode Captain Latvia (Season 4 Episode 10), Nikolaj's hero, Captain Latvia, is a Latvian hero that can speak to possums. Just one question though. How is he able to speak to possums if there are no possums in Latvia?
  • This series has been hinted at to be in an Alternate Universe multiple times. Thus, it is possible that there are possums in B99's version of Lativa.
  • Captain Latvia is clearly a fantasy series for children. It is hardly unlikely that a fantasy series for children might be a bit flexible with the reality of animal populations if they think their audience will otherwise be amused or entertained by it. For example, the Canadian cartoon series The Racoons features an aardvark character as a major antagonist despite the fact that aardvarks are not native to Canada.
    • Or that Phineas and Ferb have a pet platypus.
• Also in Captain Latvia, why does the B plot revolve around finding a good singer in the 99 when it has been established *multiple times* that Scully is a great singer?
  • Because no one respects Scully.
  • Scully is a good opera singer. That may not necessarily translate to being a good soloist in a non-operatic setting.
• How is the case against Jake and Rosa so open and shut? The show makes it out as though they have no hope of being found innocent, but there are at least a few techniques that their defense team doesn't even seem to consider:
  • There's an electronic trail of Jake sending a text to Holt from a phone that was in their possession at the time of the robbery.
  • Their attorney is never seen questioning witnesses about witnessing Jake and Rosa at the robbery, which could possibly bring their confused state into evidence.
  • There's no cross-examining to determine the veracity of Jake and Rosa intentionally giving themselves alibis.
  • The fake Cayman Islands account is set up under the name Flaxton Hill Holdings –- a name that is explicitly linked to a witness who had nothing but kind words for Hawkins and claimed Peralta threatened him.
  • The existence of a bank account with a few signatures –- which are never cross-examined –- is one thing; there's not even any history of Peralta or Diaz accessing those accounts.
  • While odds are Det. Hawkins probably picked a bar to party in the night before that was low-key where they couldn't be easily identified, the fact that there are no witnesses who saw them partying there the night before the robbery like they were old friends?
  • After Jake and Rosa were initially arrested, there likely would have been searches of their respective apartments and devices – there would have been no evidence to tie them to robberies of the Golden Gang either (again, while that wouldn't exonerate them completely, it's something the other side would desperately need).
  • And, overall, while the witnesses pulled were not great for Jake and Rosa's character, why didn't they also have character witnesses? Holt claimed he couldn't testify about the investigation because it was off the books, but stuff being "off the books" and not permissible as concrete evidence didn't stop the prosecution.
    • An easy answer? They paid for them to stay in jail, despite all of this good reasoning.
    • A bit of Fridge Brilliance as well: Jake burned a lot of bridges with the defense attorneys in Brooklyn after he arrested their boss and Sofia broke up with him. He probably had a hard time finding a good lawyer willing to represent him so his defense wasn't very well-built.
• Why did Hawkins sell out Jake and Rosa? Did she know they weren't dirty cops before hand or did she just want to find someone she could use to pin the blame on? And if she did know they weren't dirty cops, how did she, and why did she invite them on her bank robbing heist thing if they could have sold her out?
  • I think she knew they were getting close to her operation, so she set them up as fall people to clear her tracks.
• In Season 6 "Casecation", Amy says she doesn't want to wait two years for Jake to decide if he wants kids because she'll have to 'start again'. Why does the show not acknowledge the full size and import of this as basically an ultimatum to Jake that has to have kids with her? Jake snarks about it but by the end of the episode all is forgiven.
  • It's an ultimatum, but not necessarily that Jake "has to have kids with her". He has another option as well; to end the relationship if he feels strongly enough about never wanting to have kids. The ultimatum is simply Amy informing Jake that having children is a dealbreaker for her in a serious relationship, and that he needs to actually think carefully about whether he does or doesn't want them rather than just flippantly avoiding the issue because he's scared of actually seriously considering it. And it's perfectly reasonable for her to press him on this; children are a major commitment in a relationship and whether to have them or not is a potentially insurmountable difference between two people, and Jake has a bit of a tendency to flake out on making tough decisions or try to deflect on them. If Jake really, truly doesn't want kids, then it's better for everyone that he come to this decision sooner rather than later and that, if necessary, they end the relationship before it becomes a poisonous wedge between them, because failing to do so might significantly impact not just their lives but the lives of any children they might have if Jake dicks around and kicks the can down the road until it's too late. Sometimes ultimatums like this are necessary in a relationship in order to make both people consider both their options and the potential consequences very carefully. And it's "easily forgiven" because Jake takes this on board, thinks hard about the issue, and ultimately realises that he actually is willing to have kids at some point, so ultimately things work out okay.
  • Not to mention that Amy rightfully has a more pressing reason to get to the subject of children sooner than Jake does; she will be affected by menopause some day, which will prevent her from ever having children if she hasn't had any by that point, whereas if Jake doesn't want kids now but changes his mind later he can later find a younger partner to have children with. Amy is simply reminding Jake that this isn't an issue that can be kicked down the road indefinitely for her in the same way that it can be for him.
  • The bigger question is why Amy, known to be a detailed woman who arranges massive binders for things like the Halloween heist, was content with a single exchange with vague syntax over the issue before the wedding. It's plausible that someone disorganized like Jake would be content for that, but, particularly if it was a deal breaker for her if he was against having kids, you would think Amy would want a clear discussion, similar to the one they had in "Casecation" well before they reached the altar. Honestly it seemed like after the channel hop someone had the reasonable idea that Jake would have reservations over fatherhood, given his own father issues, and overlooked the fact that Amy not having the discussion already is major OOC.
    • This one's pure Rule of Drama: kids are an important topic of discussion in any kind of serious relationship, and the writers decided that they could get more drama out of actually showing the characters discussing and grappling with the issue rather than just brushing it off and either telling the audience or letting them assume they'd gotten on the same page off-screen. If this is indeed a bigger question, then we can simply assume that the slight out-of-characterness this suggests is simply down to any such discussion occurring very early in the relationship and Amy being willing to brush the issue off when she was still in the excitement and bliss of a new romance with a man she clearly had strong feelings for (she would be far from the first or only person to act a little out-of-character when newly in love), only for the issue (and Jake's initial vague response) to eventually niggle at her until it eventually reaches the point where she can't let it go any longer, which as it happens are the events of the episode being discussed.
  • And not to forget the whole double standards thing. If Jake had presented a similar ultimatum to Amy, he'd be presented as an evil bastard. It's supposed to be a partnership, not a dictatorship.
    • There's no double standard though, as Jake and Amy would be affected differently so couldn't make the same demands. Ultimately what Amy was saying is that she wants kids, and if Jake doesn't then that would be a deal breaker and they'd have to split up and Amy would move on to find someone who does want kids. Potentially sad but its a real issue that needs consideration. Amy's problem is that she can't wait for Jake to decide in a couple of years on the issue; if he decides in, say, a decade that he really doesn't want kids, she's older and has less time to find someone else, whereas Jake doesn't have that pressure as if he later changes his mind it's still physically possible to have kids. His glib answer that he's never be rich enough for a young woman to want his kids when he was old really didn't help either. Amy wasn't demanding they have kids in the then and now, just acknowledging that it was a decision that would have long term consequences for both of them. The "partnership" you mention is Jake thinking seriously about if he wants kids and either saying yes, and they have them together, or saying no with the understanding that that would end the relationship as it's not a point they can compromise on.
• Did the Nine-Nine seriously not get any reward whatsoever for taking down Figgis and saving the life of a federal agent?
  • What kind of reward would you have in mind? Arresting criminals and helping fellow law-enforcement officers is part of their job, after all. Aside from some kind of commendation or medal, there's not really many other kinds of reward that would be appropriate in their position.

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