One of the many Gag Haircuts you'll see in this episode.
"The Crime Scene" is the sixth episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine's sixth season.
Jake and Rosa work a difficult case where, despite plenty of evidence, they can't figure out who the killer is or how they got in or out. However, Jake foolishly promises the victim's mother that they'll catch the killer because she reminds him of his own mom. In addition, Rosa has a new girlfriend who's in Cosmetology school, and practices on Rosa's hair.
This episode provides examples of:
- A Bloody Mess: Jake takes about four bottles of ketchup into the break room, claiming it's for his hot dog. Turns out he's recreating the crime scene, covering the whole room in ketchup.
- Alliterative Name: The victim's name was Andrew Adams. Jake doesn't quite think of it as a dope name.
- Call-Back: Rosa still hasn't talked to her mom since coming out as bisexual. However, her father's remark that her mother "need[ed] more time" proves true; Rosa's mother shows up at the end of the episode and they finally reconcile.
- Chekhov's Gun:
- The Air Conditioner. It was mentioned earlier in the episode, and the CSI stated that they couldn't turn it on because it would tamper with the crime scene. When the crime scene was finally cleaned up and the air conditioning was turned on, it rattled objects in the air vent, which led to Jake discovering the killer's hiding spot.
- Also, during the initial assessment, Jake is intrigued to learn that the victim was an investigative reporter, but loses interest when he learns the guy was investigating chicken farms. When they finally catch the killer, it turns out he was hired by a poultry conglomerate who the victim had caught bribing government officials.
- Jake's "mistake" in counting 15 CSI techs at the crime scene; despite Franco insisting there were only 14, Jake's count was actually right and the fifteenth tech was the killer in disguise.
- Conditioned to Accept Horror: Upon seeing the delivery man's Freak Out over seeing the crime scene, Jake and Rosa wonder if their jobs as police detectives have numbed them to violence.
- Crazy-Prepared: The killer splattered blood from two extra people to make it look like the victim struggled with multiple killers and hid in an air conditioning vent until the cops arrived so he could slip out disguised as a CSI tech. His efforts are so effective that it takes months for any sign that he was ever there to become apparent, and even that is only uncovered after the police have officially labeled the murder a cold case.
- A Day in the Limelight: For Jake and Rosa as a team. Holt, Amy, Terry, Boyle, Hitchcock and Scully only have a brief appearance each.
- Everyone Has Standards:
- Even the ever-sycophantic Boyle thinks Jake is losing it with continuing to investigate the crime scene after losing the case to Major Crimes.
- Franco, though obnoxious and arrogant, still finds it weird that he's in Jake and Amy's apartment for Jake's increasingly manic investigative methods.
- Gag Haircut: Rosa lets her girlfriend Jocelyn practice her hair styling on her, leading to some amusing and out-of-character looks.
- He Knows Too Much: The victim discovered a poultry conglomerate was bribing government officials, and they sicced an assassin on him to ensure his silence.
- Hidden in Plain Sight: The assassin escaped the crime scene by dressing in a hazmat suit like the tech crew and leaving once they had arrived.
- Impostor Forgot One Detail: Jake figures out the killer is wearing a hazmat suit to blend in with the others, but is not wearing booties on his shoes like a real tech crew would be doing.
- Intimate Hair Brushing: Combined with Intimate Haircut. Rosa appears in a new Gag Haircut for almost every scene. She dates Jocelyn who's training to become a stylist and she practices on Rosa. Some of them are new cuts, some use hair extensions and she even wears one elaborate updo that would be ok for a ball, but is quite impractical for a detective working a murder case.
- In the Back: The victim is found with a knife in his back.
- Intimate Haircut: Implied between girlfriends Rosa and Jocelyn. Jocelyn is in cosmetology school and Rosa allows her to play with her hair and practice on her. She has a different hairstyle in every new scene.
- Knew It All Along: Jake, who had claimed at the beginning to have counted 15 CSIs, despite Franco claiming to only have 14. Turns out, Jake did count 15; except one of them turned out to be the killer making his escape.
- Locked Room Mystery: The case is a textbook example. No person is seen going in or out and there was no sign of forced entry. It turns out the killer was hidden inside the walls and only escaped when the police came in, disguising himself in a hazmat suit to appear to be part of the team.
- Metaphorgotten: Lampshaded by Jake after he describes the first walkthrough of a crime scene:Jake: It's kind of like arriving at summer camp, except the lake is full of blood and your bunk mate is dead. I think I might be bad at metaphors.
- Momma's Boy: Jake ends up being emotionally involved with the case because the victim’s mother reminded him of his mom. Rosa is also moved after talking to her, since she hasn’t spoken with her mom since she came out as bisexual.
- Near-Villain Victory: After months of fruitless investigation, the NYPD labels the murder a cold case. If Jake and Rosa hadn't gone back to the apartment after that, the killer would have gotten away with it.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Downplayed as he was really just doing his job and trying to avoid crime scene contamination, but the CSI Tech refusing to turn on the air conditioning led to Jake and Rosa missing a valuable clue that allowed them to solve the case.
- Not So Above It All: People, especially Rosa, scolded Jake for getting emotionally involved by promising to the victim’s mother that he will find the culprit, with Jake claiming that he couldn’t help thinking of his own mother while talking to her. When they have to let go of the case and tell the news to the woman, Rosa immediately gets emotional and promises her to solve the case, since the lady also reminded her of her mother.
- Poor, Predictable Rock: Jake always picks paper, even when he's playing against Rosa to prove that he doesn't always pick paper. He thinks he's using reverse psychology, but she's onto him.
- Pop-Cultural Osmosis Failure:
- Franco McCoy, the guy running forensics, has apparently never heard of Law & Order, Miami Vice, NYPD Blue, Hill Street Blues, and The Wire. Rizzoli & Isles, though, he has seen and considers it pretty good.
- Holt, overhearing Jake compare a sketch to Bilbo Baggins, thinks he's referring to an actual suspect named "Bill Bobaggins".
- Red Herring: Invoked by the killer; he spread bags of other peoples' blood around the victim's apartment to make it look like there were more people there, and to throw off the police. He also ordered food for three people after killing the victim to confuse the police about both the time of death and the number of people present.
- Rule of Three: Parodied; Jake deliriously theorizes that the number three is important to solving the case because of three bloodstains, three veggie wraps, and... the tax on the wraps coming up to $3.19.
- Running Gag: Rosa has a different haircut for each scene, with Jake making a joke about it.Jake: What about a Looper situation?
Rosa: It's not a Looper situation!
Jake: This is my least favorite hair! - Sanity Slippage: Jake begins to lose it due to the difficulty of the case and his emotional investment.
- Shout-Out:
- CSI agent Franco McCoy acts like Gil Grissom from CSI, making weird quips and even doing a Horatio Caine-style Glasses Pull. Jake earns his respect by doing a Caine-style quip and Glasses Pull of his own.
- When Franco makes the ridiculous claim that there are more shows about CSI techs than cops, Jake rattles off a long list of cop shows that Franco claims to have never heard of (including Law & Order, Hill Street Blues, and NYPD Blue) before landing on Rizzoli & Isles (which Franco actually has seen).
- Jake compares Rosa's hair first to Edna Mode from The Incredibles, then to Rapunzel from Tangled, and finally, to Cousin Itt from The Addams Family.
- Their leads having largely run dry, Jake attempts to think outside the box, considering the possibility the bad guy might be The Babadook, Harry Potter in his Invisibility Cloak, or that it might be "a Looper situation".
- The hapless delivery man turns out to be their most solid lead. Unfortunately, he is stoned most of the time:
- Surveillance as the Plot Demands: Discussed and justified. After the murder, the police gathered and collated video footage from multiple public and private security cameras. While this takes work to assemble, once it's done, they have video of the entire building and the surrounding streets. Jake comments, with some horror, that they're literally always being watched and sarcastically comments that it will surely never backfire.
