Is Gordon placing Holt over a barrel?
"The Honeypot" is the seventh episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine's sixth season.
Captain Holt is looking for a new assistant to replace Gina, and Jake helps out by finding someone (played by Deadpool (2016)'s Karan Soni). At first he seems perfect, but Holt reveals that the new hire was hitting on him (in a very Holt-like fashion), and is later discovered to be a plant working for Commissioner Kelly.
Meanwhile, with the first floor closed and the fourth floor bullpen being overcrowded, Amy leads the rest of the squad in an attempt to organize the place.
This episode provides examples of:
- Arrows on Fire: Courtesy of Rosa at the Viking Funeral.
- Bait-and-Switch: Gordon tries to pull one by pretending to be a double agent for Holt, when really he was only pretending to switch sides to Holt in order to make it look like Holt was spying on the Commissioner. However, Holt then reveals that he had bugged the rest of the restaurant and put in cameras beforehand, so Gordon and Commissioner Kelly were caught revealing their entire plan.
- Batman Gambit: Holt, who figured he still might not be able to trust Gordon, planted bugs and cameras in the restaurant beforehand, just in case Gordon turned on them.
- Call-Back: Jake once again refers to Holt (as well as Kevin, this time) as his "dad".
- Fake Defector: Gordon, who pretends to switch sides.
- Faux Affably Evil: Commissioner Kelly, as always, even when asking for Holt's resignation. However, his "affable" charade quickly falls away when Holt reveals he caught Kelly on tape admitting he planted a spy in the Nine-Nine.
- For Your Own Good: Amy's reasoning when forcing her co-workers to throw away all their personal belongings.
- Fun with Acronyms: Jake runs through several examples of this as Operation: [Blank] codenames. Holt follows his lead by naming the final plan TRIPLE DRAGON: Two Righteous Individuals Performing Law Enforcement Directives Rapidly Against Gordon Our Nemesis.
- Geeky Turn-On: Holt considers it scandalous when Gordon suggests they go to an exhibit of historic wooden barrels. While their tour seems dry and academic, they both insist that it was an "erotically-charged atmosphere". In the end, Jake takes Amy to the same exhibit, who very clearly shares that opinion.
- Heel–Face Turn: Gordon appears to have one, but it's revealed to have been an act in order to frame Holt for spying on the Commissioner (who was doing just that to Holt).
- Hidden Depths: Rosa, as usual. This time, she reveals that she's an archer and has six bows in her car.
- Honey Trap: The whole premise of the plot. Unlike other famous honey traps, Gordon is stiff, uptight and not conventionally hot by any means. However, Kelly had done his research, as this is actually his target's type.
- Incredibly Lame Fun: As a cover to get to Gordon's laptop, Holt takes him to a barrel exhibit at the Museum of American Industry. Holt is thoroughly enjoying it, even going through the history of one particular barrel for an hour, then going to another barrel and talking about as long on how it's identical to the previous one.
- Insistent Terminology: Holt refers to Tom Cruise as Thomas Cruise.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Commissioner Kelly gets what has been a long time coming, when Holt catches him spying on the Nine-Nine.
- Minor Flaw, Major Breakup: Holt rejects his latest assistant candidate for abbreviating a one-syllable word.
- Mook–Face Turn: Gordon pretends to have one.
- Not So Above It All: At first, Holt criticizes Jake's attempts to catch Gordon with tactics taken from spy movies. However, when Jake's plan to secretly record Gordon's confession fails due to Gordon being a triple agent, Holt saves the day by revealing that he'd been recording Gordon and Commissioner Kelly all along—because he'd followed Jake's example and watched a few spy movies himself. He even gives his plan a cool Operation: [Blank]/Fun with Acronyms name, just like Jake.
- Oh, Crap!: Jake and Holt, when they realize Gordon was a triple agent. And then Commissioner Kelly and Gordon when they realize Holt expected it, and planted bugs and cameras all throughout the restaurant.
- Reset Button: With Commissioner Kelly defeated, floor one of the Nine-Nine is reopened, and the bullpen is restored to its usual, non-crowded state.
- Rule of Three: Jake saying "What did I miss?".
- Saying Sound Effects Out Loud: "Are you literally saying hem and haw?"
- Serious Business: Amy, as usual, about organizing the office. When the Marie Kondo "Tidying Up" method fails, she switches to a radical Scandinavian organizer methodology called Munkensmat where they're only allowed to keep one thing and burn the rest. Turns out the inventor even gave up the clothes on his back and froze to death in a snowstorm.
- Stimulant Speedtalk: Exaggerated, when Jake, Rosa, and Holt accidentally drink too much cold brew from the new machine. This causes them to see everyone else as moving too slow, while to everyone else they are talking way too fast (particularly notable since Rosa and Holt are generally The Stoic).
- Jake: [rapidly] If you're not going slow, that means we're going fast. Are we going fast? Can anyone tell if we're going fast?Rosa: [rapidly] I don't think we're going fast at all in any way whatsoever. I feel like we're going slow in every way whatsoever.
- Tragic Keepsake: During Amy's cleanup campaign, Terry is reluctant to throw out a pair of unopened suspenders because they represent the lieutenant exam he once failed, but still intends to pass. Amy gets him to dispose of them anyway but comes to regret it, so she buys him a new pair because “Some things are worth clinging to”.
- Viking Funeral: Amy and her friends conduct one in the Nine-Nine's parking lot for all the stuff they're throwing away.
- Xanatos Gambit: Holt, anticipating Gordon's triple-cross, has the entire restaurant bugged in advance. That way, if Gordon was being honest, he'd bring them the evidence they needed, if Kelly figured out he was being watched, then at least he'd lose his mole, and if (as happened), Gordon and Kelly tried to use their own operation against them, he'd have that on tape, which would provide him with even more leverage against Kelly.
