"Manhunter" is the first episode of Season Seven of Brooklyn Nine-Nine
Following an assassination attempt on a city councilor, Jake Peralta is out in charge of the manhunt to find the perpetrator. However, his case gets hijacked by the newly-demoted Officer Holt, who is having a hard time adjusting to his new position(and now being Jake's subordinate.)
Meanwhile, Amy is dealing with a Pregnancy Scare. Her period is late and she's far too stressed to take a pregnancy test.
This Episode provides examples of:
- Answer Cut: "Who can possibly locate a random hot dog cart?" Enter Hitchcock and Scully.
- Artistic License – Biology: Amy tries to get herself to pee by chugging 11 gallons of water. In real life, without electrolytes, that much water in such a short amount of time can cause a medical emergency due to sodium deficiency.
- Big "NO!": Jake closes the episode screaming "NOOOO!" when he sees that Hitchcock and Scully are on TV instead of him.
- A Birthday, Not a Break: Officer Debbie reveals that the events of the episode — including her being held at gun-point by a suspect — happened on her birthday. As well as that of her murdered twin sister, presumably.
- Blatant Lies: Holt investigates the scene of the shooting even though he was ordered to do something else. When Jake asks him what he's doing, Holt claims that he was looking for his lunch, and grabs a half-eaten box of chicken nuggets off the ground.
- Chekhov's Gun: Officer Debbie's fitness tracking app is used to track her and Holt down when they are taken hostage by the shooter.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Played for Laughs with Officer Debbie, who reveals — with the same nervously upbeat delivery she brings to everything — that she only joined the force to track down the murderer of her twin sister, a task she now fears she'll die without accomplishing. Made even funnier by the fact that she treats this as In-Universe Common Knowledge:Holt: (astounded) There is no way you told me that.
- Even the Dog Is Ashamed: After his demotion, Holt isn't even getting respect from Cheddar. "Now, he only poops for Kevin."
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: The box of the pregnancy test marketed to teenagers is labeled "OMG-WTF-FML Pregnancy Test For Teens."
- Innocent Innuendo: As always, Charles has no idea how inappropriate it is to call himself the "Boyhunter" as the sidekick to Jake's "Manhunter". He even sings about hanging out around schools and playgrounds to keep the children safe.
- Jerkass Has a Point: While Jake is mainly lashing out due to his wounded pride, he's not wrong that Holt is overstepping his bounds as his subordinate by all but hijacking the manhunt from him, and that his sudden claims of the Hotdog stand owner being the actual assassin instead of the guy Jake arrested can seem to most people like a desperate attempt to prolong the case and take the glory, with the only reason Jake eventually comes around to the theory being that Holt is usually correct with these kind of things.
- Potty Emergency: Amy tries to engineer one in order to take her pregnancy test, drinking eleven bottles of water in one sitting. She is ready to go when they have to go rescue Holt from the shooter, and rather than go through a long standoff, Amy quickly tackles down the suspect so she can finally go to the bathroom.
- Pregnancy Scare: Amy's plotline has her worried that she had missed her period and might be pregnant. It turns out to be a false alarm — she got her period later and the test came out negative — but she and Jake discuss trying to have children sooner than planned because she was honestly bummed that her test had come out negative.
- Red Herring: A hot dog vendor identifies a man in a green hoodie as the shooter. After the suspect is caught, however, Holt realizes that the guy is actually a distraction, and the real shooter was passing himself off as the vendor.
- Snipe Hunt: Jake sends Holt on one to get him out of the way and to stop hijacking his Manhunt.
- Soldiers at the Rear: Debbie makes it a point to be as far away from the action as possible, even relishing the chance to pick up traffic cones.
- Take a Third Option: Officer Debbie asks Holt for one when he tells her she can be a coward and settle for busy-work or she can Dare to Be Badass and go with him to pursue the sniper. Holt tells her she can “nervously tag along,” and she accepts.
- This Looks Like a Job for Aquaman: Jake needs to learn the name of a specific hotdog vendor in order to solve the case. Luckily for him, Hitchcock and Scully have an encyclopedic knowledge of every hotdog cart in the city, and are immediately able to tell Jake that there are no hotdog vendors on the street corner that the eyewitness claimed to work on.
