"Trying" is the sixth episode of Season Seven of Brooklyn Nine-Nine.
Jake and Amy struggle to conceive. Rosa and Charles, meanwhile, are dealing with a population explosion after Charles' guinea pigs begin breeding in one of the Nine-Nine's supply closets. Elsewhere, Holt is bored with his patrol beat, but Terry refuses to give him a new one.
As all this is happening, Hitchcock celebrates his divorce and meets the new love of his life. Unfortunately, he loses her number and only has a single tooth with which to track her down.
This Episode provides examples of:
- Artistic License – Medicine: Jake and Amy become increasingly worried and begin talking about the possibility of IVF because they haven't gotten pregnant after six months of trying. However, they would have had to have been trying for over a year without success for their fertility to be of concern to medical professionals — it's quite normal to need to try for a few months before getting pregnant.
- Bittersweet Ending: The Jake/Amy and Charles/Rosa plots both end this way.
- Jake and Amy are unable to conceive after six months of constantly trying, but both agree that it's not the end and their relationship ultimately grows stronger for it. Jake also brings up the possibility of artificial insemination or adopting a kid.
- All of Charles and Rosa's efforts to find someone to adopt the guinea pigs fall through, and the population eventually grows so large they can't hide them anymore. Terry decides to have the whole group handed over to government scientists, but ensures that they'll only be involved in noninvasive procedures like running mazes.
- Book Ends: The episode opens and closes with Hitchcock throwing a divorce party.
- Chekhov's Skill: Holt learns Russian during the course of the episode through his interaction with the Russian-speaking lady owning the stand where he buys his coffee every morning. It comes in handy when the gang need a heated argument between Anna and her mother translated in English.
- Creepy Doll: No one goes into Supply Closet K because they're freaked out by the baby CPR dolls inside.
- Explosive Breeder: The guinea pig population grows exponentially after Charles neglects to separate female Claire and male Claire.
- The Girl Who Fits This Slipper: Spoofed with Hitchcock looking for the woman she met at the bar from the tooth she left behind.
- Insistent Terminology: According to Holt, tedious is not the same as monotonous.
- Law of Inverse Fertility: The episode's title refers to Jake and Amy trying and failing to get pregnant over the course of six months. Meanwhile, Hitchcock and his new wife get pregnant right away, despite them just finding each other again after several months apart. To be fair, Hitchcock's new wife reveals that Hitchcock isn't the father of her baby after all.
- Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe: Hitchcock's new wife drops the bombshell that he's not the father of her baby, albeit in Russian, which only Holt understands.
- Multitasked Conversation: Holt and Terry’s toasts at Hitchcock’s wedding are just them continuing their argument over Holt’s patrol beat.
- One-Steve Limit: Charles names all the guinea pigs "Claire".
- Sweet and Sour Grapes: Set up and ultimately Subverted at the end. Jake and Amy come to terms with being unable to conceive at the wedding reception, then decide to go home and try one last time... and nope, Amy's test comes up negative again. Both of them seem to take it in stride, thankfully.
- Takes a Third Option: After trying to conceive “The Amy Way” (meticulous planning) and “The Jake Way” (elaborate role play) both fail, Amy and Jake decide to try “The Hitchcock Way” — take the absolute worse decision in any situation.
- Time-Compression Montage: Of Jake and Amy trying to get pregnant for six months, intercut with Holt adapting to his patrol routine, the guinea pig situation growing increasingly out of control, and Hitchcock and Scully looking to find the love of Hitchock's life. Lampshaded by Holt when he refers to a conversation earlier in the episode, that Terry does not recall due to the intervening six monthsTerry: That was so long ago. A lot has happened since then.
Holt: Well, to me it seems like mere minutes ago, because I've been living the same day over and over again.
