When a police officer gets a bad meal, a "blue flu" strikes the NYPD. The 99 have to find the truth to stop the strike.
Tropes
- Anti-Climax: After years of Holt acting like his tattoo was an embarrassment, Rosa gets a photo of it for Jake. Everyone is dismayed to find it's...a decimal point.
- Subverted as it turns out Rosa gave Jake a fake photo and is the only one who knows just what Holt's tattoo really is.
- Brick Joke: Holt calls his plan a Trident as it has three "prongs" of attack, with Jake mentioning Aquaman's is equipped with five. By the end of the operation, two more "prongs" are added.
- Comfort Food: Boyle orders a large wheel of donkey cheese after his medical exam, which Holt indulges in when he hits a wall in his operation, pairing it with his wine saved for when he became commisioner.
- Cluster Bleep-Bomb: Delivered by Holt after his frustration of dealing with Frank comes to a head.
- Despair Event Horizon: Crossed by Boyle when faced with his mortality, and later Jake, when he shares his fears with him about what he would be missing after dying.
- Drowning My Sorrows: When it looks like he won't be able to expose the "blue flu", Holt resigns himself to eating Boyle's donkey cheese and drinking a wine that he was planning to open when he was made commissioner.
- Dumb Ass Has A Point: When Amy is confident the officers are all busy because of their pedometers, Hitchcock and Scully laugh at how naive she is before showing said officers are just using massage chairs to fool the sensors.
- Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: Amy talks about how all the captains in local districts were happy to each send two detectives to help the 99 out. Holt mentions how odd it is for other captains to send over any detectives in a low manpower situation... then they realize why these cops were sent:Amy: Oh, dear God... they sent us their Hitchcocks and Scullys.
- Growling Gut: Terry's stomach flu is making his stomach growl loudly. This ends up ruining Holt's plan to have Terry record the cops talking about not being really sick, only for his gut to drown them out.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Spelled out by Holt in how he sent Terry to the meeting to prove the cops were faking being sick...only for Terry to have them all catch his stomach bug and now are all sick for real.Holt: The petard...It just won't stop hoisting!
- Also for Frank, whose downsizing the force ala walkout protest proved the net gains of a smaller police presence through fewer complaints and wrongful arrests.
- Innocent Innuendo: Boyle eats a rare Latvian cheese made of donkey milk. So naturally, he calls it "ass cheese."
- Insane Troll Logic: Holt feels this talking to O'Sullivan who somehow makes it sound like "calling a police officer a liar is the worst thing" that Holt "hates cops" and when Holt goes "I don't know how to talk to someone like you," replies "you're racist!"Holt: This is a very frustrating conversation.
- Interrupted by the End: Just before we are told what Holt's real tattoo is.Holt: And you'll never tell anyone what you saw?Rosa: They wouldn't believe me if I did. I mean, c'mon, sir, it's a picture of-
- Ironic Echo: O'Sullivan repeats Holt's "This is a Very Frustrating Conversation" when Holt reveals his Xanatos Gambit to him.
- Looking Busy: Amy gives the surrogate officers pedometers to prove they are patrolling the miles required, with the added reward of extra overtime hours. They fool the machines by spending the day in massage chairs.
- Morally Ambiguous Doctorate: Subverted. After learning all the striking officers got their positive mono test results from the same doctor, Holt believes they're dealing with one of these. Turns outs he's a by-the-book physician who is completely unaware of the scheme. The phony mono results were actually conjured up by a relative of the officer who planted the mouse who works at the medical lab.
- Moving the Goalposts: After presenting evidence to Frank that the officer planted the mouse, he instead makes the campaign about calling cops liars... despite this officer actually proven a liar.
- Mistaken for Dying: Boyle goes for a check-up as part of the plan to expose the "blue flu", but the doctor finds an enlarged testicle and orders a test to see if it's due to cancer. Until the test results arrive, Boyle thinks he's in his last days and goes into a funk. Thankfully, he only had a treatable infection.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Jake is dumbfounded when Holt drops a Cluster F-Bomb on O'Sullivan.
- Playing Sick: The titular "blue flu", a Real Life tactic used by police; since, as public servants, they are not allowed to strike, police officers fake being sick in order to perform a walk-out. In this case, they all claim to have mono.
- Shout-Out: Jake references both the theatrical and the "Snyder Cut" of Justice League.
- Xanatos Gambit: Holt wins by turning the stand-off into one. By using the "Blue Flu" to gather data on the benefits of a smaller police force, he can potentially make the case for reducing overpolicing (which could mean staff cutbacks). The union's alternative is to end the unofficial strike, cutting off Holt's data, but then they lose their bargaining power. Since Holt wins either way, they have nothing to threaten him with.
- The Unreveal: The episode ends just as Rosa was about to say what Holt's tattoo was.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Terry receives an invite to a meeting of cops calling in sick in the hopes of getting proof they're lying. Unfortunately, he passes on his very real stomach bug to everyone there, resulting in the cops gaining a legitimate reason to avoid work.
