When the FBI take over a bombing case, Jake is obsessed with beating them to finding the bomber, which leads to a huge mistake.
Tropes
- Actor Allusion: Holt tells Jake that he hates colleges that award diplomas for acting. Andre Braugher has not one, but two diplomas in acting, and Andy Samberg himself received a diploma in film.
- Bittersweet Ending: Peralta is suspended for 5 months for his actions, but he takes that as a win by defying the immoral union rep who wanted to cower behind the court settlement. Despite Peralta doing the right thing, Holt reminds him that the cost of learning that lesson was an innocent man losing his job.
- Deconstruction: Continuing this seasons theme of self-deconstruction, if this were an earlier season the episode would have probably ended with Jake either showing up the Jerkass FBI agents by catching the real criminal or exposing O'Sullivan's scheme and using it to force him to leave Amy and the precinct alone. Instead he's forced to admit he made a mistake and accept the suspension.
- Dirty Cop: Officer Marzipan apparently has 14 IA investigations and renamed himself "David Duke."
- Disappointed in You: Discussed. Jake tries to invoke this, only for Holt to reply that he is both mad and disappointed in Jake for his actions. Jake's further actions upgrade this to "displeased," which is somehow worse.
- Entertainingly Wrong: Jake once more insists on seeing more than what's there, convinced the entire fake arrest was part of O'Sullivan's plan to set him up to get back at Amy's pilot program. It turns out it's all one big coincidence that ended up getting Jake in bigger trouble and suspended.
- Evil Is Petty: The horrifying O' Sullivan's plan to make Amy sorry? Sabotage any sort of candy distribution inside the 99's office.
- Failed a Spot Check: O'Sullivan attempts to blackmail Holt about his sexuality while sitting in Holt's office, with Holt's Rainbow Pride Flag literally within his line of sight the entire time. (Furthermore, the Bi Pride Flag that Holt added when Rosa came out is right next to it; O'Sullivan later attempts the same trick on Rosa with a similar lack of result.)
- Five-Second Foreshadowing: Holt tells Jake that, out of all the possible reactions to Jake's actions, only one is worse than "displeased," and tells Jake that he never wants to see Holt become "huffy." A minute later, O'Sullivan comes in and makes Holt very huffy.
- Incest Subtext: Among Frank's drunken confessions were how he loves his mom, hates his ex-wife, and wishes his mom was his wife.
- In Vino Veritas: Rosa and Amy's plan of investigating Frank is to get him drunk and confess to setting up Jake. He reveals that he has a weird adoration for his mother and that his plan was messing with 99's snack supply. Ultimately, this is subverted however, as he Never Gets Drunk and reveals this information of his own accord.
- Jerkass Has a Point: And even several points. The FBI agent is very condescending towards Jake. However, the FBI agent is perfectly qualified to take the case from the NYPD (and Holt immediately confirms this). Based on the analysis of the detonator major flaw, he quickly and perfectly understands that the bomber isn't smart (contrary to Jake who thinks they made a device designed for a very specific target). And he, or his institution, manages to identify and arrest the bomber off-screen in just a few hours. As well, he is perfectly polite to Holt, who doesn't make a big scene and waste his time trying to work his way into the case, unlike Jake, whose first interaction with the agent is to try and overstep his jurisdiction and then complain when Holt shoots him down, generally coming off as childish.
- Jurisdiction Friction: Jake wants this with the FBI whereas Holt is perfectly happy with letting the FBI work the case.
- Locked Out of the Loop: When Jake demands to know why the FBI didn't tell him they caught the real bomber, Holt fires back that the FBI had no reason to share information with a cop who wasn't supposed to be involved in this case.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Jake after accidentally causing the innocent guy to get fired for being wrongfully accused.
- Names to Run From Really Fast: Officer David Duke Marzipan. He apparently changed his name TO this.
- Never Gets Drunk: The undoing of the plan to trick a "confession" from O'Sullivan as, even after fourteen beers, he's perfectly fine while Amy and Rosa are completely buzzed. And is later unfazed after day-drinking.
- Not Me This Time: Frank eventually confesses the sabotage he alluded to in a thinly-veiled threat was actually breaking the snack machine and intercepting Scully's candy deliveries.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: This is one of the very few times we see Holt genuinely expressing all his fury at all, first on Jake and then O'Sullivan, or in his words, "huffy".
- Punch-Clock Villain: The city attorney. He doesn't seem to like helping bad cops get away with misconduct and clearly hates O'Sullivan. But it's his job to save the city money on lawsuits, which requires him to work with O'Sullivan and defend cops when they get sued.
- Racial Face Blindness: Amy and Rosa expect O'Sullivan to have this so they spend the night switching places to give the other a chance to sober up. When called on it he replies that he never looks at women's faces.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Holt hands the case over to the FBI as it becomes federal, suspends Jake for insubordinate behavior, and dresses down Frank for trying to weasel him out of accountability. Also, when Jake and Amy make a solid case that O'Sullivan planned the bomb threat to get back at Amy, he approves Jake's plan to have Amy and Rosa try to get him drunk enough to cop to it.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Holt finally has enough of O'Sullivan and gives him a scathing speech about how letting bad cops off without punishment erodes public trust in the police, making things unsafe for everyone.
- Shout-Out:
- Plenty to the movie Speed.
- Rosa previously went undercover as a nun.
- The bus targeted by the bomber is a The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel tour bus.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: After being wrongly arrested by Jake, the guy loses his job and launches a lawsuit against the NYPD. Despite various attempted hijinks, Jake takes responsibility for it and ends up being suspended for five months.
- Also, the bomb was rigged to go off at midnight, when there would be no-one around to harm. The FBI agent thinks the bomber just mixed up 12 AM and PM, Jake assumes it was cunning plan and goes off to prove. As it turns out, nope, there's no plan. The guy really was just an idiot.
- Threat Backfire: In a flashback, O'Sullivan tries to blackmail Holt by threatening to leak that he's gay. Holt instantly points out that he came out thirty years earlier. He likewise tried it on Rosa only for her to point out she came out too. What makes the threat against Holt more pointless is there is a rainbow pride flag on his desk.O'Sullivan: Oh come on, you can't blackmail anyone anymore!
- Twin Switch: After Amy gets too drunk, she suggests that Rosa take her place, assuming O'Sullivan would be too drunk to notice. Rosa ends up pretending to be Amy, and amazingly it seems to work. Then, when Rosa gets too drunk, Amy gets back out, and the two continuously switch places until they're both together, giving themselves away. The only reason O'Sullivan hadn't noticed was not because he was drunk or racist, but because he never looks women in the face.
- The Unfought: The real bomber is identified and arrested by the FBI off-screen, without any helpful intervention from Jake or the 99 in general. Exaggerated, as the bomber is never shown, and their name or motivations are never told (through this exaggeration is justifiable by the fact this is a FBI case in a show focused on the NYPD).
- Unknown Rival: Played with as O'Sullivan considers Amy his "archnemesis" while she points out that just maybe the nemesis for a cop should be criminals. Then O'Sullivan has to ramp it up to create the rivalry after all.
- Wrong Genre Savvy: Jake is convinced the case is just like Speed despite all the evidence to the contrary. He winds up being very wrong and gets himself in big trouble.
- Your Approval Fills Me with Shame: Jake realises how badly he screwed up once it's become clear O'Sullivan is genuinely trying to get Jake's charges dropped and he believes he made the right choice at the start of the episode. Claiming that cops need to feel free to make spur the moment decisions in order to do their jobs.
