It's finally happening! Jake and Amy are getting married!note
"Jake & Amy" is the twenty-second and final episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine's fifth season. It is also the final episode to air on Fox, due to the show being cancelled by the network before being subsequently picked up by NBC.
It is finally the day of Jake and Amy's wedding. The venue is set and everyone is excited. Although Amy is stressed due to some last-minute hiccups, Jake immediately comes up with alternative solutions and refuses to let anything get his mood down. Then a bomb threat is called into the rec center, presumably because Charles put out a very detailed engagement notice, and everything is put on hold until the bomb squad sweeps the building. Complicating matters is that the NYPD Bomb Squad is now run by Teddy, Amy's boring and very jealous ex-boyfriend, who drags out the sweep for as long as possible out of spite.
Holt and Gina, meanwhile, return to the Nine-Nine to prepare Cheddar to step in as the wedding's ring bearer after Amy's nephew has to drop out. While they are doing that, Holt receives a very momentous e-mail regarding his candidacy to be the next NYPD Commissioner.
Terry and Rosa head off to get Amy's veil cleaned. There are some complications, however, when Terry misplaces the veil, but the sergeant becomes more preoccupied with trying to set Rosa up with Alicia, their driver for the day.
Also, Hitchcock and Scully are sent off to find a band for the wedding. Mostly to keep them out of everyone's hair.
This episode provides examples of:
- Aborted Arc: Despite the show showing the chemistry between Rosa and Alicia, plus building up the possibility of a relationship between the two, Alicia is never seen or referred to again after this episode.
- Arch-Enemy: Invoked. When Jake receives a bomb threat, he's exciting about the idea of having someone he put away dedicating his life to revenge. When it turns out the bomber is actually after Amy, he tries, very poorly, to hide his disappointment and jealousy.
- The Atoner: At the end, Teddy agrees to help out with Jake and Amy's replacement wedding in order to make up for his dickishness throughout the episode. Though he can't resist asking if Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Peace is going to part of proceedings.
- Black Comedy Suicide: Threatened by Charles if Jake and Amy don't like the impromptu wedding he organized.
- Book Ends: In some ways, this episode is one to Season 2's finale, Johnny and Dora, as that episode kickstarted Jake and Amy's relationship.
- Brick Joke: Jake sends Hitchcock and Scully on a fake mission to find a band for the wedding, and near the end of the episode, they manage to find a good violinist.
- Even the violist himself is a brick joke; Fred Armisen's character, Mlepnos, was in two episodes of Season 1 (one of which was the pilot) and hasn't been seen since.
- The Bus Came Back: Teddy.
- Also Mlepnos, from Season 1. He plays the violin at Jake and Amy's wedding despite claiming he's never met them before, and offers to sell them horse blood. Or buy horse blood from them. It's a bit unclear.
- Call-Back:
- When Rosa is distracted from finding Amy's veil by Alicia, Terry chastises her for not helping him find the veil. Rosa's excuse is that it's what the universe wants and Terry dismisses it, saying the universe is a dick. The entire exchange is a reference to Monster in the Closet.
- The Nakatomi Plaza cake makes its return.
- Cliffhanger: The season closes with Holt leaving everyone in suspense as to whether or not he got the job of NYPD Commissioner. The show almost ended with this plot unresolved due to Fox's deciding to cancel it.
- The Cloud Cuckoolander Was Right: When Jake argues that a real bomber would never call in a threat hours ahead of time, Teddy concocts an elaborate hypothetical about the bomber's daughter finding his plans and making an anonymous call. At the end of the episode, that turns out to have been exactly what happened.
- Death by Despair: Jake at first thinks the mystery bomber is Frank Gillespie, an armed robber who had lymphoma that he became best friends with and also ran a 10k with while undercover before arresting him, adding that Frank felt super betrayed and the trial was incredibly emotional. Adding to this, Frank recently got out of jail a year ago. Turns Frank only got out of jail because he passed away; his lymphoma came back and it is implied by his mother that he was so hurt by Jake's betrayal that he refused treatment.
- Despair Event Horizon: Poor Frank Gillespie.
- Distracted by the Sexy: Despite her initial reluctance, Rosa finds Alicia to be distractingly attractive.
- Entitled to Have You: Teddy crosses into this territory when he attempts to sabotage Jake and Amy's wedding. He even tries to invoke I Want My Beloved to Be Happy as a last ditch tactic to win her back.
- Everyone Has Standards: Although Terry tries to play Shipper on Deck for Rosa, he calls her out for getting Distracted by the Sexy when they are seriously searching for Amy's missing veil.
- Flanderization: Teddy by this point has been reduced to a person continuing to pine for Amy, even though she makes if very clear that she's happy with Jake, and even tries to propose again more than once.
- Foreshadowing: Holt informs Gina that he doesn't want to read the email because - among other things - a "no" would leave him "untethered in this world and unsure of my very future with the NYPD," setting up the premise for the next episode.
- Heroic B So D: Jake briefly has one of these when a visit to the home of a bomb-planting suspect reveals that the man died in jail due to his terminal illness coming back and Jake's betrayal giving the man severe trust issues.
- Hidden Depths: Mlepnos can apparently play the violin beautifully.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Teddy is very clearly pleased with the opportunity to screw up Jake and Amy's wedding. At the same time, he actually is just doing his job by securing the venue and doing a thorough sweep, and even when Jake and Amy catch the bomber, he's right that they shouldn't risk so many lives on the word of a known criminal.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Jake when he finds out that a terminally ill man he arrested after becoming best friends with was so betrayed and devestated that he refused treatment when his terminal illness came back and not only died completely alone due to his trust being destroyed, but it's implied he just let the disease kill him.
- Jake: We're looking for Frank Gillespie.
Frank's mom: Frank? He died a year ago.
Jake: What? What happened?
Frank's mom: Well, his lymphoma came back. But really, it was the loneliness that killed him. Somebody hurt him and he just couldn't make friends after that.
Jake: (outside the apartment building, now HeroicBSoD-ing) Well, it seems like he died because of me. Just gonna lock that up in a little box inside my brain and never open it.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
- The whole bomb fiasco can be pinned on Boyle marking both the date and location in the newspaper announcement. The bomber would've have given up trying to kill Amy if he didn't see the announcement.
- Terry intentionally leaves Amy's veil in Alicia's cab to set up another meeting between her and Rosa. The veil turns out to not actually be in the cab due to falling out when Alicia's next customer exited the cab. The veil is quickly found... but is now ruined due to being soaked in urine.
- Once Done, Never Forgotten: Charles keeps getting flak for putting out a notice for Jake and Amy's wedding, as that information was used to make the bomb threat.
- Platonic Declaration of Love: Holt's speech, as he's officiating Jake and Amy's wedding, ends with him saying, in a rare moment of emotional forthrightness: "I love you both."
- Precious Puppies: Cheddar makes a return as a replacement ring-bearer, and he's as adorable as ever.
- Right for the Wrong Reasons: Played with; It's heavily implied that Teddy is being as stringent as possible in his investigation in a deliberate attempt to disrupt the wedding, and brushes off all of Jake and Amy's arguments about why the venue is safe. In the end, it turns out there was a bomb hidden the entire time, and even his speculation about the warning call was completely correct, by sheer chance. If he hadn't shut down the wedding, a lot of people would have died.
- Rule of Three: When Jake tells Amy how much he still wants to marry her after the day's disastersJake: Amy Santiago, I would marry you anytime, any place. I would marry you in the steaming filth of the Gowanus Canal.Amy: Sweet. But also gross.
Jake: I would marry you on the G-Train. In the summertime when the air conditioning is broken.
Amy: Damn, really?
Jake: I would marry you on top of the Empire State Building -
Amy: That sounds kind of nice.
Jake: - during a King Kong attack.
Amy: Oh yeah, that's not good. - Series Fauxnale: Because of Fox cancelling the show, this would have been the final episode in general had NBC not picked the show up at the last minute. In the episode overall, things are tied up nicely apart from Holt's Commissioner's e-mail.
- Snipe Hunt: Jake tells Hitchcock and Scully to find a new wedding band just to get them out of the way so they won't ruin the ceremony somehow. Ironically, they end up doing a good job of finding a violin player for the last minute ceremony after the original gets canceled.
- Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Peace: Defied. Teddy asks if they're going to be doing that tradition at some point, but they tell him they're skipping it. He cheerfully commends them on being smarter than him.
- Special Guest: Gina Rodriguez as Alicia.
- The Unreveal: Holt finally reads the e-mail saying whether he got elected commissioner or not, but doesn't say which out loud.Holt: Well, from the look on my face, I'm sure you can guess what it says.
Jake: [Beat] No! We have no idea at all! Just tell us, you monster! - Wedding Episode: This is the wedding episode for lead characters Jake and Amy, fittingly set at the end of the fifth season. For all of Amy's meticulous planning, nothing goes right for this one either — her veil is messed up, the whole thing is derailed by a bomb threat, and her ex-boyfriend shows up — but their squadmates manage to pretty up the precinct, and she and Jake get married right then and there.
- Wedding Finale: Lead characters Jake and Amy marry in this episode, the fifth season finale.
