Amy with her brother.
"The Golden Child" is the ninth episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine's sixth season.
Amy doesn't want to go to dinner with her mother because her smarmy brother David (Lin-Manuel Miranda) will be there. Jake convinces her to not cancel, only to realize that David is a smug Ace. Then he has to convince her to clear her brother's name when David is framed for cocaine possession.
Boyle needs an undercover cop on a perp. He auditions Terry and Holt. In time, however, he pits them against each other in a Zany Scheme.
This episode provides examples of:
- The Ace: David. He is the best at everything—he talked down a jumper who was apparently an Oscar-winning actress, got a platinum award for marksmanship (Jake didn't even know those existed), has the cleanest blood the lab has ever seen, and accidentally got a perfect score on the lieutenant's exam.
- Ambiguously Bi: Jake, as usual, when commenting on the Brazilian mobsters. Possibly David as well.
- Always Someone Better: Amy is resentful of David because he always makes her accomplishments look minimal and he doesn't know when to stop bragging. The only thing she might be better at is dancing, and that's just because the entire Santiago family, including David, is terrible.
- And Another Thing...: When Jake tears into Amy's mother at the restaurant, he keeps going on in this manner.Jake: I think there were about 35 "another thing"s.
- Bad "Bad Acting": Holt's performance as Maxwell Blaze.Holt: [trying to come across like a street punk] I pushed a man, just to see him frown.
- Lampshaded by Alfonso the perp, after Boyle's constant notes drive Terry to blow his own cover:Holt: Uh-oh, Alfonso, seems as though we got a pig in our midst. Looks like we can only trust each other.
Alfonso: Come on, man, you're obviously a cop too. You keep talking about how "nefarious" you are.
- Lampshaded by Alfonso the perp, after Boyle's constant notes drive Terry to blow his own cover:
- Batman Gambit: Charles' entire plan. He deliberately sabotaged Terry, while assuming that Holt wouldn't convince anyone. They were both figured out almost immediately, leading to the perp ranting about the ridiculous scheme to another suspect, which led to him revealing everything. The other suspect, of course, turned out to be Rosa in disguise.
- The Beautiful Elite: Brazilian mobsters are shockingly beautiful and smell great. Jake actually gets caught because he's too busy admiring them.
- Big Brother Instinct: David immediately drops his petty dance-off with his sister when Amy gets injured trying to do a Death Drop.
- Broken Ace: Subverted Trope; when he's framed for cocaine, David lies about using since he was a teen, until he, Jake and Amy can talk quietly. Eventually, when he and Amy have a big fight in the Brazilian club, David gets a faceful of Amy calling him out for his arrogance and insensitivity towards not appreciating her accomplishments and always bragging.
- Book Ends: In the opening, Jake can't decide between two checkered shirts to wear for the dinner with Amy's mother and David. He wears the shirt with smaller checks to the dinner that night and the shirt with larger checks to the celebration dinner at the end of the episode.
- Calling the Old Man Out: Jake does this on Amy's behalf in The Stinger towards her mother. When she finds out, they decide to sneak out the back and wait to see her mother again at Thanksgiving.
- Celebrity Paradox: In "Captain Latvia", Gina ditched Holt's talent show performance to go see Hamilton... which she never mentioned was apparently written by and starred Amy's brother.
- Clear My Name: David is framed for cocaine possession, and he thinks it was dirty cops on the Brazilian mob payroll. They find the evidence using a ledger hidden in a Brazilian mob club.
- Competition Freak: Amy and David, who are rivals. This is what led Amy to be as competitive as she is today.
- Curse Cut Short: Amy, after seeing that David arrived early; it changes to the next scene before she finishes.Amy: Motherf- *scene changes*
- Everyone Has Standards: Jake is all for indulging Amy's competitiveness and vindictiveness towards David when it's about impressing her mother at dinner, but draws the line when it extends to letting David go down for a wrongful drug possession charge.
- Genre Savvy: Zigzagged Trope when Jake uses an analogy about the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to convince Amy to help out her brother. It works because Amy gets his analogy, although Jake loses her when he starts to get into specific details.
- Heel Realization: Amy lets David take the shot after she accidentally gets Jake busted by the Brazilian mobsters. As she put it later to Jake, letting her rivalry risk Jake's life wasn't worth it.
- Hidden Depths: Rosa's are lampshaded when she's said to be the greatest actor in the precinct because no one knows anything about her personal life.
- Hourglass Plot: In "The Tattler", Amy was trying to convince Jake not to be petty over his reputation being ruined back in high school. Here, Jake is doing it for the cause of helping Amy's brother.
- It's All About Me: David always makes his accomplishments all about him, and flawlessly. Then when Amy hits her Rage Breaking Point, he then humble-brags more and says Amy is jealous of him because she could never measure up.
- Jerkass Realization: David gets two: one when Amy injures herself pulling a Wounded Gazelle Gambit to get the evidence and clear his name, and another when Jake nearly gets killed trying to find the evidence. By the end of the episode he's toning down his arrogance and thanking his sister for helping him.
- Most Definitely Not a Villain: Inverted. The drug dealer isn't fooled by Holt's "Maxwell Blaze" persona because he keeps talking about how "nefarious" he is.
- Not So Above It All: Amy gets a petty Slasher Smile when her brother is arrested for drugs.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: When Jake has to convince Amy not to be vindictive towards her brother, you know something's wrong.
- Only Sane Man: As mentioned above, JAKE of all people has to act like this towards Amy.
- Parental Favoritism: Amy's parents — mostly her mother — very openly play favorites. It is never a secret which child they're most proud of.
- Pass the Popcorn: While Jake rants at Amy's mother, David just sits back and watches the show, eating his dinner and grinning to himself.
- Shout-Out: Holt's line "I pushed a man, just to see him frown" is reference to Johnny Cash's Badass Boast in "Folsom Prison Blues", "I shot a man in Reno / just to watch him die."
- Sibling Rivalry: Amy and her brother, David, obviously.
- Stepford Smiler: Amy, after David got arrested.
- Sucks at Dancing: Amy and David, who both seem think that dancing requires a lot of forearm and elbow respectively.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Jake gives Amy's mother a very long (if mostly offscreen) one after she keeps favoring David. Given that Amy had now got over her hang-up with her brother and also they were at a family meal, this turns out to not be a great idea and the couple runs out the back door before she can reply.
- Ungrateful Bastard: Amy's mother is this about her and Jake clearing David's name. David sincerely thanks Amy for saving his butt, and their mother says that David's gratitude is why he's on the mantelpiece. This causes Jake's Rage Breaking Point as he calls out Mrs. Santiago for her unfair expectations and how she pits her children against each other while offering crumbs of appreciation in return. David watches and grins, showing he agreed with Jake on this one.
- Wounded Gazelle Gambit:
- Jake conspires with Amy to fake choking at their dinner with her mother and David to give her a moment of glory by saving him. Unfortunately David is the one that ends up trying to assist him, at their mother's suggestion, and she dejectedly decides to go to the bathroom. The other people in the restaurant saw this and are praising David while apparently looking down on Amy for apparently carelessly walking away from a choking victim.
- Amy tries to fake a fall to distract the guards at a secret door in the club. It distracts them, but David reveals she has a minor concussion.
- Charles's acting ruse works because he sets up Holt and Terry to fail so the drug dealer won't expect Rosa to also be undercover and spill the beans to her.
