Brooklyn Nine-Nine: The Ebony Falcon Recap

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBfHF7gbXUM]

Brooklyn Nine-Nine: The Ebony Falcon (1×14)

Summary: Sgt. Jeffords returns to field work to help with a sting operation at a local gym. However, Peralta begins to worry about him to the point it compromises the case. Meanwhile, Diaz and Santiago investigate a break in at Gina’s apartment.

Rating: ★★★★☆

I love character building episodes and this one is a doozy of them while still managing to be hilarious.

Peralta and Boyle come to Holt with a case they have about steroid sales in Brooklyn. They’ve tracked the sales and distribution down to a gym. However, since the main distributor Brandon Jacobi will only talk to trainers and other gym rats, they need to bring in Jeffords for their undercover operation. Holt asks if Jeffords is ready, but Peralta assures him that he’s more than ready to go and won’t freak out again. Jeffords assures them of the same by declaring that “The Ebony Falcon is back!” Peralta and him chest bump with disastrous results, but hey, Terry did warn him.

Later that night, Peralta and Boyle stop at the Jeffords household to talk strategy as Terry is putting his daughters Cagney and Lacey to bed. It’s a really adorable scene with the two cutest little girls ever, Terry being a big softy, and Boyle saying that he’s like “an enormous, muscular Ellen DeGeneres.” In an unexpected twist, however, seeing Jeffords with his girls immediately makes Peralta freak out and worry about him. He immediately decides that in order to protect Sgt. Jeffords, they need to find a way to cut him out of the case. Without telling him, of course. When he proposes slowing the case down to Jeffords, he still assures Jake that he’s ready. This is immediately followed by him taking a giraffe named Mister Snuggles to his girls. It’s cuter than I make it sound, believe me.

The undercover sting starts the next day and Boyle and Jeffords are getting into their roles. Peralta, however, is still on edge over Jeffords’ involvement. As he goes off to train with Jacobi, Peralta attempts to keep an eye on him. This ends with an angry old man claiming that Peralta is “cyberbullying” him as he’s trying to get him to move off the equipment. Best use of that word ever.

Peralta loses sight of Jeffords, but finds him again in the locker room. Jeffords assures him that it’s all going fine, but Peralta panics and blows cover when it seems like Jacobi might find out Jeffords is lying. Big emphasis on might. This understandably pisses Jeffords off since they now have a suspect in custody without anything to go on because Peralta thinks that keeping The Ebony Falcon from flying is a good idea.

Still, not learning a damn thing, Peralta and Boyle find and contact Jacobi’s buyer and decide to meet him while Jeffords is in the middle of an interrogation. Since Holt and Jeffords are bros though, Holt tells Jeffords off screen that the two left and Jeffords meets them at the gym still pissed. I wonder if that was another foot in mouth moment for Holt, but I guess we’ll never know.

What results is probably my second favorite boxing scene on TV. Peralta gets in the ring with Jeffords, who begins beating on him to get answers out of him. After getting hit in his “lucky face,” Jake admits that he was worried for Jeffords and his girls, not wanting them to grow up without a dad like he did. He just didn’t tell him that so he wouldn’t get into his head. Jeffords admits that it’s been rough, but he’s learned to embrace the fears that he let get to him initially. Jeffords and Peralta make up, and Peralta redubs him “The Ebony Antelope.” “Brave enough to drink at the lake, but wise enough to run from the lions.”

Then Peralta gets emotional about the card Cagney and Lacey made him for keeping Terry safe and it’s the cutest damn thing.

Meanwhile in the B-plot, Gina comes to Holt to ask for help after her apartment was broken into. She initially asks for CIA contacts because of the incompetency of some of the officers in the 99 (mostly Scully and Hitchcock), but Holt puts Diaz and Santiago on the case of the strangest breaking and entering ever.

No, really, one of the things stolen from Gina’s apartment was a set of Joseph Gordon Levitt nesting dolls. Where do you even FIND those?

Gina begins to harangue Diaz and Santiago to find the person who did it to the point she files a civilian complaint against them for not finding the guy, stays over at Santiago’s house all night to go over clues, and hires a private detective. Still, even with all of that and following procedure, the two can’t find the guy who did it.

The two are thoroughly annoyed by Gina and complain to Holt about it, but he asks them to look at it from her perspective: She’s scared. After a long hypothetical about what weapons Diaz would have if she wasn’t a cop that makes me want Rosa Diaz/Johanna Mason fanfic, the two decide to help Gina out by escorting her home that evening and installing new locks on her windows and door. In a strange show of gratitude for someone who’s favorite comedy is The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, Gina thanks the two profusely and gives them both a pair of lycra bodysuits. Just roll with it.

I REALLY liked this episode. It was definitely more of a character building episode that let us see into Peralta, Jeffords, and Gina, but it still managed to be funny and heartwarming without being bogged down. Plus, it just solidified the fact I want to hang out with Terry Crews because he is truly majestic in this episode now that Jeffords is back in the field. I will chest bump that man and fall on my ass afterwards, but it will still be amazing. Also, it made me hope that we will get more weirdness into Gina’s life at some point along with the hidden character complexities. Well… weirder weirdness.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhWC5_uylpc]