Brooklyn Nine-Nine: The Jimmy Jab Games Recap

Brooklyn Nine-Nine: The Jimmy Jab Games (2×03)

Summary: While on call for motorcade duty, the Nine-Nine holds the 7th Jimmy Jab Games to pass the time. Boyle struggles to get a tape back from Hitchcock that would reveal his affair with Gina. Holt and Jeffords meet up with Wunch to try and get funding to stop a drug appearing in the precinct.

Rating: ★★★★★

Okay, any episode of anything that makes me choke on my own spit from laughter deserves a five star rating. Or maybe I’m just biased towards Brooklyn Nine-Nine.

The precinct is on motorcade duty for the president of Bosnia, but his flight ends up getting delayed. With Holt and Jeffords out of the office to propose funding to take out a drug called Gigglepig to Deputy Chief Madeline Wunch (Kyra Sedgewick), this leaves the rest of the office to participate in the Jimmy Jab Games.

The Jimmy Jab Games have a long and illustrious history in the Nine-Nine starting in 2008 when Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (or “President Jimmy Jab” as Peralta calls him) and the precinct was on call for nine hours and passed the time by tossing bagel pieces into Scully’s mouth. Now on their seventh games, the games begin with the ceremonial lighting of the bagel and Scully operatically singing “Jimmy Jab” over and over again while holding a hockey stick and wearing a Viking helmet. That is approximately when I started choking on my own spit from laughing so hard. The mental image alone is making me laugh again.

The games are just as ridiculous. They involve the team eating month old Chinese food, seeing how long they can be in disguise before someone notices them, an event involving bomb suits called “Bulky Bulky Run Run,” and a big final obstacle course that’s too hilarious to even describe.

‘The Jimmy Jab Games’ isn’t just a great episode for putting the characters into extra ridiculous situations, but because it also gives me two of my favorite things about this show: Diaz and Peralta being bros, and Peralta being honest about his feelings. Peralta spends the whole games trying to win a bet with Diaz over getting her friend’s number. Diaz initially refuses because since she doesn’t mix work with her personal life, but she decides to go for it when Jake agrees to pay her $200 and never ask her for another number. However, she actually gives Peralta a chance to call it off when she realizes that he’s still into Santiago. Peralta denies it of course, but then he realizes Diaz is right when he admits he let Santiago win the Jimmy Jab games since she was so determined to do it for once. Peralta feels crappy about it since he does want to get over her, but Diaz tells him that the first step to doing that is getting back out there. She gives him her friend’s number, but tells him that he still owes her $200. Cash.

I have to admit, I really wish the show would explore their friendship a bit more sometimes. While I know Boyle is truly Peralta’s best friend, I feel like Diaz is a better foil for him. Where Peralta is ridiculous and overcompensating, Diaz is cool and straightforward, as exhibited by how she brings to the Jimmy Jab games to an end when Holt and Jeffords show up. Which impresses them more than you would think.

On Holt and Jeffords’ b-plot, Holt is still struggling with his rival Madeline Wunch being his superior in the NYPD. Especially when it regards the Nine-Nine proposing funding to investigate a new drug called Gigglepig that’s starting to show up in the Precinct. Wunch immediately denies the request over some minuscule grammatical error, but Holt reveals he did that on purpose to go over her head since he knew she’d deny it. Holt and Jeffords take the proposal to Wunch’s supervisor, but goading from Wunch leads Holt to upsetting the danger of Gigglepig. $1,200 turns into a task force and Wunch is laughing all the way home since she wants to bring Holt down for wasting NYPD money. So Holt’s either got to pony up results or go down in flames thanks to Wunch.

Coming back to the Jimmy Jab games doesn’t help, which makes Holt think he’s losing control of the precinct along with breaking up a fight between Boyle and Hitchcock and Diaz being upfront about what they walked in on. He grouses about Wunch’s pettiness, but Jeffords tells him that he’s being pretty petty himself. And that hey, if Diaz is willing to be a straight shooter with them, she’d be perfect for leading up the task force. YAY MORE THINGS FOR DIAZ TO DO!

There’s also a plot with Boyle trying to get a tape back from Hitchcock that reveals that Boyle and Gina are having sex. Boyle tries his best to get it back from Hitchcock, but it devolves into a series of blackmail with Hitchcock forcing Boyle to make him seem cool. After a long series of this, Boyle gives up, searches Hitchcock’s locker and the two end up fighting, but not before Boyle destroys the tape. All’s well that ends well, I guess. Considering the fact Gina is continuing the relationship, it might just be.

“The Jimmy Jab” games feels like the first real set up episode of the season with introducing Gigglepig and showing that Boyle and Gina’s relationship is still going forward. It’s also just an insanely fun episode that shows the team at their most loose. Hopefully there will be a return to the games in a couple of seasons since this is a tradition I wouldn’t mind seeing.

http://youtu.be/uvBf96XrmfA