Brooklyn Nine-Nine Review: Your Honor / The Slaughterhouse (Season 4 Episodes 19 and 20)
The basic ideas for the A-plots of Brooklyn Nine-Nine Season 4 Episode 19, “Your Honor,” and Episode 20, “The Slaughterhouse,” are nothing completely new for the show, but they’re revisited without feeling like the show is retreading tired material.
“Your Honor” returns to a Jake-Holt situation where Jake gets a little too overenthusiastic when given a glimpse into Holt’s personal life. In the past, episodes with this sort of plot usually involve Holt’s husband, Kevin, but this time, we’re introduced to Holt’s mother, Judge Laverne Holt (L. Scott Caldwell).
There are a lot of familiar elements: Laverne’s personality is very similar to Holt’s, just like Kevin; Jake helps Holt make an emotional connection with his mother, like he did with Holt and Kevin in episodes like “The Wednesday Incident” and “Cheddar,” and, of course, Jake still loves learning new details about Holt’s life.
Still, the combination of Jake’s delight and Holt’s stoicism hasn’t gotten old yet, and the episode’s new spin on a familiar story makes it another excellent Jake-Holt team-up.
The A-plot is supported by a pair of pretty decent subplots — Amy insists on teaching Gina how to change a tire while Terry, Boyle and Rosa redo the break room.
The Terry-Boyle-Rosa subplot is a little more entertaining if only for their enthusiasm for interior decorating (“Are we better at this than our regular jobs?” “Unquestionably!”). The Amy-Gina subplot is pretty standard for the pairing: Amy tries a little too hard to “help” Gina, Gina makes fun of Amy. But, like the Jake-Holt pairing, the Amy-Gina dynamic hasn’t gotten old yet.
“The Slaughterhouse,” the second of the back-to-back episodes, returns to the Jake-Rosa pairing, which we just saw a few episodes ago, but this time, it adds a competitive spin to their dynamic.
Brooklyn Nine-Nine tends to fall back on the detectives’ competitive nature when their cases get a little dangerous, like “The Fugitive” did earlier this season, but it is a good way to keep things from getting too serious.
It works out particularly well for this episode as Jake and Rosa resort to increasingly absurd methods of sabotage to try to beat the other and land a spot on their idol’s task force. Rosa’s ruthlessness and Jake’s childishness (and grossness, as he points out) work together wonderfully to make the competition highly entertaining.
The conclusion, just like “Serve & Protect,” is another sweet moment for Rosa and Jake’s friendship as Jake offers to give up the task force spot so Rosa can finally have a badass female boss and as Jake and Rosa share an unexpected and ecstatic hug.
The subplots in “The Slaughterhouse” are a bit of an improvement over the ones in “Your Honor,” as Hitchcock and Scully get into a fight, and Holt helps Amy with her fear of authority.
Hitchcock and Scully’s big fight provides some pretty ridiculous physical humor, from their interrogation room fight to the way Gina gets them to snap out of it during the subplot’s conclusion, and it’s always a joy to watch Amy get uncontrollably angry. The fact that her outburst is directed at Holt makes it especially hilarious.
Brooklyn Nine-Nine has gone a few (excellent) episodes without any kind of ongoing arc, but it seems likely that the Season 4 finale will, understandably, focus on guest star Gina Gershon’s dirty cop.
I will say I’m glad the writers didn’t try to start this arc any sooner because these past few standalone episodes have been some of the best of the season. But returning to a short arc for the end of the season makes sense, and I have faith that a tight, two-episode storyline will serve as a satisfying finale.
What did you think of “Your Honor” and “The Slaughterhouse”? Share with us in the comments below!
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Brooklyn Nine-Nine airs Tuesdays at 8/7c on FOX.
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Katie Houlis
Katie is a recent college graduate who spent most of her free time at school binge-watching shows like Battlestar Galactica, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Fringe, and Hannibal. She has watched every single episode of Lost at least ten times each (yes, even “Stranger In A Strange Land”). Current favorites include a bunch of comedies, lots of superhero shows, and a few shows with quite a bit of murder in them.