10 Reasons We’re Glad ‘Brooklyn Nine-Nine’ Was Renewed For Season 6

Brooklyn Nine-Nine fans have gone through a lot this year.

First, our beloved cop comedy is canceled by Fox and then, in a surprise turn of events, is picked up by NBC nearly a day later after an outpour of support online from fans.

To say we are glad Brooklyn Nine-Nine has been renewed is an understatement. We are ecstatic, overjoyed, and so undeniably thankful a show with this much life still left in it has not been sent to an early grave.

With life on a new network, we would be lying if we didn’t admit as fans there are some worries as to how much will change at the 99th precinct.

These worries come with Brooklyn Nine-Nine making the jump from its usual place on the fall schedule to NBC’s midseason schedule with a shortened run.

While it complicates things as far as the staple Halloween and Christmas episodes go, it is a small price to pay to see our favorite detectives again.

So while we wait in agonizing anticipation for the new season to arrive, let us look back on 10 reasons why this show means so much to its fans and why we are more than glad Brooklyn Nine-Nine will live to see another day in the field.

1. The Halloween Episodes Are Great All Year Round

What starts out as the typical yet fun Halloween episode where the characters dress up in costume and the sets get doused in cobwebs has turned into an annual tradition for Brooklyn Nine-Nine.

From the start, Jake Peralta has made it clear him and his squad would bet on anything if it meant getting to humiliate another co-worker in some way. So, naturally, Jake uses the spookiest holiday of the year as an excuse to bet Holt that he can steal his medal of valor before midnight — and thus the Halloween Heist is born.

Every year the heists become more elaborate as the 99th precinct uses every shenanigan and joke on their tool belt to win the title of Amazing Detective/Genius. Jake has shoved a bunch of pigeons into a vent, Boyle’s look-alike has blackmailed Jake into joining a pyramid scheme, and Rosia and Amy have bonded over the Baby-Sitters Club.

But truly the best Halloween heist shenanigan comes in Brooklyn Nine-Nine Season 5 Episode 4, “HalloVeen,” when Jake proposes to Amy during the competition, giving her the biggest trick and treat of her life. Brooklyn Nine-Nine figured we would be so caught up in the actual heist to suspect such a momentous surprise from Jake, and darn it, they were right!

Where these Halloween episodes truly shine is not necessarily in the comedy, but in the comradery of the characters and their strong desire to destroy one another in a competition so bad they are willing to do anything. Their intensity draws you farther into the elaborate game as if you too were participating.

The spooky fun vibes these Halloween heist episodes bring to the series are worth watching all year round and will certainly get you in the mood for pumpkin spice lattes and elaborate workplace heists.

2. The Representation

Representation matters. However, at the same time characters need to be more than just a device to display that representation to their viewers — they need to be represented as people first and foremost.

When Brooklyn Nine-Nine first premiered in 2013, the show introduced an openly gay captain, strong female co-workers with unique personalities, and a buff sergeant that was actually a big teddy bear. These characters have dealt with tough topics on sexuality, racism, equality etc. since the pilot but these topics are hardly ever at the center of an episode.

Captain Holt is openly gay. So open that when he is introduced to the 99th precinct there is no mention of his sexuality and after Jake confirms this fact for the audience at the end of the pilot, absolutely nothing changes in the dynamic of the characters to address this. Ray Holt is a police captain who just happens to be gay and that is that.

What is so unique about the representation of Captain Holt’s character is how he is portrayed as very masculine and unemotional. The stigma surrounding the LGBTQ community is that gay people have flamboyant and colorful personalities. Brooklyn Nine-Nine is trying to show that being gay doesn’t mean you are a certain way. Men and women can break from that stigma and still be gay.

And that is what makes Brooklyn Nine-Nine’s representation so groundbreaking. The characters are not defined by stereotypes or stigmas.

Then there’s Gina, Amy, Rosa. The women of this show are strong, they are undefined by any specific personality trait, and they all look out for one another. There’s no petty notion that they can’t coexist as co-workers without tearing each other down.

Amy is a good example of a well-rounded female character. At first glance, Amy is that uptight coworker that is a stickler for rules and authority. There is nothing wrong with that type of character, it’s just a common archetype we see amongst women in the crime genre. But Amy isn’t two-dimensional, she is actually a big goofball who, around the right people, is just as silly and as adventurous as Jake.

Characters like Amy are usually confined to the type-a personality where they can never stray from people describing them as the smart, uptight, and predictably “boring” character. Real people have layers, and Amy is a perfect representation of that. She can’t be confined to a specific stereotype and the beauty of this show is that this is the case for most of its characters.

The list of proper representation could go on and on for this show.

Rosa recently came out as bisexual on the show and instead of feeling forced, the revelation felt like a natural progression for her character without completely changing the way she is perceived by her coworkers. Not to mention, Rosa coming out as bisexual has created a budding romance with Jane the Virgin’s Gina Rodriguez that is easily one of the cutest relationships introduced yet.

Introducing unique representation has led to these storylines that are unique to Brooklyn Nine-Nine’s special brand of comedy.

Representation doesn’t have to be the main focus of a show and it doesn’t have to define why a show is good, either. Brooklyn Nine-Nine is good because the characters are unique and different to anything else on television right now. In writing diverse characters the show has been able to represent people from all walks of life in a refreshing yet casual way.

3. Jake Peralta

Jake Peralta is the ultimate unproblematic protagonist. Sure, he is kind of immature and constantly needs help bailing himself out of trouble, but Jake couldn’t be a better friend or coworker to the people around him.

Despite being raised by two parents in a very toxic relationship that left him alone for most of his childhood, Jake never used that as an excuse for his actions and wound up working on the right side of the law.

When Jake develops romantic feelings for Amy, instead of making her uncomfortable he goes out of his way to make sure things don’t get weird between them. He understands that putting that kind of pressure on her just because he didn’t have the nerve to ask her out when she was single isn’t fair to Amy.

Jake is a modern feminist that makes treating women with equal respect in the workplace look very simple — as it should be.

His partnership with Rosa is a perfect example that two co-workers can work side by side for years and not develop romantic feelings for each other. Jake stands by Rosa as she comes out to her parents as bisexual and despite knowing she likes to be left alone, starts a precinct game night to keep her mind off her parents distancing themselves from their daughter.

Jake clearly sees Holt as a fatherly figure. So his need to make his captain proud at all costs is heartwarming to see because Jake has slowly grown to care about all his coworkers like they are his family.

It is this sincerity in his actions that makes Brooklyn Nine-Nine such a fun light-hearted comedy in the first place.

But the real reason Jake is a fan favorite is his inability to take anything seriously and his need to make everything into a pop-culture reference. He’s basically the result of taking someone who watches too much television and making them a character in a television show — it’s amazing!

Jake also watches too many action movies and yearns to reenact his favorite scenes one day on the job — which almost always ends badly.

His love for Die-Hard is unwavering and has led to some of the greatest episodes of the series.

Brooklyn Nine-Nine Season 3 Episode 10, “Yippie Kayak,” even brings the famous Bruce Willis action movie to life as Jake is held hostage in a department store on Christmas Eve and not only is the episode festively delightful — it’s got plenty of Jake fangirling moments and comedic references to the original movie to enjoy.

Jake is a giant goofball that says things like “cool, cool, cool, no doubt, no doubt, no doubt,” and “smort, noice”. Forget superheroes in capes, Jake Peralta is the hero we all deserve.

4. The Cold Opens

One could argue that the best moments of The Office were the ones totally unrelated to the coming narrative of the episode and took place in the first four minutes of the show. The same could be said for Brooklyn Nine-Nine. Some of the most humorous and odd moments to take place in the 99th precinct have happened in the show’s cold opens.

There is the one where Amy is late for work and everyone is trying to guess why. Captain Holt ends up guessing correctly and then yells, “Hot damn!” at the top of his lungs. The moment is so out of character for him it is an instant laugh.

Then there’s the more subtle cold open where Boyle makes a joke about Dianne Wiest and Jake just stares horrified at him.

Oh, and who could forget classics like the full bullpen, Captain Holt’s hola-hooping accident, or the one where everyone tries to get Gina to look up from her phone.

The most recent cold open added to Brooklyn Nine-Nine’s hall of fame is the one where Jake makes a group of criminals sing the Backstreet Boys and gets so wrapped up in the music he forgets he is supposed to find out which one is the murderer. Just that one scene on a loop is worth binging all day long.

The list could go on and on as Brooklyn Nine-Nine’s use of cold opens have always been as brilliant as they have been funny. Many fans would agree that they only get better with each passing season.

5. Having The Tough Talks

Brooklyn Nine-Nine is a comedy and yet most comedies would prefer to stray from difficult conversations because it forces the show to take a serious turn away from its comedic roots. But Brooklyn Nine-Nine has proven it has a strong enough cast and writing to take risks.

Those risks include doing a topical episode on racial profiling where Terry is stopped on the street of his own neighborhood because he is black.

The initial scene between Terry and the officer is chilling as it puts Terry in a dangerous situation where his life is clearly at risk. While there are many scenes in this show that lighten the mood during a potentially deadly situation, Terry’s altercation feels all too real.

Despite the need to show the harsh reality surrounding Terry’s situation, laughs are later found in the difficulty of trying to explain to Terry’s daughters why he was stopped by a cop in the first place. The beauty of this episode is in the writers’ abilities to tell jokes surrounding this issue without actually taking away from the problem of racial profiling.

These risks also include an episode that delves into the darker side of being an officer on duty when Rosa gets caught up in a deadly shooting incident and Amy hilariously tries to clean up the woman’s bathroom for her while she’s gone.

These risky episodes completely turn Brooklyn Nine-Nine’s fun-loving brand of comedy on its head — in such sudden ways sometimes the change in tone will give you whiplash.

Brooklyn Nine-Nine is able to find the comedic and the awkward in these tragic instances, brilliantly reflecting the good and the bad of humanity without feeling forced. Much like Jake Peralta, Brooklyn Nine-Nine acts like the type of show to take nothing seriously and yet doesn’t try to hide from the fact that what is happening in the world right now has to be addressed somehow.

6. Gina Linetti

What would 99th Precinct be like without Gina Linetti? Most likely a very dark and unpleasant place.

To describe Gina’s personality and why she is so important to the integrity of this show is difficult to do because there really is no describing Gina. She’s just doing her thing and owning it every single day.

She is the crazy glue that holds the nine-nine together and without her insightful thoughts or love for creating chaos, the unpredictability of this show would be completely lost. Part of Gina’s charm is the fact that you never know what she’s going to do.

Sometimes when Gina comes to work she just wants to scroll through her phone all day and insult Amy’s fashion sense. Other days she is making a hairspray flamethrower and bargaining for photos of Terry shirtless. She has zero boundaries and thus nothing to hold her back in life.

At the same time, Gina is smart and manipulative. She knows how politics works and could easily be the head of a marketing company if she wanted to be. Despite having a personality closer to Jake’s she realizes when she needs to be responsible and has been saving up her money for years.

Gina gives you the sense that you should fear her more than anyone else in the precinct and frankly, you should!

That girl didn’t win the Halloween heist because of luck. Gina is unpredictable and confident in everything she does and we wouldn’t want her any other way.

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