Brooklyn Nine-Nine Review: The Lake House (Season 8 Episode 2)

Brooklyn Nine-Nine Season 8 Episode 2, “The Lake House,” leaves the bullpen behind in search of an escape from the premiere’s heavier subject matter.

And what better way to liven the mood than to muck around in Kevin and Holt’s private lives? At their lake house, no less.

This episode embraces the chaos of a good old-fashioned parent trap with a weekend chock-full of suspicious bird-watching shenanigans, multiple sitting rooms, and one very high Rosa Diaz.

Any project fueled by The Parent Trap is bound to be disastrous but throw in the sitcom poster-child for divorce, Jake Peralta, and you have the perfect storm of comedy and chaos.

These off-duty detectives embrace the humor of their situation, leaning into the show’s wacky nonsensical comedy while riding the messy growing pains of aging character dynamics.

Sure, Amy is a mother now and Rosa is self-medicating to avoid the inevitable drama, but that doesn’t mean the Nine-Nine has matured. They still refer to Holt and Kevin as their dads and tell co-workers exactly what they think of them in front of their child.

Mature and dignified is just not Brooklyn Nine-Nine‘s style. Thankfully, because episodes like this rely heavily on the squad’s dysfunctionality to succeed, change isn’t just inevitable, it’s revered.

Returning to the familiar stomping grounds of a work retreat allows Brooklyn Nine-Nine to be funny and a little stir crazy without having to be much else.

Jake off-duty is always a delight as he stomps his feet about missing the Pokemon community event weekend and is determined to convince Amy he didn’t call her mom at least three times in a single conversation. This man is a father now!

How exactly does Jake know what outfits to pick out for Kevin and Holt’s thirst trap? Is this research for a Halloween Heist? Is Kevin’s turtle neck the small-talk Holt alluded to? I have so many questions about this.

Amy telling Rosa she is a complete narc is hilariously followed by the new mother telling everyone how high Rosa is every chance she gets. Throw in a heroic door tackle and Amy gets to shine in her full territorial mother form.

Both Charles and Jake have it coming (Jake never even acknowledges Mac’s presence), but Charles can take the brunt of her rath because Amy’s husband is single-handedly keeping television’s greatest love story alive.

Daddy Holt and Daddy Kevin never see Jake coming and for the most part, neither do we.

Much like the majority of Jake’s futile plan to get them back together, this episode suggests it’s just a matter of time before the fun fizzles out.

Kevin and Holt’s stubborn refusal to communicate starts to put a real damper on this story’s potential for greatness.

Then, just as things are wrapping up, Brooklyn Nine-Nine throws a romantic-as-hell curveball. Not only have Holt and Kevin been struggling to express their feelings for each other but they have been communicating — through bird calls!

The fact that Kevin knows it’s a setup because his husband is terrible at bird calls and, quote “a trash man who only knows trash birds” but goes to him anyways is *chef kiss* amazing.

It’s the kind of smart detective-fueled discovery that plays perfectly into this show’s procedural gimmick.

This case of the stubborn lovers clings to its pure-hearted characters, whose love language is absurd dialogue exchanges and elaborate potato chip rankings.

That’s not a Parent Trap thing, it’s a Brooklyn Nine-Nine thing. A ridiculously loveable fever-dream of a thing that we’ve missed terribly.

Sure, the chaos could be dialed up a few more notches for this commemorable getaway weekend but without Gina, that seems like an unrealistic expectation. An incredibly high Rosa and lonely Scully will do just fine.

This workplace comedy takes a necessary break from the work to gets back to its comedy roots and the result is a hot mess of an episode that doesn’t give a damn about anything but Holt and Kevin’s happiness.

That automatically makes “The Lake House” the cool, cool, coolest!

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Brooklyn Nine-Nine airs Thursdays at 8/9c on NBC.

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