'Brooklyn Nine-Nine' Review/Recap: "The Jimmy Jab Games"

Marcela Lima ’18 / Emertainment Monthly Staff Writer

The title of Brooklyn Nine Nine’s most recent episode had the audience wondering what exactly are the “Jimmy Jab Games?” After Sergeant Jeffords (Terry Crews) and Captain Holt (Andre Braugher) are rushed to a meeting, Detective Peralta (Andy Samberg) enthusiastically introduces a round of the Jimmy Jab Games, (which, to no surprise, are only performed when Jeffords and Holt are out of the office). The shenanigans occur as soon as the Sergeant and Captain leave the 99th precinct.
The First Jimmy Jabs occurred in 2008, when Detective Peralta used the last remaining bite of his bagel to create the first event: The Bagel Toss. During this event, they threw small bits of bagel into sleeping Detective Scully’s (Joel McKinnon Miller) mouth. Thus, the Jimmy Jab Games were born, and according to Peralta, “The rest was history.”
But this specific round of the Jimmy Jab Games has a lot more on the line for Peralta: If he wins, Detective Rosa Diaz (Stephanie Beatriz) has to give Peralta her best friend’s phone number, but if Diaz wins, Peralta loses two hundred dollars and can never ask for anyone’s number again. For Diaz, who is always being pestered by Peralta’s childish whims and requests, this seems like a great bet, and one she can’t afford to lose.
Throughout the episode, the audience can feel the tension between Peralta and Detective Amy Santiago (Melissa Fumero), and it has the fans wondering whether their feelings for one another are long gone or still lingering in the air of the 99th precinct. As a way to deter Peralta from believing she still has feelings, Santiago says that Peralta and Rosa’s friend Katie would be a perfect match for one another, and encourages the forming of a new relationship between them. A classic trick played by Santiago: have Peralta move on from her by suggesting someone else.

Of course, when the Jimmy Jab Games finally commence, we find out that Scully and Santiago are the only two in the office who have never won the Games. It’s not a surprise that Santiago, constantly labeled as the outcast and the teacher’s pet, has yet to win. While intelligence is one of her strong suits, mindless childlike games are definitely not.
Meanwhile, Detective Charles Boyle’s (Joe Lo Truglio) secret relationship with Gina (Chelsea Peretti) might not stay too “hush-hush” after he loses his personal workout video in the precinct; in which, a silk-robed Gina makes a guest appearance. Silent gasps by fans are heard all around as Gina and Boyle’s underground love affair is threatened to become public. But who has the tape? No one knows…yet.
Peralta, realizing that Santiago acts differently when she is forced to compete with others, suggests that he still cares for Amy when he compliments her work ethic and encourages her to do the same during the Jimmy Jab Games. Staying calm and collected, Amy’s best trait, can be used during the events to keep her focused on winning.
The chemistry between Peralta and Santiago is obvious, they still care for one another; it’s evident through the way they joke around and push each other to be the best versions of themselves.

At the last event, Peralta and Santiago compete head to head in a heated match-up, and evidently enough, Santiago wins and celebrates while Jeffords and Holt walk into her victory dance. Shortly after, Peralta confesses that he let Amy win because he still has feelings for her. A-ha! We all knew it.
In regards to Boyle’s revealing tape, he had to fight and wrestle it from Detective Hitchcock (Dirk Blocker), but after a few bruises and sprains, the workout video was back in Boyle’s hands.
Overall, this episode brought together the fans’ favorite aspect of Brooklyn Nine-Nine: its ability to demonstrate childishness and humor within a career and workplace that should be the exact opposite. If all cops were this juvenile and immature, they wouldn’t get any work done. But that’s the magic of television: they get the job done and have fun at the same time. This episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine was a classic demonstration of the show’s overarching goal: juxtapose and contrast the seriousness of the law enforcement lifestyle with the overly lively and frivolous nature of the characters.
Episode Grade: A