‘Brooklyn Nine-Nine’: Jake & Amy Might Be ‘Trying’ a Little Too Hard (RECAP)
Spoiler Alert
[WARNING: The following contains MAJOR spoilers for Brooklyn Nine-Nine Season 7 Episode 6, “Trying.”]
Quite a bit of Season 7 so far has revolved around Jake (Andy Samberg) and Amy (Melissa Fumero)’s (mis)adventures in family planning. First, Amy was worried she might’ve been pregnant. Then, she and Jake decided they did want her to be pregnant, despite the fact that she wasn’t. Next, Boyle got offended when Jake didn’t talk to him about it.
Now, the couple are happily “trying,” as they put it — but Amy’s style of scheduling everything down to the minute is somewhat cramping Jake’s. Meanwhile, Holt (Andre Braugher) struggles with the everyday tedium of being a beat cop, and Boyle (Joe Lo Truglio) and Rosa (Stephanie Beatriz) struggle to find homes for hundreds of guinea pigs.
Calendar Invites
Amy’s been trying to schedule sexy time with Jake through their official schedules, but that’s just not the Jake way. Literally, it’s not the “Jake Way” — and Jake comes up with that term to get Amy to do things a little more spontaneously.
Spontaneous, to Jake, is staging a cutesy kidnapping narrated by him, renting an AirBNB and having a limo driver bring his wife there, all during the workday… and it doesn’t work.
A Test You Can’t Study For
As a result, Amy decides they have to go back to “the Amy way,” plus more scheduling. Jake’s not in love with that idea, and when Amy suggests this is a test they’re failing, Jake responds with, “maybe this is a test you can’t study for.” Amy, unable to study for a test? Impossible!
And, as one might expect, this leads to a variety of calendars, binders, vitamins (for Jake) and new guidelines for their lives. They keep trying month after month, the Amy way, but still, nothing works. Their upset is exacerbated by Hitchcock’s marriage and his wife’s immediate pregnancy. “The world is officially upside down,” Amy says.
The Hitchcock Way?
With nothing else working, at Hitchcock’s wedding, the duo opt to start trying things “the Hitchcock way,” defined as doing the worst possible thing in every scenario. They both get drunk and try doin’ it in an alley, but they’re… interrupted.
With nowhere else to go, Jake and Amy head to the precinct. Jake says he knows a “secret spot” they can get it on. As bad luck would have it, that secret spot is the supply closet, where Boyle’s hiding his guinea pigs (more on that below). Safe to say no babies were made that evening.
Assorted Annoyances
Meanwhile, the rest of the precinct is dealing with an allotted assortment of daily difficulties. Holt’s not pleased with walking the same beat (“much like Sisyphus, condemned to push the same boulder up the same hill day after day”). Boyle and Rosa, on the other hand, are struggling to hide guinea pigs in the precinct supply closet after the former finds Nikolaj is allergic and he can’t return them to the pet store. Those guinea pigs multiply from two, to 10, to hundreds.
Terry finds a new home for all the guinea pigs — a lab. At that point, Boyle and Rosa are just happy to be free of them. Holt, meanwhile, apologizes to Terry for pushing back against his daily route; because he learned Russian on his job, he’s gotten a bunch of useful tips.
Still Family
Amy’s heartbroken and exhausted, and she’s convinced the universe is telling them they shouldn’t have a baby. “I’m done,” she says. “Just done.” Later, at Hitchcock’s divorce party (yes, he got divorced already after discovering his new wife’s baby isn’t his), Jake says this is something they can’t control.
She’s not sure what she wants to do, and Jake says maybe they just shouldn’t think about it for a while. Most importantly, even without a baby, they’re still a family: just the two of them.
Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Thursdays, 8:30/7:30c, NBC
