‘Brooklyn Nine-Nine’: Jake’s Friendship With Doug Judy Is Tested Like Never Before (RECAP)
Spoiler Alert
[WARNING: The following contains MAJOR spoilers for Brooklyn Nine-Nine Season 7 Episode 8, “The Takedown”]
First, we got Wuntsch back — well, at least for her funeral. This week, Brooklyn Nine-Nine returns another familiar face: Jake (Andy Samberg)’s best friend on the opposite side of the law, Doug Judy (Craig Robinson).
When Jake discovers Doug’s getting married and he wasn’t invited to the wedding, he’s heartbroken. By way of making it up to him, Doug invites him to his bachelor party in Miami. There’s just one little (okay, huge) problem. All of Doug’s friends are crooks, and Jake finds himself in an incredibly uncomfortable situation because of it.
The Narc
Of course, Jake hides his true identity at first — but it seems that’s not likely to stick. He makes his way to Miami by private jet (thanks, Mark Cuban), along with Doug and his group of not-so-great pals. All goes well until Trudy Judy (Nicole Byer) shows up at their hotel, and she nearly blows Jake’s cover.
“As long as no one breaks the law in front of me,” Jake reassures Trudy and Doug in private, “we’re good.” Doug says they don’t need to break the law to have fun, but his friends apparently do, since they loudly announce they stole $10 million worth of diamonds from the rich guy in the penthouse suite of the place they’re staying. Trudy then lets the group know Jake’s a cop, so… that complicates things.
Reverse Heist
This revelation inspires a “reverse heist,” in which the group opts to put the diamonds back in order to save Doug’s bachelor party. The plan is for them to get the safe override code, for Jake to hide in the housekeeping cart and sneak into the penthouse, opening the window for Doug and his pals. Jake will replace the diamonds, and then they’ll go party. Except…
Jake gets the trio of guys arrested, breaking his friendship with Doug and his tentative alliance with Trudy. “I’m sorry I betrayed you,” he says, “but we can still be friends, right?” Not so much. The Judys leave him standing on the tarmac, to find his own way back to New York.
The Case of the Missing Business Card
Meanwhile, Holt (Andre Braugher)’s back in his office — but he’s missing a business card with gum on it that is quite meaningful to him, so he tasks Terry (Terry Crews) with finding it. Yeah, Terry definitely threw it away… but he says he can recreate it. He can’t. As it turns out, that card was from Holt’s first case, which he failed, and he says it made him the cop he is today. “Without it, I’m lost.”
Terry, to make it up to him, brings him business cards of the people he helped. Holt finds a new person to be his cornerstone in the mix, and all is well. Amy (Melissa Fumero), on the other hand, ends up in the middle of a pitch battle for a new vending machine. She ends up going with Scully (Joel McKinnon Miller) and Hitchcock (Dirk Blocker)’s idea, which short-circuits the whole room. They get rid of the machine, but every cloud has a silver lining; Boyle (Joe Lo Truglio) shows them that if you punch the old one just right, it drops snacks for free.
All’s Well that Ends in a Song
Once he gets back, Rosa calls Jake in to the interrogation room. There, she hands him a wedding invite for Doug’s ceremony, and Doug, from inside the room, yells that Jake’s coming to the wedding. Turns out he wanted Jake to arrest those guys, because his fiancee’s a judge. And, in the end, Doug asks Jake to be his best man. They belt out “Opposites Attract” and rap together, and it’s clear their friendship is stronger than ever.
Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Thursdays, 8:30/7:30c, NBC
