NOTE: Full spoilers for this episode of, “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” are present in this review
Brooklyn Nine-Nine is capping off its expedited fourth season with a two-episode season finale this week, as Peralta and Diaz begin to figure out how to take down the corrupt Lieutenant Hawkins. “The Bank Job”, the first episode of the two, is a pretty good episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine that mostly exists to lead into the subsequent final episode of Season Four, which is fair enough, especially since it brings back a welcome familiar face that we haven’t seen in a little while.
When Peralta and Diaz have to try and convince Hawkins that they’re dirty cops, so that they can get deeper into her inner circle, Diaz suggests making use of none other than her fiance, Adrian Pimento. This is the first time in a fair bit that Jason Mantzoukas has returned to Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and Pimento’s return was definitely a highlight. Pimento actively insisting that Peralta and Diaz beat the hell out of him to get them into Hawkins’ gang, and later accidentally getting himself high on cocaine after being rusty from his undercover days, often made for this episode’s funniest moments!
The staged beating is thankfully enough to convince Hawkins to take Peralta and Diaz on a job, but first, they’re going to party at a bar. Peralta and Diaz see this as the perfect opportunity to get Hawkins wasted so that she’ll blab about her operation, but it’s actually Peralta and Diaz that end up incapacitated. A lot of the humour here was more uneven, but the final result of Hawkins remaining one step ahead of Peralta and Diaz, despite their best efforts, generally worked very well. Considering that Hawkins is the big climactic criminal for Season Four, it’s fitting that she wouldn’t be so easy to capture.
Nonetheless, Peralta and Diaz think they’ll have another chance to get her, after alerting Holt when Hawkins enlists the two detectives to help her rob a bank. Pimento even bikes along (even if he crashes from his cocaine high right when the detectives reach the bank they’re going to), though it’s soon discovered that Peralta’s intel was bad, and the detectives ended up at the wrong bank. Instead, Hawkins used the robbery, and gave Peralta fake intel, to get Peralta and Diaz arrested by other NYPD officers, pinning all of her dirty work on them. This was a fantastic conclusion for the episode, even if it is deflated somewhat by the fact that we don’t have to wait a week to see the resolution to this storyline in this case.
This episode also boasted a subplot beyond the main events with Peralta and Diaz, when Santiago, Boyle and Jeffords start wondering why Gina keeps going to the doctor. They naturally suspect Gina of just blowing off her job, but after discovering an incriminating document in her computer, they come to realize a shocking and unexpected development; Gina is pregnant! As much as it sounds like this is a ploy as well, it actually turns out to be true. Gina really is pregnant, as a visible baby bump is later seen, and Gina claims that she can’t disclose who the father is, lying about it being someone famous so that her nosy co-workers get off her back.
The subplot of the episode wasn’t quite as effective as the main plot, namely because the show tipped its hand too much to Gina’s honesty and deception in equal measure. The final result of Gina’s baby daddy being a Boyle cousin however, and a Boyle cousin that the Nine-Nine’s Boyle strongly dislikes to boot, was a humourous and satisfying final turn. The handsome and wealthy cousin, Milton Boyle being seen as a loser and a screw-up among the Boyle family was pretty funny, especially when he’s shown to be an adorable and perfect complement to Gina, one that Santiago and Jeffords take an immediate liking to. This will no doubt keep coming up in Season Five later this year and next year, and I really can’t wait to see how Gina’s new baby will affect both the office dynamic at the precinct, plus Boyle’s dynamic with Genevieve and their adopted son, Nikolaj.
“The Bank Job” is hamstrung a bit by having to lead in to an episode that will inevitably have even bigger developments, especially since its cliffhanger ending doesn’t mean much due to the proper end of the season airing on the same night. Still, Gina’s surprise pregnancy had an amusing and promising final result, even if a lot of the humour there was predictable. The real surprise came when Peralta and Diaz ended up arrested for their efforts to bring down Hawkins for good, setting the stage for an exciting final Season Four episode for Brooklyn Nine-Nine. Obviously, Peralta and Diaz won’t be stuck in jail forever, but leaving the Nine-Nine desperate against their latest threat will still create an exciting obstacle over the following half-hour.