'Brooklyn Nine-Nine' Season 7 Episode 12 Review: Abduction rattles Holt as Jake and Kevin have a rare team-up
Spoilers for 'Brooklyn Nine-Nine' Season 7 Episode 12 'Ransom'
One of the truly precious and easily most priceless moments on 'Brooklyn Nine-Nine' has been detective Rosa Diaz (Stephanie Beatriz) suggesting her boss Captain Raymond Holt (Andre Braugher) that he and his husband, Dr Kevin Cozner, just need to "bone". This unsettled Holt so hard that it keeps haunting him with recurring flashbacks of a subordinate having the audacity to comment in such a crass and crude manner about his personal life. That was the last time we saw Holt as unraveled as we see him in the latest episode of Season 7.
Offering a strong competition to 'bone' comes this instance Holt going bats**t crazy when his 'fluffy boi' gets kidnapped and the bad guys try to threaten his husband and his favorite detective slash makeshift son of sorts — Jake Peralta (Andy Samberg). And even though it's nothing like competitive Holt during the heists or snarky Holt around Madeline Wunch, this side of Holt kicking some a** is a class of its own and we only have Braugher to thank for that.
The episode kicks off with Kevin announcing what Jake labels as, "The most heinous crime the Nine-Nine has ever faced." Holt and Kevin's dog Cheddar has been kidnapped — explaining the episodic title 'Ransom' — and even though Jake assures them that he is going to get their little corgi back, Holt knows better than to trust him blindly. Probably why even as Jake is assuring on the phone that Holt is coping just fine, we see Holt going to town with a slew of punches at a precinct wall. There is frustration and agony at having lost his obedient good boy, and in those moments Braugher fills Holt with deep emotions for a dog — way more intense than he would ever have for a man, making things even funnier as his tragedy unfolds.
This episode sees Holt say things like, "Nothing is as important to me as this dog,” to remind us of that time they tried replacing Cheddar with a 'common b***h' during one of the Halloween heists and Holt had pretty much lost his s**t. But while Episode 12 of Season 7 gives some pretty solid throwbacks in the form of a rattled Holt worried about his dog, it also gives us one of those rare Jake and Kevin teaming up moments as the duo find out why the ransom is police files from May 2004. It's reminiscent of the two of them staying handcuffed at a safe house together when Holt's life was under threat. And even if Jake and Kevin aren't sheer brilliance together, the whole Holt trusts only Jake to bring back his precious Cheddar angle is sure to leave us wooed.
Even if not that, Jake volunteering to dress up as Kevin during the file exchange with the kidnapper is pure gold. Samberg channels all of his comic timing into the role and it's ever so touching to know the lengths Jake will go to subtly earn his Captain Dad's approval, even though in this case it's more because that's how deeply he has come to care for this man. When things go wrong in Jake's sting operation, the kidnapper figures out he is a cop and takes him to a different location. And while Jake's humor remains intact, with remarks like "Would you like to buy a laptop?" as he sits at gunpoint, it is what Holt does after tracking Jake through Cheddar's GPS in Kevin's clothes that Jake's wearing, which wins us over.
Throwing more than just a fair few punches, Holt breaks into a full-blown brawl with the kidnapper and tells him, "You took the wrong fluffy boy!" Now, it could be Cheddar, but if he did mean Jake, everything about that scene is so emotionally hilarious that one just keeps marveling at the character development.
It only transports us back to the pilot where Terry Jeffords (Terry Crews) introduced the precinct to Holt, describing Jake as easily the best detective with the most number of closed cases and adding how the only case he never solved is how to grow up. And with Holt finally calling the detective who once referred to him as Captain Dad, his own 'fluffy boy' is more than just heartwarming. Elsewhere, we do get a Charles Boyle (Joe Lo Truglio) and Terry team up for a business of selling 'bone broth', while Rosa decides to help Amy Santiago (Melissa Fumero) do some baby shopping — giving us some intense Sleuth Sister moments, but hardly anything comes close.
'Brooklyn Nine-Nine' Season 7 airs on Thursdays at 8.30 pm only on NBC.