In this week's episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine, the precinct’s resident seat warmers, veteran cops Scully (Joel McKinnon Miller) and Hitchcock (Dirk Blocker), challenge Rosa (Stephanie Beatriz) to a competition to see who can stay seated the longest. Yes, it’s the Butt Olympics, the latest in a tradition of dumb / fun contests between the detectives of the Nine-Nine.
God knows how they get any work done...
The Jimmy Jab Games
Only seen so far in the season two episode of the same name, these annual games of stupid are presided over by wise-cracking detective Jake (Andy Samberg). One of the sports is the The Mouth-athon, in which Jake, Rosa, Amy (Melissa Fumero), Charles (Joe Lo Truglio), Scully and Hitchcock competed to see how much one-month-old Chinese food from the precinct fridge they could stomach.
Charles was the first to capitulate (“I can’t do this to my mouth, she’s the love of my life.”) but Scully kept chowing down (“You guys know this is free, right?”)
The victor won the Winchester 3000, “the only chair in the precinct with minimal staining, good lumbar support and no broken rolly-wheels”.
The Crazy Ass Fugitive bet
Detectives Amy and Jake have a history of competing on who can make the most arrests. Last season, they were considering taking their romantic relationship to the next level by moving in with each other, but Jake being Jake couldn’t help making it into a competition. Whoever caught the most of nine dangerous fugitives got to keep their apartment, while the loser had to move in with the winner.
Amy asked if it’d be easier for Jake to just move in with her, but Jake wouldn't budge. “We already shook on it. The bet stands. Prepare to die,” he told Amy. “And by die, I mean move in with me.”
The Halloween heists
The Halloween heist is arguably the most anticipated episode of each season – a battle of wits and elaborate schemes to steal an item (Captain Holt’s Medal of Valour, his watch straight from his wrist, a plaque, a crown, etc.) and win the title of the Nine-Nine’s most “Amazing Detective/Genius”.
In "Halloween" and "Halloween II", Jake and Holt were the main players, recruiting the team to help them win. But in "Halloween III", ultra-competitive Amy surreptitiously stole the title, and in "Halloween IV", though Captain Holt (Andre Braugher) had a secret weapon in Cheddar the Corgi, Gina (Chelsea Peretti) was the unlikely victor, renaming the trophy as "The Gina Linetti Ultimate Human/Genius Award".
In this season’s episode, "HalloVeen", Jake deployed a Handmaid’s Tale decoy, Terry got implanted with six GPS trackers in his gastro-intestinal tract and there was a most unexpected twist as Jake proposed to Amy, but it was no joke.
The carolling contest
Christmas wouldn’t be the same without a competition, either. In season four, the Nine-Nine and their ragtag range of singing voices faced off with the “golden-throated dorks” of the Metropolitan Transit Authority for the charity carolling competition. Since every year the MTA have kicked their butts, Holt went as far as recruiting one of the station arrests, a “velvet-voiced drunkard”, to the choir to give them an advantage. After all, he was hardly a crim, noted Rosa, since he'd only peed on a couple of snowmen… and one regular man.
Watch Brooklyn Nine-Nine on Wednesdays at 8pm on SBS VICELAND. You can also stream it on demand at SBS On Demand:
