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(WHISPERING) Oh, Sheila, that was awesome!
(NORMAL VOICE) Wow.
I can't believe I executed that to perfection.
This is how you send off a character.
In the Brooklyn Nine-Nine episode titled "The Four
Movements," Gina leaves the precinct
with a statue and some parting words
before leaving the show entirely,
and it's honestly one of the more well-done send-offs
for a fan-favored character.
It wraps up her character nicely,
and she leaves in a way that feels pretty Gina.
Aw.
(YELLING) Psych!
[LAUGHS] Did he fall--
Terry, did you fall for it?
Unfortunately, this is how you ruin a send-off.
Duncan, this better be good news.
Oh, it is.
Your video's huge.
From Spokane to Spain, you're global, Gines.
Now let's talk strategy.
This is going to take a while.
This happens just 11 episodes later in an episode titled
"The Return of the King."
Usually writers wait a season or two
before bringing a previously written off character back
into the series, but this just didn't work,
and it's not because it isn't funny.
It is.
It didn't work because the writers abandoned
all of their established character tropes
in favor of creating something purely ridiculous.
It seemingly comes out of nowhere
and is equal parts jolting and insulting.
Not only is this episode a structural mess,
it's also an example of how writing characters
from a perspective of indifference and disconnect
can work against you in the long run.
Brooklyn Nine-Nine's final season
concluded on September 16, 2021.
The Andy Samberg single camera spoof of an overproduced police
procedurals featured a rotating cast
of award-winning dramatic actors alongside some of the most
predominant names in comedy.
Some of the characters stuck around
for the entirety of the show's eight-year run,
and some did not.
There comes a time in almost every long-running television
show in which we as an audience are forced to say goodbye
to a beloved character.
The send-off moment happens frequently
in the world of television for a variety of different reasons.
Contracts expire, new opportunities
present themselves, people become problematic, or prove
difficult to work with.
Things can change, and writers have
to adapt to the best of their ability.
The problem with farewell episodes of television
is that they more often than not end up
being relatively self-centered.
This is especially true when the farewell episode
centers around a more tertiary character in the show's
central plot.
Shows abandon their plot lines and character development
and instead end up focusing on saying goodbye.
It actually happens quite often in the very police procedurals
that Brooklyn Nine-Nine lampoons.
Emily Wickersham was written off of NCIS
to go on a sort of generic, secret mission.
Louis Lombardi faces a really gut-wrenching demise in 24.
Of course, these episodes can be heartfelt and nostalgic,
but as far as storytelling goes, these episodes
have a tendency to feel more like you're just
treading water.
In the case of Gina Linetti, she receives not one,
but two farewell episodes in the same season.
Neither of these episodes are in the conversation for greatest
episode of all time, but after setting such a high bar
for a character send-off with her first farewell,
Gina's second farewell episode really
sets a low bar as far as Brooklyn Nine-Nine episodes go.
Gina Linetti was a character that
served her purpose beautifully throughout five
seasons of Brooklyn Nine-Nine.
She provided a veneer of tongue-in-cheek sarcasm
and cynicism during what would be
some of the more tedious moments of the show.
What is that?
Cement!
You just drank cement!
[LAUGHS]
She often reminded us that we were, in fact,
watching a comedy at times.
Her complete lack of respect for the police department that she
worked for felt like a perfect fit
for the show's propensity to dip its toes
into the realm of absurdity.
But it also never felt like it was going all in on being
completely over the top.
Chelsea Peretti didn't leave Brooklyn Nine-Nine
on bad terms.
She just felt like it was her time to go.
From various interviews, we can glean
that this was a mutual split.
Chelsea Peretti was welcoming a child
and was looking to balance her time between work
and being a mom.
There was no drama, no mud slinging,
no thinly veiled allusions of problematic behavior.
In fact, Peretti worked closely with the writers and producers
to give Gina Linetti a proper sendoff.
When Gina returns for her second farewell in what
is arguably the worst episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine,
she is almost a different character entirely.
The writers sort of take this weird moment
to take the character of Gina Linetti
and make their own cartoon caricature out of her.
All of Gina's defining characteristics
are amplified to a fairly large degree,
and gone are the days of Gina's tenure
as the assistant to Captain Holt,
as Gina is now this sort of ridiculously
flashy and successful social media influencer.
This is a fun moment for the character,
and sort of serves as a bit of a status shift
for the rest of the cast.
They aren't dealing with the sort
of dry, wisecracking, deadpan Gina anymore.
They're dealing with something much larger.
The problem with exaggerating a smaller character's features
to this degree means that sometimes the more negative
aspects of a character begin to sort of shine through.
Something that once worked well because of subtlety
might not work as well when amplified
to a ridiculous degree.
Gina's trademark cynicism and sarcasm end
up being really difficult emotions
to amplify without creating a character that is about as
unlikable as they come.
Duncan, I almost died.
It was (DRAWN OUT) amazing.
Those tiny, brief accents of disaffected wit
become long and exhaustive dives into unhinged narcissism.
Imagine just for a second that these characters have
little dials on every single one of their character aspects.
Writers then spend the time fidgeting and playing
with these dials to varying degrees of success.
Generally, positive character tropes
tend to be a little easier to play with.
There are a couple reasons for this, the first being that it's
more fun for the audience to watch characters who get along
to some degree.
Even if characters bicker, fight, scream, or just
do terrible things, we need to be
able to understand why the characters actually
like each other, or at the very least,
tolerate each other for comedic scenes to really start working.
The second reason is that positivity is much more
malleable than negativity.
In the case of Brooklyn Nine-Nine,
it's more fun when we are watching our characters work
together towards a common goal.
It's fun to watch Terry and Peralta working on a case
together.
It's fun to watch Captain Holt deliver life lessons
to the supporting cast.
It's fun to watch your characters get along.
If we take a moment to look at what is arguably the best
episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine, "The Box,"
we see all of our characters starting off
in a somewhat positive place.
Throughout the episode, the positivity and confidence
the characters have slowly breaks down
into uncertainty and desperation,
and it feels like a very natural progression
of emotional intensity.
Now if everyone started this episode and that negative place
of fear and desperation, there would never
be any emotional arc for the character.
Everything would feel pretty linear and boring.
It also wouldn't be nearly as rewarding to see
the characters regain their confidence later
on in the episode.
Oh, damn.
Oh, damn!
And that is three oh, damns.
It is much more difficult to turn anger, fear, and sadness
into happiness in a way that feels natural, at least.
The one thing that sort of breaks these rules
and doesn't really lean one way or the other is apathy.
Creating characters that operate through an apathetic lens
is the purgatory of character development.
There's not really much to do with a character that
doesn't care about themselves or other characters.
This is a big part of where "Return of the King"
starts to break down as far as a Brooklyn Nine-Nine
episode goes.
Gina Linetti returns almost as an insult
to the rest of the cast.
When she first departed the show,
she sort of hung around a bit while the rest of the cast
took time to almost persuade her out of leaving.
She left a statue and a recorded message on the computer,
and the characters seemed genuinely bummed
that she wouldn't be around anymore.
In "Return of the King," she comes back
without caring about anyone in the cast.
She continuously blows off almost every character
she comes across.
It's like the writers were writing for a completely
different person.
She sends her assistant to planned hangouts at the pub,
she ignores the requests, she disobeys
direction designed to keep her safe from an assassination
attempt.
It almost plays out like the fun the writers were having
in making Gina this new sort of social media diva
came at the expense of trying to write
a decent episode of television that made sense
within the established context of Gina's
pre-existing character dynamics.
These episodes can feel ridiculous and fun,
but when the plotlines go a little too far,
things can really start to get away
from us in terms of structure.
There's a balance that needs to be achieved
in an episode like this.
And "Return of the King" scales, they never really level out.
The pseudo seriousness and parody
that makes Brooklyn Nine-Nine so great
is effectively thrown out the window
in favor of creating some rather ridiculous
and arguably out-of-character moments that don't really
line up with the overall vibe of the show.
For characters to work together, they must care about each other
to some degree.
If our characters can't find a way
to connect with one another, the audience
won't be able to connect with them either.
Writers need to make the decision
to care, and in the case of "Return of the King,"
it's a good demonstration of how just because something
can feel fun in a show doesn't necessarily
mean that it will feel right to an audience.
And that's it for today's episode.
Feel free to click on a couple of these links
here if you want to stick around, and Thanks
for watching Nerdstalgic.
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