Brooklyn Nine-Nine Closes Out Season 2 By Cementing A True Love Story

Brooklyn Nine-Nine closes out its second season this week in somewhat the same way it closed its first: with one member apparently leaving the squad (Jake then; Holt now), and with Jake and Amy confronting the romantic potential of their relationship (then with a declaration by Jake; this time with some full-on kissin'). And even as some of the show's other relationships undergo major evolutions -- the formerly smitten Boyle assisting Rosa's new boyfriend in putting on a surprise party for her; Scully having to sever ties with the vending machine -- there's one I'm happy to see as solid as ever, and that's the friendship between Sgt. Terry and Gina.

Sgt. Terry's having earned a place in Gina's heart must be particularly gratifying to him considering that there's very little room in it: love for herself, her mom, her phone, and The Dance already take up most of it. But toward the end of this second season, we've seen more and more evidence of how deeply Sgt. Terry has (platonically) penetrated her defenses. She threw herself into the project of keeping him from leaving the squad for a private security firm; she impressed a visiting principal from the school in which he's hoping to enroll his twins by moderating a variety of girl fights, a feat on par with the Camp David Accords. And while her finale plotline revolves around her lending her special brand of support to the effort of keeping Holt from getting promoted out of the Nine-Nine, Sgt. Terry is her partner in (basically victimless) crime, and thus provides us with a showcase for how close these two have gotten: when she puts her phone in Airplane Mode, the better to devote all her attention to the task at hand, Sgt. Terry knows what a big deal it is.

Holt needs to track down an incriminating letter Wuntch wrote about her boss in order to use it as leverage to get her to back off her plan to separate him from the squad? Gina and Sgt. Terry are on it, and naturally, her irresistible charm and sex appeal and his brute strength complement one another perfectly. While she distracts a birdwatching file clerk with talk of grackles, Sgt. Terry quickly figures out that finesse is a waste of everyone's time. Why bother trying to extract a single piece of paper when there's a more efficient solution available to a gigantic man?

Having completed their mission in exemplary fashion, Gina and Sgt. Terry are rewarded with a chance to watch Holt tell Wuntch off, and why not? As Holt says, when Gina can't help yelling her triumph through the one-way mirror, "Who wouldn't want to see a man fight a crocodile?" And he's right: these two are definitely into it.

In the end, Sgt. Terry and (mostly) Gina's Chaotic Good aren't a match for Wuntch's Lawful Evil: when Wuntch tells Holt his choices are to go along with her plan or watch his squad get broken up and parceled out to various other far-flung corners of the NYPD, Holt falls on his sword -- much to the consternation of everyone other than Sgt. Terry and Gina, since they were the only two who knew what Holt was up against. As the most professionally mobile of Holt's reports, Gina immediately leaps up at Holt's announcement and declares that she's leaving with him, so we may reasonably assume that at least the first couple of episodes of Season 3 will revolve around Holt and Gina's adventures at 1PP until Jake finds a way to return Holt to the squad, where he belongs. (No spoilers, I've just seen a TV show before.) Will it be fun to watch Gina fucking with the staid civil servants at her new office? Sure. But it won't be the same to watch her do it without The Ebony Falcon as her wingman.