Brooklyn Nine-Nine Reunites A Pair Of Soulmates

After opening the season with a couple of off-model episodes, Brooklyn Nine-Nine returns, in "Coral Palms, Part 3," to the elements that made fans fall in love with the show in the first place. Uh, other than the Brooklyn setting, though, I guess? In defiance of C.J.'s direct prohibition, the squad members who aren't currently in Witness Protection road-trip to Florida to help bring the Figgis story to a close: everyone works together to lure Figgis to the Fun Zone and apprehend his mobbed-up ass. In the course of the actual police work, we get to enjoy the reunion of the two characters' whose love story has been a touchstone of the series, and whose separation has been the most heartbreaking of the season. Of course I am speaking of Holt and Gina.

"Not...Jake and Amy?" Silly hypothetical viewer I just made up, not even you can possibly still be invested in their relationship, can you?! While Andy Samberg and Melissa Fumero have a lot of appeal separately, I've never really bought them as a couple, and for most of this episode, I kind of thought the show was acknowledging that and addressing it: Amy and Jake, having been apart for six months, are extremely awkward around each other but slightly hesitant to admit that being back in each other's presence is anything less than magical. Toward the end of the episode, however, Figgis takes Jake hostage, and Jake successfully communicates to Amy with no more than a nod that she should spook Figgis by shooting Jake in the leg, and the two are back in sync. Yay?

But you know who didn't have to get involved in gunplay to reconnect? Holt and Gina. That's due in part to the fact that Holt is already injured: after jumping into a dumpster to avoid apprehension on his and Jake's escape from prison, he's already impaled his thigh on a piece of rebar and stitched up the wound himself, so he has to stay back from the Figgis op. Gina stays with him not only because she's not a cop (no matter what she might try to tell you) and because, after loading up on "Ambies" for what she assumed would be a flight to Florida, she's slightly erratic at the moment -- for instance, asking Terry for his gun and, when he refuses, pulling out her own.

Left alone with Holt, Gina helps pass the time by making conversation about matters of importance.

You might think the famously stoic Holt would respond with irritation that Gina is wasting his time. But you would be wrong!

Holt and Gina have a long history of being work-besties. She was the one who hooked him on Kwazy Cupcakes. When Wuntch sentenced him to leave the Nine-Nine and work in PR, Gina volunteered to go with him. And now, as he frets about how things are going for his squad as they embark on this dangerous mission without him, Gina doesn't hesitate to act: "With your brains and my body? And my brain? We make one unstoppable unit." She orders him to climb onto her back so that she can be his legs.

It could go better. However, they are at a self-storage facility, so Gina soon locates a dolly and straps Holt to it in preparation to boost a delivery truck and chauffeur him to Fun Zone. This plan, too, has its faults.

Cut to:

The challenges don't end there: Gina can't drive stick, so Holt has to talk her through it, and well enough for her to plow into Figgis's car before he can escape apprehension. Truly, they are one unstoppable unit. Suck it, Amy and Jake! (Or, rather, please stop "sucking it" and just go back to being friends, as you should have been this whole time.)