Others have already said pieces of this in older comments, but I'm still going to stitch together the parts that hit me while watching.
First and foremost, this felt like a "we have to talk about it" episode, to the point of looking like virtue signaling on the network's part. Yes, I realize that ignoring the events of the preceding year would have upset (some) viewers. But ironically, It felt like the episode did what it portrayed Boyle as doing, making a big deal of showing how much it cares about the issues while the characters who should have had the most to say about the topic (Holt and Jeffords) were sidelined to "B" plots with no connection to them.
And underneath all of that, there was the implication of both Rosa and Hitchcock dropping off the main cast. Looking ahead to the credits for future episodes in the season, I can see that both of them appear to remain involved, but I have no idea how. If Hitchcock stays in Brazil and we only see him on Scully's tablet, that's a big change. If Rosa isn't working at the precinct any more and we only see her out in the world, that's a big change too. I'm not a fan of big changes like that near the end of a series… certainly not after what happened to Stargate SG-1.
I guess you could say this season opener disappointed me. Brooklyn Nine-Nine has shown in the past that it can tackle serious subject matter without losing its spark of humor, but it failed to hit that mark this time.
Review by dgwVIP 10BlockedParent2021-12-13T05:11:28Z
Others have already said pieces of this in older comments, but I'm still going to stitch together the parts that hit me while watching.
First and foremost, this felt like a "we have to talk about it" episode, to the point of looking like virtue signaling on the network's part. Yes, I realize that ignoring the events of the preceding year would have upset (some) viewers. But ironically, It felt like the episode did what it portrayed Boyle as doing, making a big deal of showing how much it cares about the issues while the characters who should have had the most to say about the topic (Holt and Jeffords) were sidelined to "B" plots with no connection to them.
And underneath all of that, there was the implication of both Rosa and Hitchcock dropping off the main cast. Looking ahead to the credits for future episodes in the season, I can see that both of them appear to remain involved, but I have no idea how. If Hitchcock stays in Brazil and we only see him on Scully's tablet, that's a big change. If Rosa isn't working at the precinct any more and we only see her out in the world, that's a big change too. I'm not a fan of big changes like that near the end of a series… certainly not after what happened to Stargate SG-1.
I guess you could say this season opener disappointed me. Brooklyn Nine-Nine has shown in the past that it can tackle serious subject matter without losing its spark of humor, but it failed to hit that mark this time.