Brooklyn Nine-Nine Season 6, Episode 14 review: Ticking Clocks MVP

Brooklyn Nine-Nine boasts one of the best comedy ensembles of any television comedy right now, so picking an MVP every week is as difficult for me as it is for Hitchcock and Sully to eat lasagna without garlic bread! But darn it, I’m going to try.

Brooklyn Nine-Nine Season 6, Episode 14, titled “Ticking Clocks” sees the show do its best 24 impression while trying to find a hacker in real-time before they can cause serious damage to the precinct. On paper, this might have sounded like a fun idea, but the show’s execution of this particular gimmick leaves a lot to be desired.

I’m not saying Brooklyn Nine-Nine should stop doing these special-type of episodes, because when done successfully they’re some of the best episodes of the show, but out of all of them so far, including this season’s recent “The Crime Scene,” this one kind of feels like a dud.

Maybe it’s just that the actual plot of the episode isn’t strong enough to support the real-time race against the clock format, with the team running around the precinct at a surprisingly leisurely pace to track done the elusive hacker with the help of tech-guy Sergeant Knox (Sean Astin).

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From the start it’s pretty clear Knox is the bad guy, given the old Law and Order rule of “the biggest guest star is the criminal” and the show never attempts to provide any sort of reason to throw us off his tail. But given the constraints of timing, there just wasn’t a good way to flesh out his character any more than they already did.

But the MVP this week definitely has to go to Rosa as her subplot with her girlfriend Jocelyn provided the emotional beat this story needed. Let’s go ahead and check out her five best moments below.

#1 She can break a computer mouse in half

Jake, how come after all these years, you still doubt Rosa’s all-around awesomeness? You should know by now that if she wants to break something, she’s going to break it. Any normal person would look at a computer mouse and cower in fear over its supposed indestructible durability, but Rosa eats computer mouses like that for breakfast! With a quick flick of her wrist, she sends that computer mouse to computers mouse heaven by snapping it in two.

#2 She wants to send flowers to her girlfriend Jocelyn

Although Rosa is probably the one person you’d never want to meet in a dark alley at night, she’s actually proven to be quite the romantic when she wants to be. When this episode starts, she’s trying to send flowers to her girlfriend Jocelyn’s hotel room as she is traveling out-of-town. Aw, how sweet! It’s so thoughtful that even Jake is a little bummed that Amy never bothers to send him flowers.

#3 She’s a world traveler

Rosa’s past is a mystery, a closely guarded secret that she doesn’t like to share with a lot of people. But tonight’s episode drops a tiny tidbit about her past, with the tough detective casually dropping the fact that she’s lived in multiple foreign cities like Osaka, Berlin, Macau and Stockholm. What could she have been doing there? Our guess is extreme underground motorcycle racing Fast and Furious style.

#4 She’s always the dumper, never the dumpee

In her 12 major relationships, Rosa has always been the one to end things, and looking back on her love interests we’ve seen including Pimento and Marcus (played by Nick Cannon, remember how weird that was?), that’s definitely true. Which is why she’s so upset when Jocelyn comes to the precinct to break up with her.

At first, Rosa begs her to stay so they can work this out, but she reveals to Jake a more sinister plan. She says Jocelyn is basically dead to her and her only goal is to get back together with her, make their relationship stronger, and then end things to get back at her. Dang Rosa, you’re ice cold!

#5 She has way more feelings than she lets on

But of course, even the hardcore cop has feelings. Turns out, Rosa actually really cares for Jocelyn and wants to actually try to fix the relationship, which Jocelyn says is hard because Rosa is too obsessed with work. But in the end, it meant a lot to Jocelyn that Rosa would leave the precinct in a time of crisis to come talk with her. Even though it’s a little weird this reconciliation mostly happens off camera, it’s nice to see these two crazy kids work it out.

Do you agree with my MVP? Or was there another member of the Nine-Nine more deserving of the title this week? Be sure to comment below and we’ll be back next week with the next Brooklyn Nine-Nine MVP!