He Said, She Said

Please don't jump to conclusions about what I'm going to say. I love Brooklyn 99, and one of my favourite things is how the show usually addresses social issues in a clever way, without making it too obvious that that's what the episode is about. For example, the episode with Terry being stopped and searched because of his race, was a perfect balance of entertainment, and tackling real progressive issues. This wasn't this case this time.

Additionally, I felt that the entire focus of the Jake and Amy section was only talking to female victims. I 100% agree that it is an issue which should be discussed, and I did like the fact that it can create discussions within households, however I definitely felt left behind as a male who has been a victim of it myself. I know this was a #MeToo episode, and I feel that the movement applies to all victims, not just women.

I just feel like it could have been done better, is all.

Let's get "boring" for a second like our favourites Amy and Captain Holt and talk about statistics.

This episode is rated with 7.1 and is currently the second lowest episode of the series at the time this review is written (before season 8 aired). But it is very interesting to observe how this is shaped.

The series averages a rate of 8.4 with most episodes being around this value (85 episodes out of 143 are rated between 8 and 9). Usually the ratings of individual episodes get it right. The top episodes are HalloVeen and The box with 9.5 which means that episodes with a rating above 9 are in most cases the best ( depending of course on personal taste). Similarly, the fluctuation around 8 and 9 gives an indication of how good an episode is and if the rating is below 8 usually we are talking about a less engaging episode. And apart from two outliers the lowest thresholds seems to be 7.4.

In most episodes, the majority of the ratings are concentrated around the average value and usually the amount of the rest of the votes and where they are leaning forms the final value. For example in "The Negotiation" most ratings are 8 and then we have a lot of 9s and 10s while there is a decent amount of 7s causing the episode to be rated with 8.3. Even the episode with the lowest review "Return of the King" follows a similar trend with most ratings being 7 although there where a lot of 1s that led to the final 6.4 (I have not yet seen that episode so I am not able to further discuss about that).

However, this is not the case with this episode where most ratings are either 10 or 1. In fact 15.7% of the ratings are 1s. I know this episode can be divisive but seriously, just rate it fairly. Of course there are good ways to deal with gender equality issues (e.g. The Morning Show) and then there can be some less good attempts (e.g. the 2019 Batwoman series). For my personal taste this is neither (e.g. Moo Moo was indeed very good covering different social issues) but as an episode in general it was not nearly as bad as Four Movements (again personal taste). Especially Jake's awkwardness and ignorance in some cases is very interesting and funny, showing perhaps that the issue is more serious and not addressed even by people who have the tendency to be just.

Don't forget that this is a 20 minute episode, it is not easy to cover nearly all the angles in a such complex issue. A lot of reviewers cite Gina's harassments to Terry. First of all let's not forget that the series start with Charles harassing Rosa. Secondly, although I hear your argument, we can't just pretend that the amount of harassment men receive is equal to the amount women have to endure (which in many times is far more dangerous). The sequence where Amy is harassed or fell victim of sexism (even when buying a cup of coffee) was intriguing and actually accurate. It is amazing how even the smallest tasks can be more difficult for women (let alone the more serious ones like promotions etc.). People would argue that we don't need to be force fed these ideas. Judging by the amount of "radical feminist propaganda" comments and the 1s in the ratings, I am not so sure that is the case. Maybe the depiction is so blatant because the issue is so blatant and we just refuse to perceive the extent of it.

And let's not forget that there is also a secondary storyline, which was not bad.

Bottom line if this episode was not to your liking rate it like any other episode that you did not enjoy as much as the others. But there is no way this was as bad as being the second worst episode of a series suggests.

"Moo Moo" and "Show Me Going" are wonderful examples of serious topics wrapped in clever humor and all-in-all fantastic writing. This... this is just garbage. The dialogue is disgusting, Amy suddenly becomes a "daily" harassment victim, which was NEVER EVER portrayed before on the show (on the contrary, Amy was shown as extremely tough when she needed to be) and both Amy and Jake seem annoyed that they need to do police work in order to prove that the woman is right? Seriously? If the man had been in the right, would it have been obvious or what is their point?

The episode was funny, especially Holt. But I don't know, it was kinda cringy. This show has already dealt with important issues in the past, in a natural and beautiful way. This episode felt forced and... unrealistic. The reality of these situations is much more complicated than this. It was too one-sided. I love this show and as I've said, it knows how to deal with important social issues. This time it felt too disingenuous, for some reason.

The message this episode conveys may seem so generic that it's often ignored. This episode really encapsulates what it's like, for a woman, to work in any office environment. The writers really did a great job. 9/10