I heard (don’t remember where, could be true, could be right out of someone’s ass) that the reason the show ended is many of them started feeling bad about doing a light-hearted fun show about cops. Basically the actors all started feeling like Rosa.
The writing staff literally threw out their scripts and rewrote the final season to try addressing the climate surrounding police violence.
Stephanie Beatriz tweeted that any actor who makes high number residuals from producing copaganda should donate part of their checks to organizations combating police violence and corruption—she included a screenshot of her $11,000 donation to a couple of charities.
On the show, her character, Rosa, literally stated that George Floyd was the reason she couldn’t continue working as a cop and instead became a PI who investigates corruption on behalf of civilian victims.
The cast and crew collectively donated $100,000 to combat police corruption and violence.
The main villain of the final season was lawyer or union leader or whatever who enabled and encouraged police corruption, citing anti-white hate and how it’s racist to call someone racist.
I think it was Terry Crews who said in an interview that the show considered how it could possibly evolve into less problematic first responders or something, but that anything other than pointing out their issues and ending the show felt wrong. I can’t remember exactly what was said, and I’d already spent far too much time reading interviews to refresh my memory.
Andre Braugher reflected on his career of copaganda and how he himself had fallen into the trap of how the media sweeps the police problem under the rug.
I’m sure there’s other stuff, but I’ve already spent an inappropriate amount of time on this comment.
She quit to be a P.I. that specifically investigated police misconduct. There was a great episode where she got water tight evidence to nail a cop and brought it to the police commissioner, who thanked her and destroyed it.
The commissioner believed that prosecuting the cop would have gotten her removed from office and “someone worse” would take over, and she considered herself “one of the good ones.”
it was a captain working towards commissioner, but yeah, that’s the episode summary. it ends with jake, the writer’s room’s go to self insert character, saying “i guess i am part of the problem and figuring out how to fix that is harder than i thought”
the final episodes leave the impression that jakes decision to retire is driven solely by fatherhood, but the overall season implies that jake both wants to be a present father and to raise a son who has a dad who’s a former cop rather than a cop. obviously he still supports his cop wife, amy, but i think there’s a lot of meat there to that jake views her work reforming the nypd and their sexist biggoted ways that he’s spent the last 2 years finally seeing as important to making new york a meaningfully better place.
i also think it’s important to note that one of jake’s last acts as a police detective is slipping a pen into his non-violent criminal friend’s pocket so he can escape from prison.
look. brooklyn 99 is copaganda but it’s the one piece of copaganda i recommend people check out because there’s very much eras to it and as a piece of media it reveals an interesting shift in american politics. it’s a unique relic for this reason, and it’s probably the safest piece of copaganda to expose someone to without risking them leaving thinking the police stats is good. but anyway the eras of brooklyn 99 are:
uncritical celebration of the television staples of workplace comedy and cop show
cop show as social critique of racial injustice with an undercritical view of the role of copaganda in racial injustice
hopeful projection of what would be possible if community policing was focused on care rather than punishment
exhausted and frustrated deconstruction of copaganda, seemingly from the perspective of that the making of this show that they had loved working on, and loved working on together, was from the beginning a naive mistake
and remember kids: problematic media from a prior age should be celebrated for having become problematic. problematic media from a prior age means the overall narrative has shifted. brooklyn 99 was once beloved by liberal audiences and now leaves them uncomfortable. brooklyn 99 hasn’t changed. it can’t. it’s over. but the culture’s relationship to it has because our shared understanding of ourselves and eachother has. now we can get our detective show fix from something like Poker Face where the detective is a drifter on the run from the mafia and the fbi, and all the cops are in the pocket of a powerful rich man.
It was so obviously propaganda and dumb especially the Halloween episodes. It was liked by people who think America is the good guy and Iraq really had weapons of mass destruction. Ah man did you see they are making a top gun 3!
I heard (don’t remember where, could be true, could be right out of someone’s ass) that the reason the show ended is many of them started feeling bad about doing a light-hearted fun show about cops. Basically the actors all started feeling like Rosa.
I’m sure there’s other stuff, but I’ve already spent an inappropriate amount of time on this comment.
Fin.
I think the final season had some nods to that.
Who’s Rosa?
One of the characters in the show. I think she quit to become a P.I. because she didn’t want to be a part of a bigoted system anymore.
She quit to be a P.I. that specifically investigated police misconduct. There was a great episode where she got water tight evidence to nail a cop and brought it to the police commissioner, who thanked her and destroyed it.
The commissioner believed that prosecuting the cop would have gotten her removed from office and “someone worse” would take over, and she considered herself “one of the good ones.”
it was a captain working towards commissioner, but yeah, that’s the episode summary. it ends with jake, the writer’s room’s go to self insert character, saying “i guess i am part of the problem and figuring out how to fix that is harder than i thought”
the final episodes leave the impression that jakes decision to retire is driven solely by fatherhood, but the overall season implies that jake both wants to be a present father and to raise a son who has a dad who’s a former cop rather than a cop. obviously he still supports his cop wife, amy, but i think there’s a lot of meat there to that jake views her work reforming the nypd and their sexist biggoted ways that he’s spent the last 2 years finally seeing as important to making new york a meaningfully better place.
i also think it’s important to note that one of jake’s last acts as a police detective is slipping a pen into his non-violent criminal friend’s pocket so he can escape from prison.
look. brooklyn 99 is copaganda but it’s the one piece of copaganda i recommend people check out because there’s very much eras to it and as a piece of media it reveals an interesting shift in american politics. it’s a unique relic for this reason, and it’s probably the safest piece of copaganda to expose someone to without risking them leaving thinking the police stats is good. but anyway the eras of brooklyn 99 are:
and remember kids: problematic media from a prior age should be celebrated for having become problematic. problematic media from a prior age means the overall narrative has shifted. brooklyn 99 was once beloved by liberal audiences and now leaves them uncomfortable. brooklyn 99 hasn’t changed. it can’t. it’s over. but the culture’s relationship to it has because our shared understanding of ourselves and eachother has. now we can get our detective show fix from something like Poker Face where the detective is a drifter on the run from the mafia and the fbi, and all the cops are in the pocket of a powerful rich man.
It was so obviously propaganda and dumb especially the Halloween episodes. It was liked by people who think America is the good guy and Iraq really had weapons of mass destruction. Ah man did you see they are making a top gun 3!
Mike Schur is a fucking genius, and yeah you can definitely see his opinions shift over the course of B99
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosa_Diaz