Will you feel comfortable watching B99 with the BLM and anti-police thing going on? I'm trying to feel okay about the show but I just can't :(
i’ve thought a lot about it and i’m super biased because it’s my favourite show and i don’t think anything would stop me from watching it but yes of course i am.
first of all, as long as you engage critically with the show and recognise that it isn’t an accurate portrayal of the real world then its okay to watch it. news flash - sometimes its okay to watch a show that isn’t totally realistic, know and acknowledge that this is the case, and then switch off your brain and just enjoy it!! do we really believe that all crime stops on halloween for their heists? no, but we go along with it anyway.
which next point - its fictional. i don’t know when we started looking to a fictional show to be a moral compass but that’s wrong. of course there are bits that are uncomfortable and wrong (hello, gintars) but sometimes things can be just enjoyed as a form of escapism because if it were realistic then you may as well watch the news.
and the last thing i’ve come to realise is that every tv show positions its main characters as heroes. parks and rec makes you root for a bureaucrat, glee glorified a sociopathic bully in all the characters santana lopez, and like even gossip girl started with chuck bass sexually assaulting a girl, and yet we’re positioned to root for them. thats just what fiction does. as long as you know this is the case and critically engage then thats the main thing.
What also really hurts about the whole therapy thing in b99′s most recent episode is that they could’ve easily edited it to make it more positive.
They could’ve written it so that Jake actually did decide to go to therapy and was seeing a real therapist and just happened to mention something that he and his therapist had been talking about to Amy that would come in useful to her in the heist.
Hey please don’t feel bad about posting b99 content. If you work hard on something, esp if it’s for Pride, post it. Watching a show about fictional cops doesn’t make you less of an ally. The fictional characters you love doesn’t take away from your support for Black people. I know your hearts in the right place but concern over edits is the lowest priority. Don’t be ashamed of your edits as long as your activism is there.
Hey anon idk if you’re sending this to everyone or if you mixed me up with someone else. I haven’t made an edit since like February because I’m a very lazy person lmao. Just wanted to let you know in case you sent your message to the wrong person.
Regardless of that, I agree with your sentiment. I don’t agree with people shaming creators for posting b99 pride gifsets when that is such a huge and important part of the show. We do this every year and we should be proud that the show we love has representation like that. That being said, I also understand that a lot of people don’t want to see gifs of the show right now and there’s a time and place for everything. I really don’t have a solution for this and what we should and shouldn’t do as fans of the show. In all honesty, I kinda hate how so many people, me included, have spent so much energy on debating this topic. I know that fandom is such a big part of our lives but it honestly seems so unimportant at this moment. Obviously I believe that this discourse needs to be discussed. I’m also super glad that this fandom for the most part has acknowledged that this show is indeed cop propaganda and has delved into what that means and how that can affect the real world. We HAVE to discuss it. We HAVE to look at the media we consume with a critical eye so that we can learn from it. And by learning from it, we can make better and more educated choices of what we want to support and how we want to support it. We have to take this knowledge and reflect on it because what is the point if we don’t. That being said, seeing all the debate on whether or not the show should be cancelled, or whether people are gonna keep watching the show, or whether the cast/writers should do something, or whether b99 fans should be shamed for liking something problematic just feels like noise right now. No one has the correct answers to any of this. The shows not even on right now. We don’t even know when they can start production for season 8. I believe in the importance of discourse and discussion, now more than ever, but I just really hope everyone’s doing their part in this movement and not just worrying about a tv show because believe me, I’m struggling right now with that too.
I figure with the Heist episodes nothing is really meant to be taken seriously. Like Dan Goor has actually said that Heists don't follow the same rules in terms of character behaviour. No-one takes it seriously that Rosa actually drugged Charles and packaged him up or that Holt tried to order his subordinate to lie to her husband about a pregnancy or Jake/Amy tazed each-other etc etc. It's cartoonish bad behaviour that gets worse every year and shouldn't be taken seriously 1/2
Half the reason the the proposal is so powerful is that it shocked you out of what is basically a cartoon to present a sincere real moment. But in general the last heist in particular re-iterated that everyone was on-board and consenting to the awfulness of heists. Sorry I just feel strongly Amy's comedic over-the-top 'bad' behaviour gets judged far more seriously than the other characters in a way that makes me uncomfortable 2/2
okay that’s fair, i hate how harshly amy is judged too and i know the heists are over-the-top, but i wasn’t saying anything about that haha? all i said was that it bothers my stupid besserwisser brain that she wouldn’t know the sex if she ‘just found out’ even though i know it’s part of the joke. and i don’t think it’s a tasteful joke so soon after casecation, but that’s another thing entirely. anyway, this has gotten way off topic somehow, but really it’s not that serious i promise
Oh come on.You cannot seriously ignore the reality and rules of heist episodes. You aren't meant to wonder what Amy/Rosa were thinking or how Jake feels in response because that is not what they have established heists are about. Anymore than you should analyse Holt putting a camera in their bedroom and how they would feel. All rules are out the window for the characters to be terrible and viewers can like that or not but that has been well-established. ROSA DRUGGED BOYLE LAST YEAR. 1
And me saying that is not refusing to be critical of the show or call it problematic (I happily do so) but the context of heists is just as vital for analysing a joke. Not fully taking that into account/acting like it is a normal episode is also refusing to critically engage in favour of offence when the clear joke is them all acting outrageously/and in none ok ways. Sometimes I think people forget these are comedy characters within a show of varying cartoonish levels not grounded fanfiction 2
I know that heists are not meant to be taken seriously.
But the whole “heists are meant to be more outrageous than real-life” thing works to justify hiring a billion pizza delivery men to randomly flood a police precinct on one of the busiest days of the year, not to excuse actually problematic behavior. When you’re dealing with someone’s very real insecurities, there are some lines that cannot be crossed. We know that Jake has clearly done a lot of work on himself and dealing with his fears to get to where he is now, and the revelation that all of it could be “fake” would break him—there’s just no way around that. You can’t say “everything goes in a heist” and excuse behavior that would result in a very serious fight in any other situation—or at least, I can’t.
Amy could have said “he’s so stressed, he’s talking in his sleep,” and Rosa could have come up with some excuse to hack into Holt’s feed and overhear that as well. Or something. The point is, the show could have easily avoided this; it just chose not to. And I have every right to be pissed about it.
it's extremely creepy to know that amy is comfortable with a total stranger actress getting to know her husband's deep rooted problems and playing it off as a joke. (she isn't a real therapist after all) it was nasty of both rosa and amy to play him this way. this is bad writing from the writer's part tbh.
I want to preface this by saying that I was absolutely and completely against them even thinking about trying so early in the season and I was even more against the idea of a pregnancy scare, but although those things happened, this episode still managed to exceed my expectations tenfold. I loved 99 (heh) percent of it, and the stuff I didn’t was mostly due to me being a worrywart and not because there was something wrong with the ep. Let’s get started.
First of all, can I just say how happy I am that Amy verbally said that “[they] agreed not to start trying for at least a year”? After what happened in a certain episode last season, I was convinced that the writers had no idea how to handle this storyline properly (more on that later), but the acknowledgment that Jake and Amy mutually agreed to a time frame and had every intention of sticking to it is a really important step in correcting those wrongs, and I’m really glad they chose to include a line about it not once, but twice.
I also loved seeing the Sleuth Sisters back on screen together! Rosa’s attempts at calming Amy down and helping her were absolutely hilarious (“you know hat keeps me relaxed? kicking stuff” / “glub glub glub…is this helping?” / etc) and the fact that Amy went to her for help made me so happy. I especially enjoyed the bit where they were sorting through the weird pregnancy tests from a bodega—especially because it parallels a similar conversation they had in Grey Star Mutual.
Lastly, the scene at the end between Jake and Amy was lovely and soft and nearly perfect in how it was written and executed (more on this later, too). The part when Amy told Jake about the pregnancy scare and then proceeded to—convincingly—pretend to be bummed until he brought up his feelings himself was excellent: it’s clear from the way they spoke and acted that neither was feeling any pressure to say something they didn’t truly believe, which is why the end result—Jake saying he’s ready to start Trying—is just about as good as it could have been.
Miscellaneous stuff that made me grin:
These two episodes were a clear return to the form/style of seasons 4-5, and I am here for it!
I didn’t write much about the A-plot above, but it was good, clean comedy. Debbie is amazing, as were her interactions with Holt. The end scene between Jake and Holt was especially sweet, and I’m interested to see how their new dynamic progresses in the future.
Jake, concerned about his finances (when he asked Charles to download that app)? Growth.
My remaining thoughts about this episode in the context of season 6 and what I think about what will happen going forward with regards to the themes and issues brought up in it are under the cut. The vast majority of them are not criticisms (of this episode), but they’re not exactly glowing reviews either, so proceed at your own risk.
If we pretend the Joke in 6x16 never happened, this episode would pretty much have satisfied everything I wanted to see regarding Baby Talks. But, as I have mentioned before, I can’t see how that event could have possibly made Jake any more ready to start a family—if anything, it would have set him back a bit. I’m not going to get into why, because I’ve already discussed this issue elsewhere, but the reason I bring it up is that I think that it was—and still is—really freaking important to show Jake’s journey to being ready on-screen, something we haven’t actually seen yet. After such a, well, tumultuous few months, coming to that conclusion couldn’t have been easy, and there’s been too much buildup for the writers to just show this scene and move on.
When the clips to this episode were leaked a few weeks ago, there were 3 Big Things I was mad about: Timing, the concept of a Pregnancy Scare, and Amy having Second Thoughts.
With regards to the Timing, I still think it is much too soon after Casecation (per my calculations, 1.5 months at most have passed) to feasibly have Jake ready to start a family. This is also why it is really, really important to show his point of view soon: this whole storyline just doesn’t seem complete otherwise, and honestly, it makes me a little worried.
Personally, I still think that the Pregnancy Scare plot could have been avoided and that there were other, better ways for Jake to realize he was ready to start trying. While the episode made it clear that he wasn’t pressured in any way to say that he wanted to start trying (see above), hearing about Amy say “I thought I was pregnant” jump-started a part of his brain that probably would have stayed dormant for a little bit more time. I can’t be certain if this was a good or bad thing.
As for Amy having Second Thoughts, that is something Melissa Fumero mentioned in an interview but wasn’t addressed in this episode, and I stand by my earlier statement that this would be a truly bad thing to bring up this late in the game. What they showed in this episode, with Amy concerned that they don’t have a preschool lined up or whatever, is natural, but if they make her seriously question her ability to balance parenthood and her career obligations, I’m going to be really upset. Amy is canonically shown to plan out every single detail thoroughly, and she should have all of that figured out by now. A little bit of panic once she actually becomes pregnant is one thing, but second-thoughts and reconsidering is quite another.
The last bit of worry that I have is that, in a 13-episode season, Jake and Amy will take over a majority of the plotlines. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, except that it increases the possibility of other characters being sidelined in the process. I sincerely hope this doesn’t happen.
That’s it for now! Read my (much shorter) 7x02 Thoughts here.
