Brooklyn Nine-Nine Season 6 Episode 4 Review: Four Movements

This Brooklyn Nine-Nine review contains spoilers.

Brooklyn Nine-Nine Season 6 Episode 4

One of the reasons that Brooklyn Nine-Nine is such a beloved sitcom is that it features a killer ensemble, but the problem with having such a top-notch cast is that sometimes certain characters get sidelined or shortchanged. BK99’s Gina Linetti, played with hilarious gusto by comedian Chelsea Peretti, is often lost in the shuffle, mainly because the character isn’t a police officer, so it can be harder to find organic ways to work her into the plot. So it was sad, but understandable when Peretti announced that she would no longer be a series regular on the show, looking to free up some time to pursue other projects where we assume she’ll have more to do than throw out the occasional sassy one-liner.

Gina isn’t gone from the Brooklyn Nine-Nine universe forever, in fact Stephanie Beatriz recently told Entertainment Weekly, “Chelsea Peretti is a gift from the gods. She really is one of the greats. She’s not really leaving. We are shooting an episode with her coming back very soon. She might not be in every episode, but she’s still very much a part of the world. Gina’s forever in the fabric of Brooklyn Nine-Nine. It just wouldn’t be the show without her, so I think audiences are going to be really pleased to see her come back.”

So we can all rest easy knowing that “Four Movements” will not be the last we’ll see of Gina Linetti. But if this really was Gina’s last appearance on the show, then “Four Movements” feels like a proper tribute. As one can derive from the episode title, Gina’s parting episode is broken into four parts, with each sort of feeling like the typical B-plot in any given episode, but peppered with surprisingly emotional and character appropriate beats. Gina is dead-set on spending her last two weeks at working giving each of her colleagues a final special Gina Moment to remember her by, and she starts off with her direct supervisor, Captain Holt. 

read more: The Best Brooklyn Nine-Nine Episodes

Holt and Gina are quite the odd couple. It really doesn’t make sense that someone as precise and exacting as Holt would use Gina as his assistant, but in certain situations, like here with Gina teaching Holt trash talk, the show justifies that maybe Holt could benefit from having some of Gina’s unbridled confidence. While Holt teaches Gina to play chess, he questions his employee deeply on whether she’s considered the consequences of leaving her job without a backup plan in place. Gina deflects these questions with cliché platitudes and Holt volleys them right back at her. Holt raises some real concerns, showing just how much he’s actually grown to care about Gina. In the end, Gina tells Holt that confidence is everything and that she’s confident that whatever she tries after leaving the Nine-Nine, she’ll be successful at. Holt can’t help but agree, even as Gina ludicrously declares that she’s won a game of chess by changing the rules on the fly.

The next Gina moment is delivered to the co-worker that Gina has the least in common with. Amy has always been somewhat of a punching bag for Gina, but regardless, Amy tries planning a girl’s lunch along with Rosa so she can properly work through her overwhelming feelings about Gina leaving. It really seems like they’ve been upping Amy’s weirdness this season and for my money, she’s been scoring the biggest laughs in Season 6. Gina is instantly turned off by Amy’s emotional careening and agrees to the lunch only to teach Amy how to be cooler and more detached. Amy immediately blows it at being both cool and detached at the lunch by presenting Gina the thoughtful gift of all of her tweets assembled into a book, and as punishment, Gina orders Amy to burn the book. However, before Amy tosses her hard work into the fire, Gina reveals that the whole thing was a rouse to get Amy to just be herself no matter what. The moment is so moving, it even makes Rosa cry. A two for one Gina moment.

The third movement arguably feels like the closet to an actual A-plot on the show, with Gina and Jake posing as high society members to sneak into the Manhattan Club and secure Mario Lopez for Gina’s going away party. Their rouse works, but once the former A.C. Slater arrives at the party, Gina turns him away. The point is that Gina didn’t want Jake to worry about making a splash with his going away party because all she really wanted was to spend time enjoying a beer with her friends. 

Finally, a few days after Gina’s last day, Terry and Boyle finally get their moments, but they feel pretty tacked on. Gina herself admits that Boyle was the character that she was probably closest to, given the fact that they were temporarily step-siblings and shared a one-night stand, but all Boyle gets from Gina is a return of the Boyle Family Mother Dough (the sourdough recipe gifted to Gina back in Season 4). Even if their relationship was inexplicable, it deserved something bigger than this. Terry waits longer for his moment, increasingly becoming certain that Gina is having cold feet and is not actually leaving the Nine-Nine. But Gina’s continued presence is explained by her waiting for a life-sized statue of herself to be shipped to the precinct, and she lets Terry know that his gift is a Yogurt of the Month subscription, which can be viewed as another joke about this being one of Terry’s only identifiable quirks.

While “Four Movements” doesn’t necessarily stick the landing, its imperfect nature mirrors Gina’s run on the show itself: random, funny, occasionally able to be touching, and a little extraneous. As much as I enjoy the character, I don’t think Gina’s absence will be a detriment for the series, and as stated above, I’m sure we’ll be seeing the character again sooner rather than later. 

BK99 Blotter

– Gina gets everyone in the Nine-Nine sweatshirts with their names stitched in them, yet Amy’s reads “Arnie.”

– Gina teaches Holt some trash talk, but he’s really overdoing it with “dumbass.”

– Some of Gina’s potential career options: getting into cryptocurrency, becoming a young adult novel author, and creating a new melon.

– Gina credits all of her good luck to the crystal she carries around.

– “I wish I could do lunch today but I’m currently out of town.” – Gina to Amy

– Rosa’s toast: “Bye.”

– Scully confuses Jake’s Gina-Roma with a similarly spelled event that he attends yearly. It’s, ahem, pronounced a bit differently.

– Jake asks Gina if the Manhattan Club is just “a room full of lizards.”

– Mario Lopez lobs a signature A.C. Slater zinger at Jake, calling him “preppy.”

Nick Harley is a tortured Cleveland sports fan, thinks Douglas Sirk would have made a killer Batman movie, Spider-Man should be a big-budget HBO series, and Wes Anderson and Paul Thomas Anderson should direct a script written by one another. For more thoughts like these, read Nick’s work here at Den of Geek or follow him on Twitter.