| “ | Life is unpredictable. Not everything's in our control. But as long as you're with the right people, you can handle anything. And you, Jake Peralta, are the right person for me. | ” |
―Amy Santiago in "Jake & Amy" | ||
Chief Amy Santiago (portrayed by Melissa Fumero) is a main character in all eight seasons of the show. She started the series as a Detective at the 99th precinct, with the ultimate goal of becoming the youngest Captain in the NYPD. She was promoted to Sergeant in season 5 and became Commander of the Uniformed Officers at the 99. In the penultimate episode of the series, she far surpasses her original goal of Captain and is promoted to the rank of Chief, working on the new Police Reform Program she developed with her mentor and father figure, Deputy Commissioner Raymond Holt.
Amy is incredibly ambitious and driven, striving for perfection in nearly everything she does. She is also highly competitive, doing whatever it takes to win a bet or competition, often against her partner-turned-husband, Jake Peralta. At the end of the series, Jake becomes a stay-at-home father to their son Mac, whom she gave birth to in the season 7 finale Lights Out, so she can do her job without guilt or regret.
Personality
| “ | She's got seven brothers, so she's always trying to prove she's tough. | ” |
―Terry Jeffords to Raymond Holt in the Pilot | ||
Amy is utterly obsessed with anything that has to do with organization or rules, with one of her favorite pastimes even being creating binders for any given situation. She is often made fun of by others for being a “goody-two shoes”, as she has shown to be incapable of even breaking the smallest rule. Because of how much she values rules and authority, Amy upholds an unnaturally high amount of respect and reverence towards superior officers, particularly Captain Holt. This causes her to be desperate for her captain’s wisdom and approval, often to the point of coming off as awkward, obsessive, and off-putting. Her desire for Holt's approval might also stem from the sexual harrassment she received from her old captain and the desire to find a mentor who actually respects her and whom she can respect in turn.
Due to her need to plan nearly everything in her life, Amy is easily prone to bouts of anxiety and panic when things don’t go as expected. She developed a smoking habit to help deal with her stress, of which she is deeply ashamed of. Amy’s straight-forward and uptight attitude, along with being overall more sensitive than her colleagues, has caused her to end up as the butt of many jokes, particularly from Gina.
Nonetheless, Amy will still hold her friends to the same impossible standards she sets for herself, which again leads to her coming off as overbearing. Despite this, Amy is a genuinely kind and caring person who is always looking out for her fellow officers, not hesitating to help them out with their issues. Though generally the one to get pushed around, Amy is not incapable of standing up for herself or her friends when needed, and can become incredibly assertive.
Despite frequently being made fun of, Amy is credited as being one of the most talented and competent detectives in the 99th precinct, and has displayed great leadership abilities when required. When she is planning on taking the Sergeant's test, not a single member of the squad doubts that she will pass and be an excellent sergeant. Her ambition has never been a hindrenss, rather it being one of her biggest motivators.
Biography
Amy comes from a Cuban-American family. She has seven brothers and at least two nephews. She is either her parents' 2nd, 3rd, or 4th favorite child.[3] Her father was a police officer. Her highly competitive trait comes from him.[4]
As a child, Amy excelled enough in school to skip the 4th grade entirely. She attended a magnet school, where she was voted "most likely to befriend a school administrator." In 8th grade, she was given the key to the teacher's lounge, where she stocked the fridge and cleaned up after the teachers. During high school, Amy was voted "Most Appropriate." She was the president of the Stenographer's Club in her school because she was the only member.[5] She became a student chaperone in middle school and kept up this role for the rest of her education.
In college, Amy studied art history. She went to a weekend-long math conference called "Funky Cats and their Feisty Stats".[6] She once pooped her pants during an AP exam, which she admits and jokes about in Cinco de Mayo.
After becoming a rookie cop at the 64th Precinct, the captain was her first mentor, tutoring and giving her all the best cases. Once she finally became a detective he took her to dinner and tried to kiss her saying that he felt like he deserved something in return for her career. Amy ran out of the restaurant back to the office, and put herself in transfer for the 99th Precinct. Amy never told anyone about this because she felt like she didn't actually deserve her promotion and worried that wouldn't get any more promotions if she spoke up.[7]
Amy has one friend named Kylie who frequently set her up on dates before she started dating Jake Peralta.
In The Puzzle Master, Amy passed the exam required to became a sergeant. She officially becomes a Sergeant in NutriBoom, making her the first female sergeant in her district's history. By the series finale she reaches the highest ranking for uniformed officers, that of Chief of Department.
Physical Appearance
Amy has long wavy dark brown hair and dark brown eyes. Amy typically pulls her hair back in a ponytail, half-ponytail, or bun when on the job. Throughout most of season five, most of her hair was chopped off and she had a bob.
Her eyesight is very poor, so she usually uses contact lenses. When she doesn't have her contact lenses on hand, she sometimes has to wear comically large glasses.
Amy is usually seen wearing a pair of trousers and a blouse or shirt in neutral colors. She also frequently sports a pantsuit, for which Gina has mocked her on many occasions. She wears her police badge on her belt. Starting from NutriBoom, Amy wears a standard dark blue police Sergeant uniform.
Jewelry worn by Amy includes: stud earrings, pendant necklaces, a silver watch on her right wrist, sometimes a ring once belonging to her grandmother, from early Season 5 onwards an engagement ring on her left ring finger, and starting from the Season 5 finale, a wedding ring on her left finger.
Relationships
Jake Peralta
Read full article on Jake and Amy's Relationship
Jake and Amy start the series as detectives and often partners with adjacent desks in the bullpen. Although they behaved as rivals, always trying to one-up each other with bets, competitions, and teasing, they clearly shared mutual respect and a friendship. They were known for having one of the best partnerships in the precinct. After two seasons of slow-burn, with multiple confessions of romantic feelings, they finally kiss in the Season 2 finale, "Johnny and Dora."
In the first episode of Season 3, titled "New Captain," they go on their first real date and by the end of the episode they decide to start a relationship. In the winter finale of Season 4, Jake agrees to move into Amy's apartment. In the Season 5 episode "HalloVeen," Jake proposes to Amy in the evidence locker room (where they shared their first real kiss) and she accepts. They finally get married outside the precinct in the season finale, titled "Jake & Amy." In the Season 6 premiere they go on their honeymoon, and later in the season, in the episode "Casecation," they celebrate their first wedding anniversary.
In the premiere of Season 7, Amy has a pregnancy scare, and at the end of the episode, Jake and Amy decide to start trying for a baby. They find out Amy is pregnant in the seventh episode "Ding Dong" and that they are expecting a boy in the episode "Admiral Peralta." Their son Mac (short for [John] McClane from Die Hard) is born in the precinct in the season finale, "Lights Out." Throughout Season 8, Jake and Amy are adapting to parenthood and attempting to both be working parents. In the series finale, Jake decides to retire from the NYPD and become a stay-at-home dad, so Amy can focus on her career without guilt or regret.
Raymond Holt
Read full article on Holt and Amy's Relationship
Amy's relationship with Captain Raymond Holt, with which she refers to as "Raymy." Amy considers Captain Holt a great leader. She wants him to be her life mentor and often embarrasses herself in her attempts to follow his orders. At one point, she even bowed at him, much to his annoyance. She was very proud when he happily corrected her Thanksgiving speech.
In The Last Ride, Holt reveals to Amy that he accepted the role of her mentor, and together they try and work through his entire mentoring binder before the precinct could be shut down. When it's revealed that the 74th precinct will be shut down instead, Amy is disappointed, having completed all of the lessons in Holt's binder. Fortunately for her, however, Holt reveals that it was only the first of many binders and their mentor-mentee relationship continues.
Rosa Diaz
Read full article on Rosa and Amy's Relationship
Rosa and Amy have a very good relationship. She sees Rosa as a sister figure and created a name for the two of them "Sleuth Sisters" that Rosa accepted. In Sal's Pizza, when Rosa tells Amy how she was offered a job as their new police captain in Ropesburg PD, Amy becomes jealous. At the end of the episode, Rosa tells Amy how the two need to have each other's backs as they are the only two women on the squad. While Jake is in Florida, in the Witness Protection Program, it is stated that Amy often went to Rosa for support. Rosa choses Amy as one of her bridesmaids (though Rosa doesn't end up getting married). In Gray Star Mutual, Rosa catches Amy looking up wedding dresses, which Amy is embarrassed about because she thinks her subordinates will see her as weak. Rosa teaches Amy that she can still be a confident sergeant and look for wedding dresses. In Bachelor/ette Party, Rosa repeatedly tells Amy that she has her back, bridesmaids-related and outside of that. When Rosa responds to an active shooter in Show Me Going, Amy tries to fix a toilet for her to distract herself from how worried she was. When Rosa returns, Amy wraps her in a deep hug and Rosa allows her to despite her aversion to touch.
Gina Linetti
Read full article on Amy and Gina's Relationship
Often Amy can get easily agitated by Gina who not only does not care about the things she does, but she often relentlessly mocks Amy for her pantsuits and nerdy behaviors. Nonetheless it has been shown throughout the show that both care deeply for each other. Amy, Gina, and Rosa, as the three women in the "squad" look out for each other and support each other. Gina has a special relationship with Amy through Gina's obsession with the Amy Santiago drunkenness scale. In "Beach House" it is uncovered that Gina is friends with "Six-Drink-Amy/Sad Amy.' Additionally in "Show Me Going," when Rosa was in danger, Gina and Amy really stepped up for each other to try and fix the toilet to distract themselves from their fear for their friend. At the end of the episode, they share a meaningful hug.
David Santiago
David and Amy have a very competitive relationship where no matter how well Amy does in life, her brother seems to do it better.[8] When Amy got a Gold certification in Marksmanship, David was able to get a Platinum certification --by shooting ten times at the shooting range target and all the bullets end up going in in the one same hole.
In The Golden Child, Amy thinks she and Jake have arrived early for dinner with her mother Camila Santiago and her brother, but it turns out that the two have been at the restaurant for an hour already.[9] When Jake tries to talk up Amy's accomplishments in the police workforce to Camila, David one-ups almost all of them, matter-of-factly. When Amy became a Police Sergeant, her brother became a Police Lieutenant and got a perfect score on the test. In spite of their rivalry, Amy still loves her brother, as she was quick to bail him out after he was falsely accused of using drugs.
Running Gags
Amy embarrassed in front of Holt
Read full article on Amy embarrassed in front of Holt
One of the running gags affiliated with Amy is that she will constantly try too hard to earn the respect of Holt, but by doing so, she will make a fool of herself or do something wrong, which Holt will call her out on. Embarrassed, Amy will back out of the conversation, responding with a forced positive comment on him.
Santiago Drunkenness Scale
Read full article on Santiago Drunkenness Scale
One of the gags throughout the show is that Amy's personality will change depending on how many drinks she has had. Her drunkenness scale include:
- One Drink: Spacey Amy
- Two Drinks: Loud Amy
- Three Drinks: "Amy Dance Pants"
- Four Drinks: Pervert Amy
- Five Drinks: Confident Amy
- Six Drinks: Depressed Amy
- Seven Drinks: Unknown
- Eight Drinks: Equestrian Amy
- Nine Drinks: French Amy (contradicted in "The Set Up")
Title of Amy's Sex-tapes
Read full article on Title of Amy's Sextape
A recurring joke in the show is Jake using double entendres to insult Amy's sex life. The first occurrence was in M.E. Time, though it was during the Halloween episode that Jake first references the titles of her sex tapes.
Blaming Amy
Read full article on Blaming Amy
Another recurring joke on the show is Jake always trying to push the blame off of himself and onto Amy but it rarely, if ever, works.
Awards and Decoration
Amy in her sergeant uniform, displaying her decorations.
- Pink-Blue
- Delivered a baby in the field
- American Flag Breast Bar
- May be worn by any NYPD police officer.
- Yellow-White with Blue Stripes.
- Unidentified
- NYPD Excellent Police Duty
- Citation bar for an intelligent act materially contributing to a valuable accomplishment or for submission of a device or method adopted to increase efficiency in an administrative or tactical procedure.
Trivia
- She is very skilled at reading lips.[10]
- She plays the French horn.[11]
- She failed recess in second grade because, "teachers need a break too, Amy".[12]
- She skipped the fourth grade.
- She was voted "Most Appropriate" in high school.
- She was a student chaperone at every school dance since middle school.
- She had 11 straight birthdays at the Planetarium.
- She can speak Spanish.
- She is left-handed.
- She is very claustrophobic.[13][14]
- She is allergic to chia seeds and acai berries.
- She is highly allergic to dogs and being near them for more than few minutes could lead to needing medical attention.
- She is proven to be a terrible cook.
- She goes to an adult puzzle camp every summer.[17]
- She is a Wikipedia editor.[18]
- She wrote Holt's mother's Wikipedia page.
- She loves Harry Potter and got Jake into the series.
- She reads at 802 WPM (words per minute) according to a speed reading exam.[19]
- The average WPM for a college graduate is 350 WPM.
- She wishes she had taken the LSATs not to become a lawyer, but because it seems like a fun test.[20]
- She was put on a fertility treatment to help with her ovulation which made her overly emotional. Later in the episode, she finds out she is pregnant.
- Her favorite cop movies, in order, are: Training Day, Lethal Weapon, and Fargo.
- She claims she has made it through 20 years of adulthood without scratching her butt in public.[21]
- She said that she has a cigarette around once a month in her self-evaluation with Captain Holt.
- She over-brushed her teeth; her aggressive brushing technique stripped away much the protective enamel and much of her gum, leaving her with 7 cavities. It is unknown if she still over-brushes although it's very unlikely after the cavity incident .[22]
- When she was 10 she had a pen-pal named Mongkut who turned out to be an 45-year-old criminal that wanted her to pay his bail and help him seek vengence on his brother.[23] (the rest of the story apparently gets dark)
- She once had a sex dream about Sanjay Gupta.[24]
- She wears contact lenses (and comically big glasses when those run dry).
- Jake and Amy accidentally wore each other's contacts. They have very different optical graduation and neither of them could see a thing.
- When Amy likes someone she double tucks her hair behind her ears.[25]
- When Amy is excited or celebrating, she does a "dork dance" where she flops her arms and shimmies.
- She has a panic scale:[26]
- Level One: Obsessively stress-braiding her hair
- Level Two: Creepily singing songs from the Great American Songbook
- Level Three: Taking her anger out on appliances
- Her gun is mostly silver, except for the handle, which is black. This is different from most of the characters, who carry all-black guns.
- Both of Melissa Fumero's pregnancies were written into the show. Her first pregnancy in Season 3 when Amy went undercover in a prison as a pregnant woman Isabel Cortez. Her second when Amy was pregnant with her and Jake's baby Mac.
Quotes
Amy: "I can read him [Holt]. And if anyone can figure out what's bothering him, it's me. He and I are exactly the same. Except that I'm younger, Cuban, female, single, and straight." (M.E. Time)
Amy: "Cashew?! It was an almond you idiot!" (Fancy Brudgom)
Amy: "Wait, are we going to be graded, or is this just some pass/fail garbage?" (Chocolate Milk)
Jake: And our second option is surveillance footage of Detective Amy Santiago soliciting drugs using perfect grammar.
Amy: It's not that weird to say, "May I have some cocaine?"
Jake: Yes it is.
- (Lockdown)Amy: "He said he was really looking forward to a romantic evening and I panicked and yelled, 'LOL'." (The Road Trip)
Amy: "When I told my garbage man I was a cop he said, 'Gross'." (Boyle's Hunch)
Amy: "Cruise itineraries. Hot off the laminator." (The Cruise)
Amy: "Fraud dog! Fraud dog! Fraud dog!" (The 9-8)
Amy: "I want old, expensive books. I'll send you a list." (Cheddar)
Captain Holt: This facility is a violent place filled with hardened criminals We need to send someone who can blend in.
Amy: Sir, I would be honored to take on this challenging assignment. [laughter] Why is everyone laughing? I can be a badass.
Gina: You're raising your hand right now.
Amy: We're in a meeting!
- (Maximum Security)Rosa: Anyway, it's not about the math. They haven't seen each other because of the night shift. They just need to bone.
Amy: What? Gross! Rosa, those are our dads! I mean ... [chuckles] ... That's not what I think. Captain Dad is just my boss.
Rosa: Wow.
Amy: Never mind, I'm teaching father the math! Whatever, Rosa.
- (Skyfire Cycle)Amy: "I know how to kiss. I've read books." (The Overmining)
Amy: "We don't know no secret! You be crazy. I always talk like this. Down in Kokomo." (The Bank Job)
Amy: "Stop clapping, you idiots! We gotta move, move, move!" (99)
Amy: "There's a typo in this crossword puzzle!" (HalloVeen)
Amy: "I file hard. I need strong tabs." (Gray Star Mutual)
Amy: I do have some bad news. There is a bomb at this wedding as well.
Jake: What?
Amy: Your butt. Your butt is the bomb. There will be no survivors.
Jake: You're my dream girl. I love you so much.
- (Jake & Amy)Amy: "This B needs a C in her A." (to mean this babe needs a coconut in her arms) (Honeymoon)
Amy: Oh, Jake. You don't know who you're dealing with, do you? I was a student chaperone at every dance from middle school on. I've stopped more horny teenagers from making out to Savage Garden than you can count." (Captain Kim)
Gallery
References
- ↑ Cop-Con)
- ↑ Casecation)
- ↑ The Golden Child
- ↑ Two Turkeys
- ↑ The Last Ride
- ↑ Skyfire Cycle
- ↑ He Said, She Said
- ↑ Brooklyn Nine-Nine: See Lin-Manuel Miranda in action as Amy's competitive brother
- ↑ Brooklyn Nine-Nine’s Melissa Fumero Tees Up Lin-Manuel Miranda's 'Surreal' Debut
- ↑ Karen Peralta
- ↑ Boyle-Linetti Wedding
- ↑ Chocolate Milk
- ↑ House Mouses
- ↑ The Overmining
- ↑ Thanksgiving
- ↑ 9 Days
- ↑ Bureau
- ↑ The Overmining
- ↑ Debbie (Episode)
- ↑ Ding Dong
- ↑ Maximum Security
- ↑ Unsolvable
- ↑ DFW
- ↑ The Good Ones
- ↑ Det. Dave Majors
- ↑ Chasing Amy