Captain Latvia

"Captain Latvia" is the 10th episode in Season Four of the FOX television show Brooklyn Nine-Nine. It originally aired on December 13, 2016.

Episode Synopsis[]

Charles enlists Jake's help in tracking down his son's favorite toy for Christmas and the two find themselves accidentally facing off against a Latvian criminal ring as a result. Back at the precinct, the team gears up for their annual Christmas carol competition against their sworn enemy: the MTA.^[1]

Plot[]

Jake gathers everyone in the break room to get all of them to see the "diggity dopest tree lighting in the history of the 99". After he starts inflating the tree, it starts to get really big and it's revealed that it's supposed to be 10 meters tall. Seeing the impending danger, everyone runs out of the break room but Rosa realizes they left someone behind. Terry then gets pressed against the window. With nowhere else left to go, Terry breaks a window to get out. After a few seconds of silence, Terry cheers and the rest of the squad follows.

In the bullpen, Charles is with Nikolaj and Genevieve. They get around to telling Jake that it was Nikolaj's first Christmas since the orphanage kept canceling due to a blizzard, a fire, and lastly, famine. Charles also promised Nikolaj that he would get him a Captain Latvia action figure, which was very difficult to get in America. It turns out that the shipping company has been giving him the runaround, as he put it.

In the briefing room, the rest of the squad are talking about their community outreach but Holt gets interrupted by singing. It turns out it's the Metropolitan Transit Authority, their rivals in the charity caroling competition. The 99 have been beaten by the MTA every year they competed. After being taunted, Captain Holt is more motivated to beat the MTA.

Concentrated on his monitor, Jake hears someone knocking and sees Charles freezing outside in the snow. He goes out to give him a jacket and help him try to find the action figure. Jake searches for the address of the shipping company and convinces Charles that he'll be able to handle it and they head out to Queens.

In the evidence locker, Holt is testing out harmonies and they start getting bummed out. Gina gives them a pep talk but when she finds out that the competition was that night, she leaves as she has Hamilton tickets. Before Rosa could back out as well, she starts hearing someone singing. Trying to look for the source, they head back to the bullpen and see that the person singing was someone in the holding cell who's also drunk.

When they get to the shipping company, Charles approaches the counter and asks again where the package is. They're told that it isn't there and Charles starts intimidate Melvin. After Charles reveals that they're cops, Melvin just admits that there's a Latvian gang and there's a gun ring and that other packages get lost because of them. Charles and Jake then go undercover to a club to try and look at the office they have in the back. Charles manages to get him and Jake inside by using humor.

In his office, Holt talks to Rosa, Amy, and Terry about whether or not they should add the drunk, Patrick, to their caroling group. Terry tries to argue that they shouldn't but it's decided they add him in when Amy agrees to let the drunk sing.

Inside the club, Jake manages to find out who the manager of the club is, Svetlana, and Charles decides to take it on himself to get the keys from her.

The caroling group is assembled backstage before they get called onstage. When Patrick's cue comes up, he runs offstage due to stage fright. To save them, Holt makes an excuse that there's a police emergency they need to attend to. When they confront Patrick backstage, they find out he can only have the courage to sing in front of many people if he was intoxicated.

Charles' attempt to get the keys form Svetlana becomes a success. When they get inside the office, they don't manage to find anything but a tablet. They then get caught but Charles was able to take down their unwanted company. The tablet is locked and Jake plans to get it unlocked by the tech guys in the precinct but Charles isn't patient enough and tries to unlock it himself. He unlocks it with the code "5683", which spells love. After they find messages about a warehouse in Crown Heights, they decide to head there.

Back at the caroling competition, while the MTA are singing, the squad try to come up with a plan to redeem themselves. Amy then shows up and presents Patrick, who was now drunk but can definitely sing in front of the crowd.

When Charles and Jake get to the warehouse, Jake wants to wait for backup and Charles agrees. When they park between two vehicles, it turns out Charles doesn't agree and tries to get out of the car. During his attempt, his pants get stuck and he has to take it off to be able to get out.

The squad returns onstage and Holt tells them the police emergency he mentioned before was just a misunderstanding. Patrick manages to get a few lines of the song in but then, in his drunken state, he starts yelling at the audience before he falls offstage.

While Charles walks through the hallways of the warehouse, he's on the phone with Jake. Charles tells Jake about what's going on in the warehouse. He says that there are 10 men and they're burning the other packages that didn't contain guns. Jake warns Charles to not go because it was too risky, Charles doesn't listen. Jake does the attack Charles explained to him earlier.

Charles wakes up and backup is already there. Jake tells him that he realized that Charles should spend Christmas Eve with Nikolaj instead because even though he promised the action figure, he also promised to be his father. Charles agrees and apologizes to Jake about telling him that he would never become a father.

After the competition, the squad goes to Shaw's Bar and they talk about being defeated by the MTA. While they talk about how to get back at the MTA, Scully reminds them about the meaning of Christmas. When no one listens to him, he leaves.

Jake knocks in the Boyle's apartment and tells Charles that he found Captain Latvia but the toy was already destroyed. In place of it, he hands Charles an already wrapped gift to give to Nikolaj instead. The gift was a policeman action figure and Nikolaj loves it, even imitating Charles while playing with it.

While the Boyles are preoccupied, Jake suddenly hears singing from the outside. It turns out it was Scully trying to spread Christmas cheer. When Jake points out that he's caroling alone, the rest of the squad appear and they sing, albeit badly, in front of the Boyles' apartment building.

Cast[]

Actor		Character
Andy Samberg	...	Jake Peralta
Stephanie Beatriz	...	Rosa Diaz
Terry Crews	...	Terry Jeffords
Melissa Fumero	...	Amy Santiago
Joe Lo Truglio	...	Charles Boyle
Chelsea Peretti	...	Gina Linetti
Andre Braugher	...	Captain Ray Holt
Dirk Blocker	...	Michael Hitchcock
Joel McKinnon Miller	...	Norm Scully
Mary Lynn Rajskub	...	Genevieve Mirren-Carter
Lance Barber	...	Patrick
Carlos Antonio	...	Melvin
Antonio Raul Corbo	...	Nikolaj Boyle
Phil Augusta Jackson	...	Jeremy
Mitchell L. Johnson	...	Ivan Tragovic
Peter Kirilov	...	Sergei
Malene Ostergaard	...	Svetlana
Deren Tadlock	...	Marv

Cultural References[]

The hero Captain Latvia could be a reference to Captain America.
Gina mentions that she has tickets to Hamilton, which is a musical by Lin-Manuel Miranda. He later goes on to play David Santiago on the show.
Jake compares Charles to Bobby Fischer, a chess grandmaster and the eleventh World Chess Champion. Bobby Fisher together with Mikhail Tal "The magician from Riga" were greatest chess-masters at a time

Quotes[]

Holt: I don't understand, where's the tree?

Charles: It was inside us all along. Brilliant, Jake

Jake: No, Charles, not everything was inside of us all along

Rosa: I'm out too. I mean, if we're just gonna be humiliated, I don't s -- Wait, shut up

Amy: Did you just tell yourself to shut up?

Rosa: Yeah, now you shut up, too

Soundtrack[]

The MTA enters the briefing room singing "Deck The Halls".
Patrick sings "Silent Night" while in the holding cell.
During the caroling competition, the MTA sings "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing".
The squad, along with Patrick, sing "Joy To The World" during the competition.
Scully sings "12 Days of Christmas" and when the rest of the squad arrives, they also sing "Jingle Bells" while caroling to the Boyles.

Trivia[]

This episode is tied with The Night Shift as the lowest rated episode of Season Four with a rating of 7.5 on IMDb.
Captain Latvia can talk to possums (Even though there are no possums in Latvia) and has a signature move, "The Riga Hammer".
Phil Augusta Jackson has already appeared in a previous episode, New Captain, but as a different character. He played Trent, someone who worked in PR.
The excuse that Captain Holt comes up with about a Clock being mistaken for a bomb was an actual news story.