- For the episode, see Karen Peralta (episode).
Karen Peralta is Jake Peralta's mother whom he is very fond of. She was married to Roger Peralta, but divorced him after all the cheating and him being away due to his job as a pilot flying most of the time. They reunited, though, before Jake's birthday in 2016.
Throughout the Series[]
Season Three[]
In Karen Peralta, Jake and Amy visit Karen. Amy is nervous and Jake assures that she will be fine. All is going well at dinner until Roger, Jake's estranged father, turns up. Karen explains that they have started seeing each other again and Jake is annoyed and plans to break them up. Jake blackmails Roger by saying that he will tell Karen that he slept with her best friend if he doesn't leave. After Roger goes, Karen admits to Jake that she knew about Roger and Sheila Boden (her best friend) but kept it from Jake to protect him. Jake also asks his mom about what she thought of Amy and Karen says that she seemed really nice (which Amy sees due to her lip-reading skill).
Season Five[]
In Two Turkeys, it's Thanksgiving 2017 at Karen's house, where the Peralta parents are meeting the Santiago parents for the first time. Beforehand, Jake and Amy have a discussion on how to prepare for it which includes Jake calling his mom a flighty weirdo. Case in point, on Thanksgiving Day Karen puts out a pitcher of gray water she calls "Super-water," supposedly filled with all the nutrients from the vegetables she washed, because she read about it in an article.
When the Santiagos show up, Amy's mom Camila Santiago brought a turkey herself even though Amy had told her that Karen will be the one preparing the turkey. Karen gets slightly offended when Camila makes a comment that now they have two turkeys just in case. To add on stress for Karen, Roger comes out into the main area with no pants on so he could ask "Kare-bear" which pants she thinks he should wear.
During one of the pre-dinner conversations, Jake and Amy ended up getting the parents drunk so to to do some damage control in easing the tensions created between the moms and little common ground being found for anything the parents could talk to each other about. Due to a little too much alcohol, the dads get competitive and Karen interjects her input about how it's tradition for the host to make the turkey. When Camila makes a questionable comment about how the Peraltas' financial situation isn't good, Karen takes offense out loud.
Karen also took offense to when discovering that Camila put stuffings in her painted ceramic bowl that's art. After Roger accidentally cuts off his thumb and everyone rushes to the E.R., it's inferred that the moms bonded over cleaning up all the blood and the time they spent at the hospital.
Personality[]
Karen is shown to be very kind to Jake as she raised him as a single mother. She is also hardworking as she worked to help fund her family which meant that Jake often was alone at home or went to his Nana's house. She was also protective of Jake as she kept information from him about issues such as her father to protect him in childhood.
Relationships[]
Jake Peralta[]
Jake is Karen's son and they are shown to be very fond of one another. Karen raised Jake alone after Roger left which meant that the two are very protective of one another and cared for each other. Jake and Karen both protected each other from different issues to avoid the other one getting hurt.
Roger Peralta[]
Roger and Karen broke up because he left them and also due to the numerous times he cheated on her, including with her best friend. Despite this Karen is willing to look past it and the two start dating again later in life. Karen tells Jake that Roger really cares about her now such as when he brought her soup when she was sick.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- She's fallen for two Nigerian scams.
- Her favorite drink is red wine over ice, just like Diane Keaton.
- Her love to paint a couple of bowls
- Her favorite topics of conversation include: Jimmy Carter was underrated, how beautiful some front doors are, What's Jane Seymour up to and how cool it is that the ladies across the street are lesbians.