Brooklyn Nine-Nine's Forgotten Storyline

What Happened to "Jamy"?

Brooklyn Nine-Nine, a sitcom based around the detectives of the Ninety-Ninth Precinct in Brooklyn, stars a number of big names: amongst them Andy Samberg, Terry Crews and Andre Braugher. Like any good TV show, it has a main love arc - this between Andy Samberg's character Detective Jake Peralta, and Melissa Fumero's Detective Amy Santiago, known by shippers as "Jamy". Two seasons of carefully crafted, appropriately focused and well-executed build-up eventually culminated in the beginnings of a relationship - but since the back third of season 3 they have largely been forgotten, their relationship relegated to a comment here or a kiss there, which is nothing like satisfying for viewers. So with the quality increase in season 4 - what's the problem with leaving Jamy out of the picture?

The Problem(s)

It's bad writing.

That's the biggest issue with sidelining your main love arc: it's bad writing. It looks even worse if you've spent the first two seasons (and especially the second) playing with the characters' feelings for each other and reservations about getting together, only to put them together and then pretty much just sit back and think "job done". Relationships evolve and grow over time (Castle was one of the best shows on TV for organically evolving the relationship of its two main leads), but Brooklyn Nine-Nine has dispensed with any Jamy growth.

   Things looked promising at the beginning of season 4, when Amy was worried about Jake being undercover and anxious to see him again. But their return to Brooklyn has been muted to say the least - and that's simply a massive oversight.

Jamy was too big a focus beforehand to be sidelined by other characters' storylines now

Other plotlines came in towards the back end of season 3 that disrupted Jamy. Adrian Pimento, a cop who had been undercover in the mafia for the last 12 years, returned and instantly hit it off with Detective Rosa Diaz, to the point that Pimento's discovery by the mafia he had infiltrated led to his running into hiding and Amy taking an undercover assignment in a prison to try and help stop the threat to Pimento's life. I understand that other characters should get their turn to shine, but that still doesn't excuse the writers, who could just slip in a subplot every few episodes for Jamy.

It threatens the show's legacy

Bad writing isn't like bad pizza, which is still good because it's pizza. Bad writing can affect the way a show is perceived, and for me to try and explain to someone new to Brooklyn Nine-Nine about the show, I would find it difficult to sell when it has lost sight of its biggest ongoing arc. Brooklyn Nine-Nine putting Jake and Amy together and then forgetting them is the equivalent of if Person of Interest had introduced the evil artificial intelligence Samaritan in season 3 and then just ignored it completely in season 4.

   It deserves to be said that Brooklyn Nine-Nine's standalone episode quality is incredibly high in season 4, but that means very little when its richly-developed, multi-season main love relationship is being shunned.

I Don't Have An Answer

I started writing this and thought, well how do I conclude? How do I circle back to what I would do if I were the writers? And then I thought, I don't actually know what I could suggest to fix this. The writers could put Jamy back at the forefront any time they liked, but the synopses for upcoming episodes don't suggest they are. And if they're not willing to do that, then they're only hurting the show.

   Right now this omission is simply a stain on the show, and stains are fairly easy to get out.

Could Persil be the key to a Jamy revival?

My point is, it's not too late for the writers to fix this error, and fans can just say the show just went through a period where it focused on other things. But it soon will be too late for the writers to fix it, and no amount of top quality writing can cover the cracks of blatant negligence.

I guess my conclusion is that I'm really, really worried.

And on that cheerful note, thanks for reading everyone and I'll see you next time!

Sam