The third season of the television sitcom Brooklyn Nine-Nine premiered September 27, 2015 on Fox and ended April 19, 2016 with 23 episodes.
Summary
Following the kiss that Jake and Amy had, the two decide to pursue a real relationship. The Nine-Nine gets a new captain, Seth Dozerman (Bill Hader) who dies of a heart attack after seeing Jake and Amy kissing. The Vulture assumes command of the precinct, but Holt retakes it thanks to Jake after the two of them catch a serial killer. Charles begins a relationship with Genevieve, an art curator who was framed for insurance fraud. Terry's wife gives birth to their third daughter, Ava, on Thanksgiving.
Rosa breaks up with Marcus and begins a new relationship with Adrian Pimento, a detective who's been undercover for 12 years. Rosa and Adrian get engaged, but Adrian is forced to go into hiding when Jimmy "The Butcher" Figgis tries to have him killed by someone tied to the FBI. Amy goes undercover in a women's prison in Texas to find out which FBI informant is tied to Figgis and discovers it was Holt's former partner that they were working the case with, Bob Annderson. They capture Bob and use his knowledge to take down most of Figgis' empire. Jake receives a call from Figgis threatening his and Holt's lives, forcing the two to go to witness protection in Florida.
Efficiency-obsessed Cpt. Seth Dozerman arrives as the new captain. Jake and Amy explore the repercussions of revealing their feelings at the end of the previous season. Due to his genetic heart condition, Captain Dozerman suffers a heart attack after seeing Amy and Jake kiss in the Evidence Room and he dies. Cpt. Holt & Gina start work at the PR dept and get forced into trivial matters by Chief Wuntch. Vulture is instated as Captain replacing Dozerman at the Nine-Nine.
The Vulture becomes the new captain of the precinct after Dozerman's death and threatens to jeopardize Jake and Amy's nascent romance. Meanwhile, Terry helps Holt with a PR problem; and Rosa and Gina urge Charles to abandon his crush on a colleague.
Jake thinks Boyle might have met his soul-mate in Genevieve, an art gallery owner, and he tries to help set them up. Meanwhile, Rosa deals with intra-precinct theft and Holt seeks Amy's help with an image campaign.
While investigating a serial killer, Jake enlists Holt's help in an attempt to solve the case off the radar. At the precinct, Rosa and Amy are forced to plan the Vulture's birthday party and Charles tries to help Terry with his new-found addiction. After Jake and Holt successfully bring down the Oolong Slayer, Jake gives the credit away to help Holt regain his position as captain of the precinct.
The third installment of Captain Holt and Jake's Halloween heist, tied at one win apiece, enters a tie-breaking competition to claim the title of "amazing detective/genius." This year, Jake and Holt split the squad into two teams to help them win, both of them excluding Amy. Amy proves who the most "amazing detective/genius" really is by winning the heist.
Jake and Charles take Terry on a camping trip to help him relieve stress. Amy enlists the help of Gina in trying to convince the NYPD to purchase a product she invented as a child. Meanwhile, Holt tries to help Rosa break up with Marcus.
Amy blames Jake's old mattress for her back pain, and Jake is too cheap to buy a new one. After they convince Holt they can still work together while being in a relationship, the topic of the mattress causes them to have a lovers' spat in the middle of their next assigned case. Elsewhere, Charles scratches a classic sports car that Holt has identified as a precious family heirloom, while Rosa deals with a teenage boy she once helped straighten out when he returns to the precinct after a repeat offense.
With Terry off solving a murder case, Jake offers to watch over Sharon, Terry's pregnant wife. He panics when her water breaks, and attempts to solve the problem without going to the hospital, under her request. It doesn't help him when the precinct is in a ruckus due to the internet going down.
Jake and Rosa compete with a pair of Swedish detectives, Soren & Agneta, on a jewelry theft case, causing them to re-examine their relationship as partners. Holt asks Charles to be his partner in a squash championship when Kevin is out of town, but Charles fears his extreme competitiveness will surface. Meanwhile, Amy and Terry try to help Gina study for her Astronomy test, with Terry even bringing in a friend from his gym, Neil deGrasse Tyson, to help.
Under the ruse of buying a gift for Amy (which is really a gift for Boyle), Jake gets trapped in a store with Boyle and Gina after it closes, and finds there is a robbery being committed by a team of thugs who take employees as hostages. This gives Jake a chance to play out a real-life version of the movie Die Hard. Terry is forced to deal with the Vulture to ensure that the hostage situation is handled properly. Meanwhile, Amy attempts to join Holt and Rosa in a Polar Club swim.
Wanting children, Boyle has to obtain his sperm from a sperm bank, but his ex-wife Eleanor holds the samples hostage as she needs Boyle and Peralta to get her out of a lawsuit. Meanwhile, Holt and Diaz have to rely on Gina to get a suspect to talk, and Santiago needs Jeffords' recommendation for a mentorship program but she accidentally breaks his nose.
When Captain Holt and Jake accidentally contract the mumps during an investigation, they decide to be quarantined together in hopes of still solving the case. Meanwhile, Rosa tries to help Boyle through a mourning process, and Terry is forced to clean up Hitchcock and Scully’s mess.
Jake and Amy have differing ideas about how they will spend time on their vacation cruise, but their plans are disrupted when they see that Doug Judy (The Pontiac Bandit) is the ship's musical entertainer. Jake wants to seize the chance to finally take down his nemesis, but Judy convinces Jake and Amy to protect him from an assassin that is on the ship. At the precinct, Holt tries to avoid his visiting "drama queen" sister, Debbie, while Rosa and Charles take turns trying to schmooze a landlord who had an elderly tenant die in his building, as they both want the old lady's apartment.
Amy is nervous about meeting Jake's mother, Karen, for the first time. Her issues become secondary when the two arrive at the house, as Jake learns that his mother and his estranged father, Roger, have gotten back together. Rosa and Charles work a drug bust wearing chest-mounted cameras for the first time, but it leads to embarrassing results for Charles. Meanwhile, Holt has scheduled a team-building exercise at an escape room, but Gina forgot to forward the invitations to the staff. This leads to Holt, Gina, Scully and Hitchcock being the only people to show up for the event.
Holt and Jeffords try to keep things together when a plumbing emergency forces the Nine-Eight staff to temporarily take up residence in the Nine-Nine precinct. The incident reunites Jake with Steve, his old pal and former partner from their beat cop days, causing Charles to become jealous when he sees the two hit it off.
Jake offers his drug case to Scully and Hitchcock because he wants to work on a case with Charles that Holt says involves a celebrity. But the drug bust turns out to be the much bigger case, while Holt's "celebrity" is a concert oboeist that few people would know. Meanwhile, Amy and Gina learn that Rosa never attends blood drives because she is afraid of needles, so the three women resolve to help each other conquer their greatest fears.
Detective Adrian Pimento returns to the Nine-Nine after being undercover with notorious mob boss Jimmy "The Butcher" Figgis, for 12 years. Despite Pimento exhibiting PTSD-like symptoms, Jake is fascinated and badly wants to work a case with him. Meanwhile, Holt asks Gina to produce a video about the daily workings inside the precinct, while the other detectives deal with a growing garbage issue after Charles ticks off the head of custodians, known as Mean Marge.
Jake and Amy encourage Holt to follow through on his plans to visit Kevin in Paris, because Holt has been noticeably lonely. They offer to house-sit, but their stay is filled with disasters, including Kevin's dog Cheddar running away. Meanwhile, Rosa and Pimento tiptoe around their mutual attraction for one another.
Terry tackles an old case with Jake's help to prove his mettle to his old precinct. Meanwhile, Adrian becomes Charles' new roommate; and Amy goes along on a difficult training exercise with Holt and Rosa.
Rosa and Adrian announce they are getting married...in one week. Rosa's co-maids of honor Amy, Gina and Charles compete to throw her the best bachelorette party. Jake rents a party bus for Adrian's bachelor party with Scully, Hitchcock and a reluctant Terry also participating. Adrian's party goes awry when he claims someone hired by Jimmy Figgis is trying to kill him. It turns out to be true, and the guys fake Adrian's death. The masked man who pays off for the hit is then tailed by the guys, who observe him walking into an FBI building. Adrian goes into hiding, and the Nine-Nine swear to bring down Figgis and his FBI informant.
The squad fakes Pimento's death and holds a funeral in order to trick the mob's FBI informant. Diaz, disguised as pregnant, must go undercover in a women's prison in Texas to try to get close to Jimmy Figgis' murderous sister Maura, with Jake and Charles posing as her OBGYN doctors. However, Diaz's cover is immediately blown and Amy must take over.
After positively identifying the mob informant within the FBI, Holt, Jake and Rosa make plans to infiltrate FBI headquarters to get the man's files, with Holt bringing in his former partner Bob Annderson for assistance. After successfully getting the needed files out of the FBI building, the group finds the informant has been shot and is near death. Jake leaves Holt and Annderson at the hospital with the comatose informant, only to have Amy relay critical information she got from Maura Figgis in prison: that he was also working with a man named "Bob Annderson".
FBI Agent turned traitor Bob Annderson steals the FBI files, murders the informant and takes Captain Holt hostage on the roof of the hospital, but the squad are able to rescue the captain and capture Annderson. The squad hold Annderson in Diaz's apartment while Boyle and Amy rush back from Texas. Eventually the squad trick Annderson into revealing the location of the FBI files, which he had hidden in a safety deposit box. With those files, the Nine-Nine are able to take down Figgis' operation although Figgis himself remains at large. However, while the squad celebrates, Figgis calls Jake's cellphone to threaten his and Holt's lives. The final scene shows Jake and Holt in witness protection, living next door to each other in Coral Palms, Florida, under the names "Greg" (Holt) and "Larry" (Jake).
Reception
Critical response
The third season received positive reviews to critical acclaim, although a few audiences found it inferior to the second season. Review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reports a 93% approval rating, with an average score of 8.19/10, based on 14 reviews. The website's consensus reads, "Brooklyn Nine-Nine's third season smartly sidesteps the pitfalls of romantically linking two central characters while also expounding on the series' joy for clever gags and hard-earned camaraderie."[25]
