Why It Took Me Forever To Watch 10 Episodes of Brooklyn Nine-Nine

My husband laughed at me when I said that I’d stopped watching the first season of Brooklyn Nine-Nine because it had hit an episode with a trope I can’t watch.

I mean, he laughed gently, just like the other people I told when they recommended the show to me. But it was true: the first nine or so episodes had gone down like candy, quick and easy. Episode ten took me at least a month to get through, minute by minute, so I could keep watching.

Why was that?

Because it featured a staple of situational comedy that is like nails on a chalkboard to me. Just like nails on a chalkboard, there’s nothing inherently bad or wrong about it. But also just like nails on a chalkboard, my natural reaction to it is so unpleasant that I can’t take it for more than dribs and drabs at a time.

I hate watching sympathetic characters humiliate themselves in front of their peers. Especially when they do it to address a goal or problem that could easily be resolved through healthy communication instead.

I hate it so much that even the set-up for it makes me squirm: I hate watching a character bluff their way into a situation, like Aladdin pretending he’s a prince, or every-hapless-romcom-character-ever leaning into a case of mistaken identity because they’re too embarrassed to correct the misunderstanding and then let it go on way too long. Don’t you understand that everyone is going to find out eventually? I yell at my screen. Rip off the Band-Aid and tell the truth!

In the aforementioned episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine, ambitious and eager detective Amy decides to throw a cringeworthy Thanksgiving dinner to butter up her boss, Captain Holt. It’s clear from the get-go that nobody else on the squad wants to attend and that Holt is absolutely not interested in Amy’s gung-ho approach to seeking support. Everybody but Amy can see that she is headed for an embarrassing downfall in front of all her colleagues.

Now, in Brooklyn Nine-Nine‘s defense, the show makes it clear that this doesn’t make Amy worse than the other characters. They all have eccentricities and annoying habits; Amy’s over-eagerness isn’t something to be ashamed of. If there’s a moral here, it’s that Amy should learn to own that sometimes she makes mistakes because the other characters already accept that about her and still respect her competence, and that being a go-getter isn’t antithetical to paying attention to other people’s feelings. (As others have noted, the show is refreshingly supportive of Amy’s ambition and drive.)

But whether or not everything ends okay doesn’t affect my discomfort in the slightest. Even after just a few episodes, I already trusted Brooklyn Nine-Nine: it had already shown that it could make its diverse characters loveable and flawed and funny without making anyone the butt of every joke.

I had the same problem watching Mean Girls–I didn’t like watching Cady’s cluelessness and anticipating the moment she’d find out how things “really” worked socially at her new high school. I watched it minutes at a time on the subway until I couldn’t take it any more and gave up. (Besides, I’d already heard all the good jokes.)

I’m sure there’s plenty of armchair psychologizing to be done here, and it’s true: just like everyone else, I really don’t like to look like a clueless fool. I especially don’t like it when other people know I’m acting foolish but sit back and don’t tell me.

But there’s something more than that, because, despite my strong feelings, I watch characters make fools of themselves all the time without a second thought.

I watch Sherlock Holmes go through the rigamarole of disguising himself and feigning collapse in the street to sneak his way into Irene Adler’s living space only to have her see right through him at the end of the story. I watch Data and Mr. Spock get social norms wrong, often in humorous ways.

So why don’t I mind it when everyone’s favourite android Starfleet officer performs what any human writer would consider to be a devastatingly unsuccessful poetry reading? How is that different from Amy’s disastrous Thanksgiving?

Well, first, the stakes are higher for Amy. Data is invested in his poem, yes, but he literally lacks the capability to feel sad or humiliated if his friends and colleagues don’t like his work. Even though we see Riker and other colleagues being, honestly, straight-up rude, Data shrugs it off. However, we can see from Amy’s demeanour that she’s emotionally committed to the success of her gathering. This matters to her in a way that it doesn’t matter to Data. We–I–can imagine how upset she’ll be when it doesn’t work out.

Yeah, “when,” not “if”: that’s part two. From the start of Amy’s planning–or Cady’s socializing, or any of these scenarios that bother me so much–the language of the story clearly foreshadows the social catastrophe. The plot is predicated on this catastrophe: it would be anticlimactic and disappointing if the character’s attempts went over well and everybody liked them. When we watch Aladdin, nobody thinks for a moment that the movie will end with everyone still believing the titular character is a prince. As soon as he pretends to be royalty, we know we’ll watch a scene in which characters who matter uncover the truth.

But when Holmes does his whole fainting shenanigans, we’re not asking ourselves “will this trick work or will it embarrass him?” Instead, the plot question is more like “will Holmes recover the plot MacGuffin he’s been sent to find?” The narrative doesn’t tell us anything about whether Holmes’s disguise routine will succeed or fail. In the end, he succeeds at his main plot challenge.

So I think the second key ingredient for me is whether success in this humiliating scenario is directly tied to success for the protagonist’s main goal in this story or whether it’s just part of a bigger plot question. Can the protagonist “fail” at this social awkwardness but still “win”? Or is “losing” here losing at the whole main plot?

Finally, of course, it matters whether I sympathize with the character being humiliated. I don’t mind when Principal Skinner winds up serving “steamed hams” to Super Nintendo Chalmers because I don’t see myself in either of them. (And also a little because the actual scene goes somewhat meta with its faux-sitcom theme, purposely distancing the viewer from the situation, but that’s another topic.) There’s no vicarious humiliation.

Which is where the Venn diagram of all three of these criteria overlaps. I don’t like identifying with a character who, for a good chunk of the story, is “losing” what matters most to them and feel their resulting humiliation when I, personally, can see a simpler solution: just be honest and communicate in a timely fashion!

Granted, my position is biased: I’m fortunate that I can trust the vast majority of my family, friends, and acquaintances with my own vulnerability–I know not everyone can count on that with their loved ones, and that being automatically believed and taken seriously by people who don’t know you well is not a privilege everyone shares. I’m lucky that, in general, I’ve found that telling the truth and asking for help work.

And, duh, of course, I know that, of course stories about solutions that solve the major conflict* are often less interesting and funny as stories that purposely have characters explore ineffective strategies. But I also know that, at least for now, some of those interesting and funny stories just aren’t for me.

* There are, naturally, plenty of excellent stories out there where effective communication strengthens the conflict by showing how knotty the problem really is. Just because you can communicate clearly about something (or try to) doesn’t mean every difficulty is going to go away.