‘Brooklyn Nine-Nine’ episode 12 review: Who was the Pontiac Bandit?

f you love the idea of seeing familiar faces on some of your favorite comedy shows, then you probably enjoyed Tuesday night’s new episode of “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” very much. Why is that? The episode brought on Craig Robinson (“The Office”) for a pretty memorable guest spot, as we started to learn who was a man responsible for stealing hundreds of Pontiac automobiles over the years. He was the Pontiac Bandit, and Jake Peralta’s greatest foe.

Given that the Nine-Nine is occasionally a pretty incompetent unit, it should not really surprise much of anyone that this episode ended with Jake falling flat on his face. Not only did he not catch this bandit at all, but he ended up running the risk of ruining his relationship with Diaz by not trusting her. It made perfect sense in the end that Robinson’s Doug was the bandit, seeing that nobody else would have had the same sort of cool ending.

But, this was not the only thing that made this episode particularly memorable. There was also the return of Boyle from his time at home, recovering from his shooting. Basically, what we had here was a more serious version of that episode of “The Office” where Michael burns his foot oh his George Foreman grill, and it turns into a huge pity party. The only difference here is that Boyle was not necessarily milking it, but was repeatedly interested in doing things that he had no business doing. Luckily, the glorious sight of Andre Braugher with puppies was enough to make up for everything that ailed Boyle; he took the “small dogs” (as Captain Holt called them) off of his hands, and he now has something to keep him company while he recovers the rest of the way. Meanwhile, the rest of the force has a distraction for him so they no longer have to deal with his antics.

All in all, this was a very funny way for the show to return in the new year. While it didn’t do anything to be considered a classic, it did enough to have us laughing and entertained every step of the way. Grade: B+.