'Brooklyn Nine-Nine' Season 5, Episode 13 'The Negotiation' Recap: Dual Jobs [SPOILERS]

No one dreams of becoming a hostage—but only if you’re Jake Peralta (Andy Samberg) in FOX’s “Brooklyn Nine-Nine.” Peralta is fearless and oddly dreams of becoming a hostage victim. So when the opportunity came, Peralta jumps right at it.
Captain Ray Holt (Andre Braugher) tells Peralta and Detective Rosa Diaz (Stephanie Beatriz) about the crime, and Peralta offers himself as a negotiator. In the crime scene, Peralta goes to see the hostage taker and gets surprised to know that it’s Doug Judy (Craig Robinson) and that he staged the whole thing.

Destined As Hostage

Back in the headquarters, Captain Holt assigns a member of the commission to Detective Sergeant Terrence (Terry Cruz) to talk to him, but he declines. Meanwhile, in the hostage situation, Peralta convinces Doug to stop whatever he’s doing. In there with them are three hostages who were paid to act like it for 500 bucks each.
Meanwhile, Detective Amy Santiago (Melissa Fumero) and Administrator Gina Linetti (Chelsea Peretti) attend a store opening. The store sells only meatball sandwiches. They visit owner Detective Boyle (Joe Lo Truglio) as Santiago helped finance the one-menu business. Since no one is around to manage the food truck, both Santiago and Letti offer to become helpers for a day.

Back in the hostage situation, Doug insists on becoming a criminal. He said he was okay with living a regular life but wants the challenge of becoming a criminal. Doug and Peralta then play tricks on the police surrounding the area. Doug threatened to kill Peralta if no one follows his orders. They then laugh about it upon entering the building again.

Chefs By Day

Boyle trains Santiago, and the first lesson is how to slice bread. But Boyle snaps when Santiago cuts it in a slope. He then asks Gina to do the slicing. At first, the Chef was happy about the slicing, but Boyle shouts when Gina smushes the bread. He throws tantrums and starts screaming at the two one-day workers.

With Doug’s demands, Diaz jumps in the show. As soon as she steps into the building, Doug asks for a handshake. Diaz says otherwise. She goes into warrior mode and twists Doug’s arms into a handcuff. They then demand pizza to the police outside the building. Peralta and Doug then took their time to catch up on the years that passed. But outside the building is a raging group of people ready to take the hostage taker down.
The food arrives at the building. This time, the police equipped a guy they sent with a hidden camera. But due to unknown circumstances, he has a heart attack. When the heart attack guy moves out of the building, the police covered him with a white sheet. The negotiators outside suspects that the hostage taker used the cloth to flee from the scene. But they were wrong. Doug was not there. Instead, he and Peralta got dressed in police clothing and easily escaped through another exit.

Detectives’ Tactics

As the need to serve customers arise, Santiago and Gina devise a plan to slathering sauce all over the meatloaves, six at a time. But Boyle had none of it. He knows that all the bread will be soggy before it gets served. This predicament tapped the detectives’ breaking point, prompting them to stop helping.
After the escape, Diaz inspects the empty building. She discovers that the hostage-taker escaped along with Peralta as “captive.” The negotiator tracks Peralta’s phone and sees them in an alley with an alleged criminal. They run after the guy, leaving Doug alone. But the truth is that Doug had the diamonds they thought was with the alleged criminal.

“Scorpions gotta scorp,” Doug says as he bids goodbye to Peralta and leaves with the diamonds. Although Peralta tried to bargain with the hostage taker, he ends the call and drives away to safety.
Back in the office, Boyle returns from becoming a chef for a day. He then apologizes to both Santiago and Gina but insists that his techniques worked for the business. Santiago and Gina insist on not working for Boyle again.
In a lucky turn of events, Peralta traces the letter Doug left on his table. He arrives in a karaoke room where a pre-recorded video plays for him. The diamonds are also in the same place, and so Peralta ends up recovering them anyway.

‘Brooklyn Nine-Nine: The Negotiation’ Overall Verdict

“The Negotiation” was a whirlwind of events. Peralta wishing to become a hostage is not everyone’s dream ending. But with his character’s positive outlook on life, Peralta sees it as something to cross out from a bucket list. Meanwhile, serving the government and owning a food truck business isn’t the best combination. Boyle may be a Chef, but he will never be okay with people working for him. Santiago and Gina were only gracious enough to spare him from being an arrogant owner to his staff. In the end, negotiations are things we do to get what we want. So I say, do it well. Or else, you’ll end up with nothing.
“Brooklyn Nine-Nine” continues next Sunday, April 1st, with “The Box” at 8:30 PM on FOX.