"The Swedes" is the ninth episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine's third season.
Jake and Rosa nab a Swedish jewel thief who's stolen a large amount of Swedish national treasure. Holt then assigns the two to work with a pair of Swedish detectives to try and find the rest of the stolen loot. Culture clashes immediately occur. But while Jake fully agrees that the Swedes are odd and should be made fun of, he sees how close they are to each other and this makes him question the nature of his own friendship with Rosa.
Meanwhile, Gina is thinking of giving up on her Astronomy class but Amy and Terry decide to try and get her excited about her studies once again.
Also, Kevin is off on a six-month exchange program at the Sorbonne so Holt enlists Charles' help in maintaining his and Kevin's domination of their squash club's championship. Charles is torn between trying to look good in front of his boss and unleashing his inner beast.
There's also a brand new snack machine in the break room. Things quickly go wrong.
This episode provides examples of:
- Always Someone Better:
- Jake and Rosa spend most of the episode playing catch up to the Swedish detectives.
- As it turns out, Neil deGrasse Tyson can squat about twice as much as Terry can.
- Though he apparently does so via physics, not physical strength, likely referencing a real life incident Neil deGrasse Tyson tells about in his autobiography: he was on a bus going along the single narrow road connecting two towns on the coast of Italy. The road was blocked by a carelessly parked car whose owner was nowhere around. The bus came to a stop and everyone got out and wondered how they were going to get to their destination. Tyson realized he could move the car: he knew that the rear end of a car is much lighter than the front, and from experience wrestling, knew how to lift things using your leg muscles. He lifted up the rear bumper, rotated the car around its front tires, and pivoted it off the road. It looked really impressive but the secret wasn't abnormal strength so much as figuring out the right way to go about it.
- "Anger Is Healthy" Aesop: Holt asks that Boyle take Kevin's place in a squash championship because he's going away to France in a few weeks. Charles is conflicted because he expects Holt to tell him to be professional but at the same time, Boyle is famous in Squash because he's over-aggressive and over-competitive. After deliberately pulling his punches, Holt reveals that he chose Boyle because of his competitive nature after identifying him in a newspaper as "Squash's unhinged lunatic". Holt tells Boyle to unleash the beast because Holt promised Kevin they would win and they were failing because Boyle wasn't aggressive enough. Ultimately, Boyle does unleash the beast and becomes a way better squash player because he is so angry and aggressive in the game. However, he and Holt are banned from competition despite winning the championship because of Boyle's behavior.
- Bilingual Bonus: The name of the stolen diamond necklace is "Kötbullsdiamant", which is Swedish for "Meatball Diamond".
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Soren and Agneta say some incredibly bitchy things about Jake and Rosa while never changing their polite, friendly demeanor.
- Call-Back: Scully continues to have an unnatural attraction to vending machines. He weeps when the new machine catches on fire.
- A more subtle callback to Season 2 involves the moons of Jupiter, a concept the writers evidently find inherently funny. Amy's mnemonic for remembering them is Comically Serious.
- The Cameo: Neil deGrasse Tyson makes an appearance as a friend of Terry's. Tyson attempts to use his reputation to excite Gina about Astronomy but Gina, naturally, has no idea who he is.
- Eating the Eye Candy: Gina doesn't care about the content of Amy and Terry's dance about the solar system. She lets them go on for an hour because it means she gets to watch Terry gyrate while getting sweaty.
- Establishing Character Moment: The Swedes establish what non-snobbish regular guys they are when Jake and Rosa first meet them.Holt: This is Inspector Knausgaard and Deputy Inspector Carlsson. Their flight here was eight hours. [to them] It's been a pleasure talking with you about the duration of your flight. Good day. [leaves]Jake: Well, there goes my opening question about how long your flight was.Soren: It was eight hours.Jake: Yeah, no, I got that. I was joking, sorry. It must have got lost in translation.Soren: No, we understand you perfectly. Everyone in Sweden speaks English.Agneta: We also speak Norwegian, Dutch, German, French, Russian, and Finnish. But not Danish. That is a garbage language for garbage people.Soren: Ja.note
- History with Celebrity: Terry is apparently gym buddies with Neil deGrasse Tyson.
- Internal Reveal: Jake finds out Rosa broke up with Marcus and is hurt it took this long.
- Language Equals Thought: When Peralta and Diaz find the Swedes working the crime scene without them, Peralta asks them what they think they're doing:Agneta: Oh, in Sweden, we call it police work. Perhaps you don't have a word for it?
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Jake and Charles decide to christen the precinct's new snack machine with a bottle of champagne (although as Charles points out, "technically it's a Hungarian Pezsgo from the Tarnok Valley.") This goes about as well as can be expected.
- Platonic Life-Partners: Agneta and Soren are so close that they walk around holding hands and sauna in the nude together. Soren even donated sperm when Agneta and her husband were having trouble conceiving (he had a sample ready in a sealed Tupperware container before she even asked).
- Popcultural Osmosis Failure: Gina has never heard of Star Wars or Neil deGrasse Tyson.
- Serious Business: Squash is one of the few things that gets the mild-mannered Charles completely, utterly worked up.
- Sexy Scandinavian: The duo of Swedish detectives. They are both hot. Lampshaded by Jake who says they're all tall and beautiful. They're also jerks.
- Shipper on Deck: Once again, in offering suggestions for ways that Jake and Amy can celebrate their six-month anniversary, Charles Boyle manages to express his support for their burgeoning relationship in the most inappropriate manner possible:Charles: Put a baby in her, Jake. What are you waiting for?
- Too Much Information: Agneta and Soren share way too much information for Jake and Rosa's liking. Soren even talks about Agneta's vaginal pH levels.
- The Unfettered: Holt urges Charles to let loose on the squash court because he wants to win the championship for a third consecutive time. To put it simply, they win the championship but they're also banned from ever competing again because of Charles' behavior.Holt: I need you to unleash...THE BEAST.
