Jake Gets Lucky on 'Brooklyn Nine-Nine'

Nice to see you again, Eva Longoria. Where ya been? You guest starred on the Nov. 9 episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine as Jake's love interest Sophia Perez, and that's all that matters now.

After a season that started out with a lovelorn Jake, he got back into the dating game during Sunday night's episode after a not-so-great date with Rosa's friend Katie. You know, the one he worked so hard to get the phone number of during the Jimmy Jab Games a few weeks ago? It turned out she was even less warm than Rosa, which no one thought was humanly possible.

Jake desperately needed to get a win in the love department, but no date has really taken off because he always tries to wow the ladies with his crazy cop stories. Gee, for a guy who always slacks off at work, Jake sure does talk about his job a lot. Is Jake a slacker or isn't he?

Anyway, Terry encouraged Jake to find his Meatloaf after saying that he and his wife bonded over their interest for the singer. That's such sage advice. Don't we all just want to find the person we can talk about old, '70s rockers with?

Soon, Jake zeroed in on Sophia, played by guest star Eva Longoria, in a bar, and it looked like the start of a beautiful relationship. They bonded over hot wings, the Die Hard movies, and a ping-pong game using an avocado pit. Ah, to be young and in love again.

Jake felt great the morning after, that is until he saw Sophia again in court, replacing the defense attorney originally assigned to the jewelry store robbery case Jake busted. As much as Jake tried, he couldn't just embrace the Meatloaf in his love life and avoid work completely.

Jake wasn't worried so much because it was a potential conflict of interest. He was more just disgusted with himself for having slept with a defense attorney. You see, a police officer and defense attorney are pretty much on opposite sides of the law, at least that's what TV tells us. Fooling around with a defense attorney is like fooling around with a murderer. Jake wasn't a fan. The two stuck it out though and begrudgingly continued on with the case, which Sophia ended up winning for the so-called criminal in Jake's eyes.

This was somewhat of a disappointing episode because it was so cliche. The plot device where a love interest pops up the next morning in the protagonist's professional life has been done to death on TV shows. But that didn't bother me as much as the way the episode portrayed Sophia as the cold and hard-hearted female lawyer trope whose profession intimidates men. That is something she actually said about her career in the episode, which explained why she didn't tell Jake that she was a lawyer during their initial meeting. Brooklyn Nine-Nine is usually so wonderful in the diversity department, it would have been nice to have a little more here.

However, Sophia did show a softer side at the end of the episode when Jake asked her out on another date, this time with real ping pong. It just sucks that it took being romantically involved with a guy to do that.

Images: Eddy Chen/FOX; b99things, yellowctopus/Tumblr