Brooklyn Nine-Nine Is Ending At The Right Time

Brooklyn’s 99th precinct is closing its doors for good. After eight seasons, Brooklyn Nine-Nine will air its series finale on Sept. 16.

The beloved comedy’s conclusion comes two years after it narrowly escaped cancellation: when Fox opted not to renew the show for a seventh season in 2018, it found a second life on NBC, enjoying two more seasons as a result. Now, it’s going out on its own terms.

“When Mike Schur and I first pitched the pilot to [star] Andy [Samberg], he said, ‘I’m in, but I think the only way to tell this story is over exactly 153 episodes,’ which was crazy because that’s exactly the number Mike and I had envisioned,” showrunner Dan Goor joked in an Instagram post in February, after it was announced that Brooklyn Nine-Nine was ending. “Ending the show was a difficult decision, but ultimately, we felt it was the best way to honor our characters, the story and our viewers. I know some people will be disappointed it’s ending so soon, but honestly, I’m grateful it lasted this long. Title of my sex tape.”

Star Stephanie Beatriz, who plays the cantankerous Rosa Diaz, echoed how bittersweet the decision was in a June interview with Bustle. “I think when big, difficult things happen in your life, like wrapping [Brooklyn Nine-Nine], it would be easy to sort of charge through it and push down feelings. I’m just allowing them to come as they come,” she said. Still, she thinks viewers will be “really satisfied” with how the series is tied up. “In the words of Jake Peralta, it’s going to be super toit. Obviously you can’t make everyone happy, but we will hopefully make a lot of people happy.”

Across its eight seasons, Brooklyn Nine-Nine has rarely failed to make its audience happy. But the current sociopolitical climate makes it difficult to continue a show that extends so much empathy to police and not the communities they are policing. “There’s nothing funny about what we’ve been seeing from the police,” Samberg told GQ in July 2020, one month after George Floyd’s death ignited protests against systemic racism and police brutality across the U.S.

From its inception, Samberg said they looked at Brooklyn Nine-Nine as “a fantasy of what we would like the world to look like,” imagining how nice it would be if there was “this core group of detectives that has the moral compass you would wish for, and is truly diverse and represents a lot of different people.” But heading into its eighth season, the writers knew the show would be airing to a transformed world. They had to think carefully about how to maintain the zaniness that made Brooklyn Nine-Nine funny and comforting while acknowledging the real world violence its characters inherently represent. Ultimately, it feels like the right time for Brooklyn Nine-Nine to bow out.