The Character Who Made Me Love <em>Brooklyn Nine-Nine</em>
When I first met Amy Santiago, she was everything I never knew I wanted in a television character. I encountered the Cuban-American NYPD detective in early 2014, after Brooklyn Nine-Nine won two Golden Globes in its first season and landed on my radar. Initially, it seemed like a formulaic comedy about an immature cop, Jake Peralta (Andy Samberg), butting heads with a new captain, Raymond Holt (Andre Braugher). Jake’s fellow officer, rival, and love interest, Amy Santiago (Melissa Fumero), appeared to be the “straight woman” to his renegade cop. I thought I knew what their dynamic would be: that she was the rule follower who’d try to put him in line, and he was the rule flouter who’d outperform her anyway. But this is not where Michael Schur and Dan Goor’s comedy goes.
In its earliest moments, does indeed establish Amy as competitive and goal-oriented. In the pilot, it’s revealed that she and Jake have an ongoing bet about who can apprehend the most criminals. Later, she tells Jake she wants their new boss to mentor her so she can eventually become a captain herself. When Jake goofs off at the scene of
