Brooklyn Nine-Nine: “Adrian Pimento”
(Episode 3.17)

Guest stars have been a thing for Brooklyn Nine-Nine since the very beginning, when Stacy Keach, Mary Elizabeth Ellis, and Patton Oswalt showed up for one-offs, and Craig Robinson, Marilu Henner, and Kyle Bornheimer each stepped into limited but recurring roles. (Remember: Doug Judy is still around!) But after season two took several paces back from inviting new celebrity cameos (outside of Eva Longoria, Nick Cannon, and Chris Parnell), season three appears to be overcompensating: to date, the series has been inundated with guest spots for Paul F. Tompkins, Mary Lynn Rajskub, Bill Hader, Anders Holm, Riki Lindhome, Neil Degrasse Tyson, Niecy Nash, Damon Wayans, Jr., Allan Graf, and Katey Sagal.
Add the following names to that illustrious list: Kate Flannery and Jason Mantzoukas. (Also add Robinson, Dean Winters, Bradley Whitford, reprising characters they’ve previously played on the show.) “Adrian Pimento” feels, at times, as though it is trying to top Brooklyn Nine-Nine’s third season guest deluge by dropping two names on its audience at once, though the double-guest maneuver has by now become nearly habitual, so really the episode just feels like it’s trying to live up to a newly established standard. Flannery plays Mean Marge, the custodial boss Boyle runs afoul of after he explodes a pressure cooker in the precinct’s breakroom; Mantzoukas plays the title character, a detective fresh off a twelve-year undercover stint who might be a few sandwiches short of a full picnic basket.
As with most marquee guest stars, Mantzoukas is paired off with Andy Samberg, whose talent for instant histrionics is grossly outmatched by his co-star’s. “Adrian Pimento” has a lot of fun dabbling in anti-comedy, as Pimento arrives in the 9-9 and begins “funny” sharing stories of his time as a hatchet man for an apparently very unpleasant mobster named “The Butcher”; these stories only involve him brutally slaying people and weeping as he does so, which, of course, is not funny at all to the 9-9. But it’s funny to us! Mantzoukas has a manic sensibility and a gift for making untamed facial contortions that make for an immediately successful dual-portrait of Adrian: he’s a total loony tune, but he’s also incredibly tragic, even in light of his oddball comic appeal.