After a three month hiatus, Brooklyn-based police comedy Brooklyn Nine-Nine returned to FOX Sunday night — the first time in that time slot since season three. Speculation abounds that this could be a move to build up to the series finale or cancelation. Despite the new schedule and extended mid-season break, Nine-Nine is back and as cheeky as ever.

The first half of the season ended with a serious cliffhanger. Heavy-hitting crime boss Seamus Murphy threatens Captain Holt’s husband Kevin as retaliation to the Nine-Nine meddling in his affairs. The second half picks up later that same day. The whole gang is involved in elaborately smuggling Kevin to a safe house before Jake volunteers to stay there with him. Given that Jake’s just gotten out of prison, this is a major statement that shows how much he cares about Kevin and Captain Holt (later in the episode, he flat-out states that he loves Captain Holt and that he wants Holt and Kevin to be his dads).

Recap: 'Brooklyn Nine-Nine' Season 5 Episode 12
The actors miraculously stayed in character during this extremely intimate scene | Photo via Brooklyn Nine-Nine Instagram

Jake initially thinks a stint in the safe house will be a breeze, but Captain Holt quickly dashes his hopes with a long list of rules and security protocols. Holt’s rigid rules provide most of the episode’s physical humor, requiring that Peralta and Kevin army crawl through the safe house during the day to avoid being seen through one of the windows. This prompts Jake to ask, “Why not just close the windows?” Holt replies that it would be extremely suspicious to close the blinds during the day. There is however, one small blind spot in the house where inhabitants can stand up without being seen. The blind spot is about nine square feet, and they introduce it on the show with Holt, Kevin, and Jake all crammed in it together. It makes for quite the amusing visual.

With no cell phones or internet or any other connection to the outside world, Kevin and Jake must resort to Jake’s Nic Cage DVD collection. Pretentious and snooty Kevin has never even heard of Nic Cage. Though initially repulsed by Jake’s description of Face/Off, National Treasure, and several other Cage classics, he eventually caves and watches them. It becomes a source of self-loathing for him throughout the episode.

After nine weeks in the safe house, Holt comes by with the good news that the FBI is ready to arrest Murphy, so the Nine-Nine all comes over to the safe house to watch the live satellite feed of the FBI’s raid. However, the raid proves fruitless. There’s no one at the location the FBI raids. This sentences Kevin and Jake to an indefinite amount of time in the safe house until the Nine-Nine is able to locate Murphy and bring him in. Their captivity puts a serious strain on Holt’s relationship with Kevin, and Kevin even alludes to the dissolution of their matrimony once Murphy is arrested.

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To help find Murphy, badass Rosa is forced to go undercover to gossip with Murphy’s Bay Ridge hair stylist mistress. She employs an uncanny outer-borough accent to pump the mistress for details about Murphy as she goes from just a normal styling to dying her hair blonde to getting a perm. This hilarious conversation reveals that Murphy has absconded to Rhinebeck.

The episode’s second subplot provides his specific location in Rhinebeck. Amy subpoena’s the company that shred’s all of Murphy’s documents to get a comically large dumping of shreddings delivered to the Nine Nine. After she and Terry are on the verge of giving up, Scully saves the day with his jigsaw puzzle skills. He’s quickly able to piece together a Rhinebeck address to determine Murphy’s specific location.

Meanwhile, Jake and Kevin, desperate for a reprieve from the safe house, don creepy outfits and take a field trip to the library so Kevin can research the book he’s working on. Captain Holt tracks them and finds them there, only to discover that they’re also being followed by one of Murphy’s henchmen. He tells Jake this via text message, hilariously beginning and ending each message with formal salutations. Jake saves Kevin, but the henchman captures Captain Holt. Kevin and Jake quickly come to his rescue in Rhinebeck, but Jake gets himself quickly captured. Kevin saves the day by crashing his Ford Flex through the wall of the abandoned warehouse where Murphy has Jake and Holt captive. He promptly exits the car and disarms the allegedly dangerous Murphy with a jab to the throat.

This brings the Murphy arc to a neat close. Captain Holt announces the FBI has toppled Murphy’s entire crime organization in the episode’s epilogue. The episode was a Nine-Nine classic, but it leaves the door open for the rest of the second half of the season.

Will the show continue to explore the potential rift in Captain Holt’s marriage created by the safe house? Rosa came out as bisexual to her parents at the end of the first half of the season, but it wasn’t acknowledged at all in “The Safe House,” nor was Gina’s burgeoning motherhood. Will either of these topics be brought back into the spotlight? They don’t yet feel fully explored. Finally, where will Jake and Amy’s relationship go? Who will be the next crime boss the gang takes down? Between all of these unanswered questions and the show’s zany antics, there are numerous reasons to tune in each week.