Brooklyn Nine-Nine: Every Main Character, Ranked By Intelligence

Brooklyn Nine-Nine is a comedy series airing since 2013 and taking place in a unique setting: a police precinct in New York. Starring former SNL cast member Andy Samberg and Terry Crews, the show was canceled by Fox last year and renewed immediately by NBC, and now season 7 is already on the way.

The series is praised not only for its hilarity but also for how diverse the characters are in terms of race, gender, and sexuality–which makes them all the more identifiable. Another refreshing aspect of the series lies in how unique the jokes are instead of relying on characters being plain stupid as many comedy shows do. The main characters of Brooklyn Nine-Nine are incredibly smart and excellent at their job, and that’s why they’re so easy to root for. Here are the main characters of Brooklyn Nine-Nine, ranked from least to most intelligent.

10 Michael Hitchcock

It’s hard to believe that Michael Hitchcock is even a detective of the Nine-Nine. He spends his time slouching, snacking and swiveling in his chair. He is not unintelligent as much as he is idle and unwilling to concentrate, having gone as far as accidentally calling himself Scully instead of his name.

It’s hard to talk about Hithcock without also mentioning Scully, as together they are often the causes of craziness. From setting fire to the kitchen to going on a hunger strike while eating chips to even drinking his fish, it’s a miracle Hitchcock hasn’t been fired yet.

9 Norm Scully

Norm Scully isn’t much smarter than Hitchcock; those two are inseparable and so alike that it’s hard not to think of them as a single unit. But at least Scully can speak French, to an extent.

But Scully did reveal once, much to the sunrise of the Nine-Nine crew and the viewers, that his incompetent detective act is just that–an act. Along with Hitchcock, he is not actually stupid, but simply a lazy individual who pretends to be stupid to get out of work. However, it does leave us wondering why he became a detective in the first place.

8 Adrian Pimonte

Adrian Pimonte is perhaps one of the strangest characters on the show. When coming back to the Nine-Nine after being undercover for 12 years, he is more than a little mentally unstable. The talent and dedication that is required to successfully keep a cover for that long may lead you to think that this is an intellectually gifted man, but that is not exactly the case.

He gets tangled up with Rosa in a rapid-moving relationship, even though it is clear he is not emotionally ready for such a commitment. Eventually, Pimonte gets fired from the police department and ends up working as a security guard at a hand lotion store.

7 Charles Boyle

As Sergeant Terry himself said, Boyle is not the most brilliant detective. He can be embarrassing at times, and a bit clingy, but in the end he gets the job done. His inability to ever really be mean enables him to collaborate well with others, especially Jake, his partner in crime.

Unlike the other detectives at the office, he is rather devoid of shame and judgment. And that’s why he’s such a good team player and a hard worker–he will do anything that is asked of him for a case. What he lacks in intelligence, he makes up for in dedication: he will show up to work and solve cases even with a cast over the lower half of his body.

6 Gina Linetti

Gina Linetti is, of course, a unique type of intelligent. Her cunning and occasionally superficial character would be annoying if she wasn’t smart. She knows how to trick people around the precinct into doing things for her, while she gets out of work. Her way of thinking is so intriguing and unique that she once had a room full of psychologists taking notes of anything she babbled on about. She’s just fascinating like that.

And despite not being a detective, she has once or twice been allowed to join in on missions. However, those occasions are extremely rare, and though she tries to get more involved, she remains Holt’s assistant.

5 Rosa Diaz

There is something about dark and mysterious characters on screen, as, more often than not, they end up being very intelligent. And that’s exactly the case with Rosa Diaz, a strong-minded detective of the precinct. Although she is easily driven to anger and threats, she knows how to get criminals to talk.

She is not a people person, something which keeps people that work with her focused on their task instead of getting distracted by conversing. If anything, Rosa is only lacking in the department of emotional intelligence, but thankfully she needs no one to do her job.

4 Terry Jeffords

Played by Terry Crews, Terry Jeffords is the supervisor and former sergeant of the Nine-Nine detective team, which means that he is the one responsible for how well the squad works together. Terry is almost never wrong–even with an old case that he had supposedly botched, he found out 10 years later that he had been correct all along.

As a married man and a loving father of three, what makes Terry even smarter is his capacity at balancing work and family life without sacrificing either.

3 Jake Peralta

He is goofy, he is awkward, and makes a lot of nervous jokes, but there is no denying that Jake Peralta is one of the smartest people in the precinct. After all, he did win the bet he made with Amy regarding who could make the highest number of arrests in a year.

It wasn’t the only time Jake won a competition, the other one being for the first Halloween Heist. For his excellence, Jake was rewarded with Holt begrudgingly declaring him an “amazing detective slash genius.”

2 Amy Santiago

Amy Santiago is not just the most professional and consistent in her work, but she is incredibly smart. She is arguably the best detective of the Nine-Nine precinct. Something which was partly determined when she became the first one to outsmart Holt and Peralta at their own game. While everyone expected either Jake or Holt to walk away with the crown for the third Halloween Heist, it was Amy who did.

People might make fun of her for being a little uptight and a perfectionist, but she remains the one that deserves Captain Holt’s approval the most–something which she is quite desperate for.

1 Raymond Holt

Captain Holt is undeniably one of the most unique characters in a comedy show of this decade. As captain, he keeps his crew sharp, focused and busy. Defined by a blank expression and monotone way of speaking, the beauty of the character is that he is capable of silliness and hilarity despite how stoic he appears.

The Nine-Nine precinct went through several captains both before and after Holt, yet it was only Holt that ran things smoothly and efficiently around the place.

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