Brooklyn Nine-Nine: Why Caleb Didn’t Eat Jake In Prison

Despite having cannibalistic tendencies, Caleb Gosche (Tim Meadows) didn’t eat Brooklyn Nine-Nine‘s Jake Peralta (Andy Samberg) in prison. After being framed for a series of bank robberies by Lt. Melanie Hawkins (Gina Gershon), Jake and Rosa (Stephanie Beatriz) were sentenced to 15 years in prison. While they didn’t come near to serving that long, they were locked up for a considerable amount of time — enough that they were able to settle into their new lives as inmates. In fact, Jake even struck a weird friendship with his cellmate who was doing time for eating people.

Jake is a good detective with great instincts, but, ironically, he has a tendency to get along with criminals. That’s proven by his enduring friendship with Doug Judy (Craig Robinson), which started as a quest to nab the Pontiac Bandit. So, while he’s not exactly cut for jail, he was able to survive by keeping a cheery disposition and being as friendly to other inmates as seen in Brooklyn Nine-Nine season 5 premiere. During this time, he grew particularly close to Caleb, whom he shared his cell with. Caleb even helped the NYPD officer get introduced to other inmates who control the prison.

When Brooklyn Nine-Nine debuted Caleb, he seemed to be a normal guy. He was soft-spoken and genuinely nice to Jake. This made Jake comfortable with his cellmate — in fact, he didn’t even know what Caleb was doing time for until he was already a few months in prison. Following Amy (Melissa Fumero) and Charles’ (Joe Lo Truglio) botched visitation, Jake ranted about not being able to spend quality time with them. Caleb was empathetic, leading into him opening up about his own grievances. Apparently, he never gets any visitors after his family learned that he ate people. Jake was understandably shocked, admitting that he thought Caleb was in protective custody like him because he was also a wrongly convicted.

Considering how long it took for Jake to discover that Caleb is a cannibal means that there was no serious attempt to eat him in his previous months in prison, and it stayed that way until the time he was up for release. So, how come Caleb never tried to do something to his cellmate? There are a couple of reasons. Firstly, as Caleb himself said, he only ate children, and Jake is obviously a grown-man who can fend for himself. He also shared that his process included stalking his prey until he was able to pounce. While the initial assumption might be that Caleb could satiate his urges by eating Jake, bypassing his criminal process would ultimately make the experience unsatisfying for him.

Secondly, Caleb was clearly able to control his tendencies. Being locked up for quite some time meant that he had not been able to indulge in cannibalism for months, possibly even years. Given this, it’s possible that he simply got used to the idea not eating human beings, making him harmless during Jake’s stint in prison. It was only when he got stabbed trying to save Jake’s life that Caleb regained his appetite for human flesh, trying to bite his cellmate’s hand, possibly because he was triggered by seeing an open wound. Unfortunately, since Jake’s release, Caleb only got worse. By Brooklyn Nine-Nine season 6, he was back to wanting to eat people, meaning no one was allowed to get too close to him.

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