Farewell, Captain Holt
Dear Reader, Earlier this week, I woke up to a friend’s text informing me that Andre Braugher had passed away. I jumped in disbelief and googled if the news was real. A sharp pain suddenly struck as it slowly hit me how the actor who had made me laugh and escape reality during some of my worst days, was no more.
Brooklyn Nine-Nine began airing its episodes when I was 14 and went on till I was about 23. I vividly remember how the show made life a little better every week. All those years of watching and rewatching, I grew up knowing Andre as Captain Raymond Holt. Thanks to my beloved Nine-Nine, I knew just the “best distraction” to ease episodes of pain and absolute panic. It just had to look up “Holt and Terry’s Dance Break to Salt-N-Pepa’s Push It”. And I have to tell you, Terry really knew what he was doing because I was distracted alright. But now that the Nine-Nine is one member down, I’d like to pen down my thoughts into a farewell note for Captain Dad. Since he didn’t like gifts (and a ‘thoughtful email’ sorta thing from my personal mail ID named after a Winnie the Pooh character didn’t feel like the best way to go about it), here are 325 words of calmly curated emotions and a whole lot of jokes (coz it seems like that is my coping mechanism, atm).
5261796D6E6420486F6C74.You wonder what it is? This spells Raymond Holt in hexadecimal code and this was also his twitter username (you’re always no.1 in my heart for that, my queen). That right there kind of summarises the kind of a person he was: amazing, fun, a total nerd, always got game and as clever as they come. Even though twitter mistook him for a bot (let’s face it, he does seem like a robot who’d say ‘meep morp, meep morp, zeep’ in synchronised fashion), Holt was surprisingly way more to all of us. And as I grow up, I shall always remember him for this line: “Every time someone steps up and says who they are, the world becomes a better, more interesting place.” So, thank you, Holt, for stepping up and making everything better. At the end of the day, Holt was known as a great leader, teacher, ‘master of wits’, ‘best detective ever’, but he was also the friend that would sit with you and silently listen to death metal (even though he absolutely hated it) or maybe the proud dad you never had.
"How lucky am I to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.” This line comes to mind to as I write about a man as influential as Braugher. A farewell note with two ‘Winnie the Pooh’ references never hurt anyone, so Andre, thank you for making me lucky enough.
This can go on and on but I shall save it for another day.
I wanted to end this by quoting Holt’s favourite musical piece, Gustav Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder. ‘That death is powerful, yet love is even stronger’. With that I hope I have your permission to say this: I love you and I will miss you so dearly, Sir, Captain, Dad, Raymond, Andre. And as my favourite musician, Taylor Swift wrote: ‘Goodbye, Goodbye, you were bigger than the whole sky’. To me, you indeed were bigger than the sky. Thanks for everything. Nine-Nine forever.
~ Pooja Hemalatha
Best Raymond Holt Episodes
While there are just too many to pick from, here are 8 of my favourite episodes from each of the 8 seasons:
The Party, Season 1. Only Captain Holt can be hilarious even when he’s fighting. This is one of the first episodes that showed his unending loyalty and love for the Nine-Nine.
Beach House, Season 2: This was the episode the great Raymond Holt first stooped down to the level (he turns on the jets in the jacuzzi for starters) of the other Nine-Niners. And he never looked back!
9 Days, Season 3: We got to meet Balthazar in this episode, thanks to the mumps. How could we not feature him in the list?
Cop-Con, Season 4: We love any good B-99 episode that features a Holt carrying his heart on his sleeve. As funny as it is (the slide transition joke always kills), it is also an episode that depicts Holt as the big ol’ softie that he is.
The Box, Season 5: Brooklyn Nine-Nine is never short on juicy murder solves, but The Box has gotta be one of its top creations. Not only does this episode show us why Holt and Peralta make the best (even if unlikely) partners, it also shows us what triggers Holt the most. Never use the term ‘doctor’ lightly around him!
Honeymoon, Season 6: Holt’s T-shirts. That is all I want to say.
Lights Out, Season 7: This episode gave us two factoids about Holt: that he has a fear of elevators and that he can shake a leg like there’s no tomorrow.
The Lake House, Season 8: Who doesn’t love a good parent-trap? Or in this case, a ‘Das Doppelte Lottchen’?
~ Sruthi Ganapathy Raman
Why Spadikam should be your new entrypoint to Malayalam cinema
Given how we’ve moved away from the hype of Animal, inching closer to a mass tentpole film like Salaar, it’s a good time to find a Malayalam film that falls somewhere in the middle. Away from the cooler, hipper vibe of films like Kumbalangi Nights and Bangalore Days is a mass action movie starring Mohanlal with the soul of an art movie. Think Taare Zare Par without the intervention of a teacher like Aamir…that sums up the after effects of a terrible education system that gives birth to a gangster like Mohanlal’s Aadu Thoma. Despite some elements which seems to have aged poorly, there are few films like Spadikam that can balance something as personal as a lost childhood with the heavy handedness of an anti hero who pulls out his own veshti to kick ass.
~ Vishal Menon
This Week in Reviews
Fight Club - This Vijay Kumar-starrer has impressive world-building and technical finesse. But it leaves much to be desired in matters of narrative heft.
The Crown Season 6 Part 2: The Netflix series switches over from playing it safe to becoming an apologist for Queen Elizabeth II.
Priscilla: Sofia Coppola brings Priscila, the Presley who survived, to the limelight in this intriguing drama.
First Act: The Amazon Prime Video series is a well-meaning documentary on child actors, even if it’s trope-ridden
The Freelancer Part 2: The series has nowhere to hide anymore. The build-up implied that the extraction might be cool and...complex. But it’s the opposite of cool and complex.