‘Brooklyn Nine-Nine’ Scrapped Four Episodes After George Floyd’s Death

Brooklyn Nine-Nine is making some major changes. The police comedy will be scrapping previously written episodes following the death of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man, in police custody last month. Brooklyn Nine-Nine star Terry Crews revealed that the show’s writers are working on an entirely different story for the upcoming season, Entertainment Weekly reports.

In an interview with Access yesterday (June 23), Crews, who plays Lieutenant Terry Jeffords on the show, explained that Brooklyn Nine-Nine threw multiple previously written episodes “in the trash” because of current events.

“We’ve had a lot of somber talks about it and deep conversations and we hope through this we’re going to make something that will be truly groundbreaking this year,” Crews said. “We have an opportunity and we plan to use it in the best way possible.”

Crews said the show is planning to fully “start over” for Season 8, which is expected to premiere in 2021. “Our showrunner Dan Goor, they had four episodes all ready to go and they just threw them in the trash,” he said. “We have to start over. Right now we don’t know which direction it’s going to go in.”

The actor did not share what was in the episodes that had been axed, but he had previously hinted at changes coming to Brooklyn Nine-Nine in an interview with Seth Meyers earlier this month.

“We actually all got on a Zoom call just the other day because of what’s happening in this country,” Crews told Meyers at the time. “We were witnessing so many abuses of power. We had some somber talks and some really, really eye-opening conversation about how to handle this new season.”

Last month, the Brooklyn Nine-Nine cast donated $100,000 to the National Bail Fund Network after the death of George Floyd, and cast member Stephanie Beatriz joined The Tick‘s Griffin Newman in donating money to bail funds, encouraging actors who played TV cops to do the same.

Where to watch Brooklyn Nine-Nine