Ken Marino is the new captain on Brooklyn Nine-Nine, for as long as he lasts anyway

Non-Holt precinct captains don’t tend to last long on Brooklyn Nine-Nine: Bill Hader’s Captain Dozerman died two days into taking up his post, while Dean Winter’s recurring villain The Vulture didn’t last much longer before being ousted from Andre Braugher’s seat of stoic power. So when the show’s third season ended by shipping two of its leads—Andy Samberg’s Jake Peralta and Braugher’s Captain Holt—off to Witness Protection in Florida, the question wasn’t whether Holt would ever be coming back, but which comedy guest star would be filling in for him while he was away.

Wonder no longer, Nine-Niners: Entertainment Weekly is reporting that Childrens Hospital and Party Down star Ken Marino has been tapped to (briefly) lead the detectives of the 99th, at least for as long as he lasts. Marino will be playing “C.J.,” an anti-disciplinarian higher-up who lets the entire precinct walk all over him in his efforts to be a cool, chill boss. That seems a) like a part that Marino could play while half-awake, presumably while still perfectly nailing down the notes of lonely desperation that seem to hide behind all his cartoonish buffoons, and b) like a nice change of pace for the Fox sitcom, at least until Holt and Peralta inevitably return two or three episodes into the season. Brooklyn Nine-Nine returns for its fourth season on September 20.