Who is Charles Boyle in Brooklyn Nine-Nine?

Show

Brooklyn Nine-Nine

Played by

Joe Lo Truglio

First episode

“Pilot”Season 1, Episode 1, aired September 17, 2013

Role

Main cast

Network

FOX

Occupation

NYPD detective, 99th Precinct

Show run

2013 to 2021Moved from FOX to NBC for its last three seasons.

Also known as

Boyle, Detective Boyle

Charles Boyle is the most loyal best friend a detective could ask for, and possibly the most excitable. Played by Joe Lo Truglio, he idolizes Jake Peralta, adores exotic food, and has never had a thought he did not say out loud.

On Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Charles Boyle's story runs through Jake Peralta (Best Friend), Rosa Diaz (Former Crush), Gina Linetti (Stepsister), Raymond Holt (Captain), and Terry Jeffords (Sergeant).

Who is Charles Boyle?

Charles is a detective at the 99th Precinct and Jake Peralta's partner and best friend. He is nervous, clumsy, and not especially physically gifted, but he is honest, hardworking, and braver than he looks. In season one he takes a bullet while protecting Rosa and is awarded the Medal of Valor, only to be upstaged by a celebrated police horse.

He is divorced from his wife, Eleanor, who cheated on him repeatedly. He comes from a large, intense family of Boyles with strange traditions, and he takes enormous pride in the family name, which makes a late-series discovery about his parentage all the funnier.

Personality and comedy

Charles is a devoted foodie who writes a weekly email ranking Brooklyn pizza and happily eats dishes that make his coworkers gag. He describes food, feelings, and his love life in vivid, uncomfortable detail, often without realizing how it sounds. His worship of Jake is so complete that it becomes its own running gag.

What makes him lovable is his total sincerity. Charles is never cynical, never mean, and always the first to cheer for a friend. He will also become shockingly fierce when someone he loves is in danger.

Key storylines

Early on, Charles pines for Rosa, then falls for Vivian Ludley, an older woman he bonds with over food at Holt's birthday party. They get engaged, but the relationship ends when he will not move to Canada. A short fling with Gina leads, by accident, to his father marrying her mother. In season three, he meets art gallery owner Genevieve Mirren-Carter, and the two adopt a son, Nikolaj, from Latvia.

In season five, he launches a meatball sub food truck, which nearly ruins him financially before it burns down. In the final season, Jake's investigation at a family funeral reveals that Charles is not a Boyle by blood, but he is still crowned the one true Boyle. When Jake retires, Charles becomes the precinct's senior detective.

Behind the scenes and legacy

Joe Lo Truglio, a veteran of the sketch show The State and the cult comedy Wet Hot American Summer, plays Charles across all eight seasons and appears in every episode except the season four opener, "Coral Palms: Part 1." Charles and Jake's friendship, full of hugs, nicknames, and shared schemes, is the show's central bromance.

Charles is the only detective, besides Hitchcock and Scully, who neither quits nor changes rank by the end of the series. In the finale, he gets a new partner, Detective Larkin, who idolizes him the way he always idolized Jake.

Charles Boyle: frequently asked questions

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