Escouade 99

Critical response

When the preview trailer for Escouade 99 dropped in August 2020, Melissa Fumero, who plays Amy Santiago on the original Brooklyn Nine-Nine, spoke out against the adaptation. She pointed out that the Quebec versions of Amy Santiago and Rosa Diaz were played by actors of European ancestry instead of Latina performers. Fumero acknowledged that the Latina community in Quebec is small, but argued the roles could have gone to any BIPOC actor, calling the missed opportunity disappointing. Talhí Briones, a Chilean Canadian writer and illustrator, also criticized what she saw as whitewashing of Latina characters and raised concerns about whether the series would keep Rosa Diaz’s bisexuality.

In Le Devoir, Justine Robidas praised the casting of Haitian Canadian actors Widemir Normil and Fayolle Jean Jr. as Captain Holt and Terry Jeffords, but noted the lack of significant characters from Quebec’s Maghrebian, Asian, or Indigenous communities. She also argued the show felt less like an adaptation and more like a direct copy, missing much of what made the original work. Other observers pointed out that several trailer scenes appeared to be shot-for-shot remakes of moments from the original series.

Hugo Dumas of La Presse acknowledged the diversity concerns but wrote that by casting actors of African ancestry for the two main African American roles, the show already did better than most Quebec TV series in representing cultural and racial diversity. Normil confirmed that his character, Captain Raymond Célestin, is gay, just like Captain Holt in the original.

Writing for the Montréal Gazette, T’Cha Dunlevy covered the backlash by focusing on three Latina actresses working in Quebec—Ariane Castellanos, Sabrina Bégin-Tejeda, and Ligia Borges—and the challenges they face landing major non-Latina-specific roles in local film and TV. Urbania magazine also named Castellanos, Roberta Arguello, Alice Pascual, and Lesly Velasquez as Quebec-based Latina actresses who could have been cast.

Huard later said the casting was not meant to intentionally whitewash the characters, and noted that the show had cast Maghrebi actor and comedian Mehdi Bousaidan as the Pontiac Bandit.