The Rookie Season 1 Episode 20 Review: Free Fall
Christine Orlando
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It was a heart-pounding season finale as The Rookie Season 1 Episode 20 put all of Los Angeles in grave danger and several Officers with their futures on the line.
Thankfully, the possible terrorist attack had to wait until Bishop dealt with Officer Ruiz's offer to become an informant for Internal Affairs in exchange for being cleared of withholding information about her foster brother.
I suspected that Bishop would risk the outcome of her case rather than become a snitch. Her fellow LAPD officers are her family. I can't imagine that she could live with herself if she were spying on them.
What I never expected was that she would turn the table on Ruiz!
Not only did she turn down the offer but she turned Ruiz into Commander West for violating the Peace Officer's Bill of Rights. I had no idea there was such a thing, but now I want to go look it up.
That was a gutsy move on Bishop's part, although I expect no less of her. She accepted her formal reprimand in her file which will follow her for the rest of her career, but she's also made an enemy of Ruiz, and that could come back to haunt her.
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With Bishop's drama over with, it appeared the rest of the hour would be filled with whether the rookies would pass their final examinations.
Officer Lopez: Eighty might be the passing grade, Boot, but if you don’t get at least a 90 you should turn in your badge just on principle.
Officer Bradford: Officer Chen, I will take it as a personal insult if you get anything less than a 93.
Not so fast. A potential terrorist attack meant that exams would have to wait.
When Bradford realized that he and the man from the bus were both exposed, he reacted quickly to save Chen.
Despite his cool exterior, you could feel the underlying panic coming off of Tim in waves.
I don't want to imagine anything worse than having to watch a man gruesomely bleed to death from every orifice and knowing that this could be your fate very soon.
Even the ordinarily unflappable Tim Bradford got shaken, and I could hardly blame him when he contemplated shooting himself to end it all before suffering the same outcome.
As Bradford and Chen waited for the arrival of the CDC and the experimental vaccine, the rest of the team was scouring LA for the remaining terrorists.
When Sgt. Grey told his team they could tell their families to stay away from public places and crowds but not to share any further details, I couldn't help but contemplate how many times the families of law enforcement officers get those phone calls and how difficult it must be to keep so many of the details to themselves.
Officer Nolan expressed a similar concern in this The Rookie quote:
Officer Nolan: It’s not right, keeping everyone in the dark. We’re supposed to be protecting them.
Officer Bishop: That’s exactly what we’re trying to do.
Officer Nolan: Yeah, but…
Officer Bishop: But nothing, Officer Nolan. This is where the job’s hardest. If we alert the public, we alert the men we’re hunting. Odds are they’ll panic and set it all off and we’ll cause the thing we’re trying to prevent.
Officer Nolan: And what if they set it off anyway before we catch them?
Officer Bishop: Then it’ll haunt us.
When Lopez decided not to tell Wesley what was happening, I agreed with her. He sees things from the perspective of protecting someone's civil rights, but if everyone's dead, then their civil rights really won't matter.
When Angela cuffed her boyfriend and threw him in the back of her patrol car, I feared he might end up getting shot and killed in that firefight.
Instead, he watched his girlfriend and her partner put their lives on the line to stop the terrorists and save the city and that, thankfully, gave him a new perspective.
Wesley: Does it seem like we fight a lot?
Lopez: Definitely, but I think it’s our thing, you know, how some couples swing dance or go to Disneyland?
I enjoy Lopez and Wesley and hope these two continue to do battle and makeup. They are an adorable and entertaining couple, and it's fun to see how they change each other's mindset while still being true to themselves and their jobs.
Jackson finally came to terms with who he was as a cop and put to rest his doubts about his father.
Here’s the thing, I made my peace with dying when I got on this bus. So I’m coming over there and I’m arresting you.
Officer West
Jackson's come a long way from the new rookie who cowered whenever he heard gunshots. I didn't know if he'd make it through all of The Rookie season 1, but I'm happy to say he's still with the LAPD with a bright future ahead.
Finally, we get to Nolan and Jessica who's future is looking a little more cloudy.
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Should Jessica have told Nolan to hold off on Henry's trip to LA?
Maybe. I'm willing to give Jessica a pass on that as she still wasn't sure if the threat was real, although I suspect she might have given Nolan a head's up if she had kids of her own. It changes one's perspective.
But did she see the man in the shed reach for something?
Nolan certainly didn't, and he suspects she's lying, but wouldn't it have been smarter to take the suspect into custody rather than kill him? Wouldn't they want to interrogate him and get all the information they could get out of him?
I don't know enough about Jessica Russo to decide what caused her to fire, but it's clear that Nolan no longer trusts her and that doesn't bode well for their future as a couple.
Although, as much as I like Jessica, I've always secretly hoped that Nolan and Lucy would eventually reunite, so if things go south with Jessica, I don't think I'll be heartbroken.
But if anything happens to Tim Bradford, expect tears!
I hope that Tim will be okay and his passing out has nothing to do with hemorrhagic fever.
He got hit over the head with a chair, was stuck in a hot room for hours with nothing to drink, and just received an experimental vaccine with unknown side effects.
Is it odd that the thoughts in my head remind me of the T.O.'s trying to convince their rookies to look at the facts and not panic?
As The Rookie Season 1 comes to a close, are you disappointed that our rookies never took their exams?
Do you want Jessica to stick around and have a future with Nolan?
Am I right about Bradford just having a bump on the head and being dehydrated or is it wishful thinking?
And most importantly, do you hope that ABC renews The Rookie for season 2?
Here's to hoping that we'll all be back here next fall to do this again, but until then you can watch The Rookie online here at TV Fanatic.
C. Orlando was a TV Fanatic Staff Writer. Follow her on Twitter.
