YMMV / The Rookie (2018)

• Alternative Character Interpretation: Is Sergeant Grey a tough but fair father to his men who just wants his Rookies to be the best they can be? Or is he a jaded cop who is scared of rocking the boat and thus lets corrupt cops continue because he's too 'by the book' and prejudice against those that don't fit his idea of the 'ideal cop'? As the series progresses its clear that its the more towards the former interpretation such as helping Jackson West to make sure that Dirty Cop Stanton's true nature is exposed if he can't be kicked off the force. There's also his interactions with Nolan where he is openly critical of what he sees as a white man going through a mid-life crisis and treating the LAPD as his "sports car." Yet he is neither more lax nor tougher on him than the other rookies and by the third season has accepted him as a fellow officer.
• Complete Monster:
  • Rosalind Dyer is a Serial Killer notorious for her complex gambits, and is driven by a combination of sadism and an obsession with attention. Over two years, Rosalind enacted a series of vicious murders by torture and mutilation with no set victim type, killing random men and women of every race and ethnicity, making her the most prolific killer in the history of California. Imprisoned, Rosalind, upon meeting up with "Caleb Wright", had him enact a twisted plan to keep her game going, first burying the women he killed amongst her still-missing victims, whilst she played mind games with the LAPD, finally having Caleb go after Detective Nick Armstrong who arrested her. Returning for her new trial, Rosalind escaped by corrupting her lawyer into murdering a deputy in exchange for slaughtering her parents, carrying on her murder spree until deciding she wanted to go out in a blaze of glory, she imprisoned Nolan's girlfriend Bailey in a Drowning Pit, attempting to force Nolan to kill her to prove "even saints can become murders".
  • "The Dark Side" & "Day of Death": "Caleb Wright" is Rosalind's sadistic protégé and fellow Serial Killer. An identity thief and professional criminal who admired Rosalind's fame, Caleb stole a guard's identity to meet her. Enacting her plan, Caleb murdered a man named Bryan Coleman and stole his identity. His MO was to kidnap one woman every three months, tattoo her with DOD (Day of Death) and that date, then slowly suffocate her inside an oil barrel so that she would die screaming. Having already succeeded in killing two women, Caleb's third victim was rescued by the police. Catching Officer John Nolan, Caleb attempted to drown him in a water tank, repeatedly pulling him out to prolong the brutal experience. Following a chance encounter, he turned his attention on Officer Lucy Chen, who he kidnapped then buried in an oil drum in the desert. Capturing Armstrong, Caleb intended to make him watch Lucy die before killing him in the same manner. Fatally wounded, Caleb interfered with the attempts to save him just to ensure Lucy would also die, his final words being him laughing that it was already too late.
  • "In the Line of Fire" through "Fire Fight": Marcus Lindsey, despite cultivating the image of a friendly but shy man, is secretly a grandiose Serial Killer motivated purely by sadism, gleefully boasting that "if I could kill a person every day, I'd be the happiest man on earth". Targeting recovering addicts, Marcus would disable them by running a stolen car into them, often breaking their legs, then taking them to a condemned building where he would viciously brutalize his helpless victim, before setting the building alight, leaving them to burn to death. For ten years, Marcus carried out his killing spree, moving around the country to stay off the authorities' radar before setting up shop in LA. Realizing the police were getting too close, Marcus framed his neighbor, LAFD Lieutenant Fred Mitchell, then murdered Fred with a bomb. Realizing John Nolan was on to him, Marcus trapped Nolan unarmed and injured inside an abandoned factory, so that he could enjoy the thrill of a proper hunt before skipping town.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • All of the talk early in the series about how 1 in 3 Rookies washes out of the program, and how Nolan, Chen and West will have each others backs to avoid this happening to them is rendered null and void when West is killed on the day before Nolan graduates from the program to become a full fledged officer.
  • Jackson's talk with Sergeant Grey and his father about his possible future role in "Bad Blood" becomes this when his death in "Life and Death" makes the whole topic pointless.
  • The cold open of "Casualties". Funny when it aired. Less funny when a few months later, a homemade glitter bomb at a gender reveal party in California sparked an enormous wildfire that did serious damage.
  • Rosalind Dyer's death in the Season 5 episode "The Choice" became this when Annie Wersching passed away from cancer 3 months after the episode aired.
• Narm: Tim and Lucy having criminal doppelgängers situated in Los Angeles that happen to be dating, and their going undercover as "Dim" and "Juicy" leading to the two cops realising their mutual attraction.
• Narrowed It Down to the Guy I Recognize: The second the phrase 'Dirty cop' comes up during "The Q Word", any viewer with a brain can instantly deduce it's the show's biggest name recurring guest star, Harold Perrineau.
• Nightmare Fuel: Rosalind Dyer and Caleb Wright, as evidenced by their entries under Complete Monster.
• The Scrappy: Tim’s sister Ginny tends to get a lot of hate from fans who see her as dismissive of the abuse Tim received as a child, as well as whiny when it came to renovating their old family house to prevent it from being sold despite the aforementioned history about Tim’s abuse.
• Spiritual Successor: To Rookie Blue, which features the same premise where new rookie officers are accustomed to everyday law enforcement work. Both shows have Canadians in the main cast, although Nathan Fillion has dual nationality with America and Canada.

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