Note: This story contains spoilers from “The Rookie” Season 8, Episode 1.
“The Rookie” creator Alexi Hawley doesn’t fear the so-called “‘Moonlighting’ curse.” Named after the 1980s series starring Bruce Willis and Cybill Shepherd, the term refers to the dropoff that sometimes follows when a series’ will-they-won’t-they couple finally makes things official.
In the Season 8 premiere of “The Rookie,” fan-favorite duo Lucy Chen (Melissa O’Neil) and Tim Bradford (Eric Winter) made things very official: After a rough Season 6 breakup and a flirty Season 7, not only are they getting back together, she’s also moving in with him.
Hawley isn’t worried. “There’s just so much left, so many stories left to tell, honestly, that I’m not afraid,” the “Rookie” boss told TheWrap ahead of the premiere. Hawly notes that their moment of cohabitating bliss is both earned and opens the doors to “lighter storylines,” and even some “rom-com stuff,” in the season ahead. That includes the long-awaited introduction of Tim’s mom.
“What does that dynamic do with Lucy, and how will she get along with the mom that we’ve never seen?” Hawley asked, teeing up an interesting new wrinkle in the pair’s storied relationship.
Tim and Lucy weren’t the only ones faced with major shakeups in the premiere episode. After scoring her immunity deal and a quick jaunt to Prague with Nolan (Nathan Fillion), Nyla (Mekia Cox) and Bailey (Jenna Dewan), Monica (Bridget Regan) finds herself in a new struggle: broke, stuck in LA and working with the Feds, which won’t make her former criminal collaborators too happy.
“She’s burned all sorts of bridges,” Hawley told TheWrap. “So she’s found herself a little bit reliant on the kindness of the people that were her nemeses for seasons.”
It also tees up the Mid-Wilshire team to hunt down several big bads throughout the season, according to Hawley. An opportunity that lets Lieutenant Wade Grey (Richard T. Jones) step out from behind the Watch Commander’s desk, which not only gives his character a “fresh start,” according to Hawley, but opens up that position for a new teammember.
Read our full interview kicking off the new season below, in which Hawley also unpacks Tim’s new insecurities and why the writers ultimately chose not to kill Monica. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
TheWrap: We’re catching up mid-December, right before holiday break. Where are you guys at in your production on Season 8? Are you getting near the end, or are you still in the thick of it?
No, we’re getting there. We’re shooting Episode 15 right now. We start shooting 16 next week, out of 18. So we’ll wrap early February at this point.
This premiere moves a lot of key characters around. We’ve got Tim and Lucy moving in together, which opens up new roommates with Selena and Miles. We’ve got this big stakes new job for Grey, Monica’s back in town, to name a few. When you’re running a long-standing series like this, how do you know when it’s time to change so much at once? And what gave you the motivation at this time for to reposition the pieces on the board a bit?
That’s an interesting question. I think you kind of just know. But look, you can look at every season, and I really do believe that every season of “The Rookie” is different. Some of it is from outside factors. Obviously, strikes and pandemics and stuff like that affected some of our storytelling for practical reasons. Obviously, George Floyd’s death caused us to look at policing in a deeper way. Not that we hadn’t before, but it did force us to really dig in on that, which I’m proud of how we dealt with that. So, there’s a lot of things that sort of factor in, but I do really believe that the show needs to keep reinventing itself in big and small ways so that it never feels like we’re just treading water.
So coming into this season, Monica’s immunity deal felt like an opportunity to sort of “Blacklist” it, for lack of a more nuanced term, to get that sort of scenario set up where we get a big bad, you know, three or four big bads, during the course of season that she can help us chase downgive, and give Grey a fresh start as something else, and then give Tim the opportunity. But it’s a double-edged sword, because it’s not patrol work. So how does he feel about that? Along the way, we’re shaking all of our characters up as we go..
You’ve set Lucy and Tim up for this hard-earned stage of stability that folks have been craving, but famously, pulling off a sustained “they will” after years of “will-they-won’t-they” is quite challenging. So I’m curious what excites you about following these characters through a less tumultuous, less toxic, as Tim put it, phase of their relationship?
I mean, there’s just so much left, so many stories left to tell, honestly, that I’m not afraid. They’ve earned where they’re going to get this season, but I think that opens the door for some lighter storylines and some lighter hijinks, for lack of a better term, rom-com stuff, which is really interesting.
You know, spoiler alert, we are going to see Tim’s mom this season. What does that dynamic do with Lucy, and how will she get along with the mom that we’ve never seen? There’s lots of places to just dig in on some stuff that we just haven’t done before because of all the other stories we were telling. So yeah, I think I’m not scared of what happy might look like. Because I think, as with any relationship, there’s nuance to it.
Yeah, you’re clearly not scared of these committed romances in your show. You’ve got quite a few of them. Is that something in particular you and your team like to write?
I’ve been married 30 years, so it’s kind of what I know to a certain extent. Again,I’m not scared of stable relationships. I think there’s inherent drama just in two people trying to make it work. And sometimes being in different places and trying to forge that relationship and not abandon it. I do think, honestly, in this day and age where it feels like younger people feel like it’s almost impossible to meet anyone or connect with anyone, or form relationships with anyone, partly because of the toxicity of social media. Trying to portray couples that are navigating this and trying to be generous with each other, even though it’s hard, all the stuff that I feel like makes a successful relationship, it doesn’t need to be one note. It’s actually really complicated to navigate that, so I love exploring that with the show.
We also see Tim have a couple of moments of insecurity in this episode, which Lucy actually calls out. After his journey last season, he’s navigating this relationship from this new place for the first time. Is that insecurity something he’ll continue to deal with or is that more of like, baby’s first steps are a little unsteady?
No, he will. His communication, or lack thereof, to a certain extent, does continue. Which, again, is part of, how do you make a relationship work? You have to communicate. And so you know, his way of dealing with the world, which — look, a lot of what I love about Tim’s journey is that it’s really complicated, and there’s a lot of darkness in there. His childhood was abusive and violent, and he navigated that, but it left scars, and it left some ways of dealing with the world, which he had to unlearn. And being a soldier turned cop, there’s a lot of stuff that’s sort of been programmed into him, which he’s trying to figure out how to navigate. So that is all really fascinating. People don’t change completely, ever. As long as he’s still committed to figuring it out, that’s interesting.
Okay, so speaking of will-they-won’t-they, you’ve got this big will-they-won’t-they kill Monica sequence in the hallway, and then… you don’t. So I’m curious about what motivated the story choice to not just keep her around, but humbled, a little broke and very local.
I think that’s … how do you shake Monica up is you put her in an unexpected situation where, okay, she’s managed to run between the raindrops and actually walk away with immunity; something that seemed impossible, through her machinations, her duplicity and stuff like that. But now, she does find herself at the top of this episode, and in a season, in a place that’s unfamiliar, which is, she’s not a lawyer anymore. She got disbarred, and she can’t really do what she used to do. And there are people who are still mad at her, and especially now that they’re going to find out that she’s working with the feds. She’s burned all sorts of bridges, so she’s found herself a little bit reliant on the kindness of the people that were her nemeses for seasons, so that’s really interesting to me.
And then, to try and find places to show humanity with her. I mean, the conversation in the episode is a little bit of a writer’s room conversation of like, what is the level of actual humanity and empathy that exists inside of Monica? And is she redeemable? I feel really good about how our show has navigated complex villains from the beginning. The character that Harold Perrineau played for us was really complicated in such a tragic way, and Bridget plays Monica in the same sort of vibe, which is that she’s not just one note.
“The Rookie” airs Tuesdays at 10 p.m. ET/PT on ABC and streams the next day on Hulu.
The post ‘The Rookie’ Boss on Tim and Lucy’s Big Move: ‘I’m Not Scared of What Happy Might Look Like’ appeared first on TheWrap.
