Unfinished business
Season 3 of The Rookie takes police procedural dramas in a new direction when officer Nolan is framed for murder.
The Rookie
Season 3 Wednesdays (from 10 March) M-Net (*101) 19:30
If you’ve been watching The Rookie (2018-now), you’ll remember that the last time we checked in with rookie LAPD officer John Nolan (Nathan Fillion, Richard Castle in cop action show Castle, 2009-2016, see p53), he was framed by his own hero. Detective Nick Armstrong (Harold Perrineau, Dean Simms in dark comedy Claws, 2017-now) planted evidence to make it appear that Nolan was a mole for a crime syndicate and that’s something that happens in real life, says Nathan. “We worked with real cops and they told us how they had moles betraying them. With our show, we try to show life as a cop as accurately as possible. Everything from policing events like Black Lives Matter protests, to the frustration officers face when it comes to mundane procedures – and the consequences of skipping these.
Season 3 is going to explore how the police deal with insiders turning on the badge and why they sometimes run undercover operations investigating their own. “Harper (Mekia Cox, Robin Charles until 2019 in medical drama Chicago
Med, 2016-now) and Nolan realised that Armstrong had been stealing evidence and feeding the Derian family about police raids. He found out and has made sure that Nolan is taking the fall. Nolan realises this as his fellow cops arrive to arrest him,” says Nathan. “He’s going to fall before he can climb out of trouble.”
POLICE LIFELINE
Season 3 also makes it abundantly clear that the police do not give everyone the same treatment. When Nolan is taken into custody, his lawyer Wes Evers (Shawn Ashmore, Lamplighter in sci-fi series The Boys, 2019-now) tells him point-blank that he’s being afforded courtesies because of who he is – courtesies that black and brown people wouldn’t have gotten. “Part of what makes The Rookie fantastic is that we want to be accurate. In this time, part of that is making sure people understand that not everyone’s experience with the police is the same,” says Nathan. “That is the hard-hitting truth of police and the way the public experience them.”
THE REAL BAD GUYS
While Nolan is behind bars, his training officer partner Harper will be trying to prove his innocence to the Internal Affairs Commander Percy West (Michael Beach, Leroy in action cop series S.W.A.T., 2017-now). Thing is, West is looking to make an example out of Nolan, ranting about how “it’s my job to seek out dirty cops, but that is made near impossible by cops who refuse to co-operate, thinking the more honourable thing to do is protect your fellow officers”. The Rookie creator Alexi Hawley shares these sentiments. “Internal Affairs has been made out to be the bad guy. Their job is to police the police, to keep them from doing bad things. Those scenes probably would not have existed in the form that they have without this [Black Lives Matter] movement,” says Alexi, adding that “keeping the cops on the straight and narrow is maybe more important than keeping the public on the right side of the law.
While Nolan is fighting for his freedom and to clear his name, he won’t be out on the streets. Instead, he’ll be confined to desk duty at the station, doing admin and other mundane processes that cops do. “Paperwork, checks on the weapons armoury, cleaning cars, booking duty – deviate from those processes, and you delve into chaos, and Nolan has to keep this at the front of his mind right now,” says Alexi. “We’ve always been invested in getting into what the real story is in terms of policing and we dig deeper this season. The show was designed to be aspirational in nature, but by focusing solely on that, we’d be portraying policing that doesn’t exist.”
LONG ROAD TO REDEMPTION
Looking ahead, Nolan will have to deal with his insubordination in a very real way. “Nolan has suffered a setback. He didn’t follow protocol and he should have. I don’t want to spoil it, but he’s going to have to take some interesting measures if he wants to get back to where he was prior to his arrest,” says Nathan. “On most cop shows, an officer kills people, criminals, and the cop is back on the street after the commercial break. We can’t. That’s not what we do. And it definitely affects our storytelling. We need to honour the punishment to open up other doorways for stories.”