In The Switch the rookies are paired up with different TO's: Chen with Bishop, Nolan with Lopez, and Bradford with Jackson.
The crux of most of this episode was the pairing between the hard nosed, take no excuses Bradford and the more timid and younger, Jackson.
As we first saw in the premiere episode the highly intelligent and competent Jackson has a fear of shootouts. His regular TO Lopez was strict with him, but allowed some leeway especially taking into consideration that his father is the commander of Internal Affairs. Bradford is a whole other TO; he does not care who Jackson is and he does not hold back on his thoughts on the negative implications of his fear of bullets, threatening to end his career by exposing his fear.
Bradford would eventually leave Jackson to talk with Wallace, a former partner of his who had holed himself up in his home due to his fear of leaving his apartment. What followed was a heartwarming dialogue in which Jackson sees first hand through Wallace what happens when we let our fears continue to control us - it grows bigger.
Jackson would eventually save Bradford in the drug bust, saving himself from a short end to his career.
Meanwhile, Nolan sees the humanity in criminals. In the opening scene Nolan discovers the two robbers he and Bishop arrested were crazy in love and he allowed them to get engaged before taking them in. Later on in the episode, Nolan finds out that the criminal who escaped the courthouse went to dance with his daughter at her quinceanara.
I love how human every story feels. It's not just a catch the criminal of the episode type of cop show, there is a real human aspect to the cases the characters come across. There is also a certain quirkiness to the proceedings that all the more make this show feel like real life. All though to be fair, the drug bust did feel like a bit of a stretch as there would usually be NARC's involved and definitely not a bunch of rookie police officers and their TO's.
Going back to Nolan, things between himself and Chen do not go so well as they eventually breakup to protect their careers ending the episode on a very heartbreaking note.
Overall, 'The Switch' was a refreshing episode to have due it its shift of character dynamics. All of the characters have so far played exceptionally well off each other and the very human stories continue to make The Rookie feel relatable while also being highly entertaining week in, week out.
9/10
