The Rookie - Plain Clothes Day - Review

Its plain clothes day for the rookies this week, which means they are officially in charge for a day. Their T.O.'s will tag along purely in an observational matter. Otherwise, West, Chen, and Nolan are behind the wheel.

CHEN & BRADFORD

Lucy is way too cocky for her own good as she takes off for the day ahead with Tim. He tries to psych her out of course, reminding her that basically all the rookies he had before her washed out on this very day.

ABC/Rick Rowell

At first it appears she is off to a good start. She apprehends a peeping tom disguised as a guy from a power company but she forgets one crucial step in the arrest process. She doesn't check his van for further evidence. Child predators and sexual offendors are known to keep things they want hidden from their parole officers in vehicles and Lucy mistakenly lets the van get taken.

She doesn't fare much better when there is a neighborly dispute and an embittered man named Rodney Acker is borderline abusing his dog and generally being a massive jerk. He gets in Lucy's face and she threatens him which backfires when Rodney files a complaint against her.

But it turns out, Lucy was right to take a dislike to Acker, not just because he's rude but he is also a murderer. Something she discovers later that night when they return so Tim could talk him down. The neighbor who complained earlier is found dead in his garage with gardening shears buried in her neck.

ABC/Rick Rowell

Overall though, Lucy does a pretty good job. She impresses Tim, who believed she would second-guess every decision, which she did, but not when it really mattered. I daresay she made him proud.

NOLAN & BISHOP

Nolan's plain clothes day begins a little rocky as he lets one of his suspects run free (mistakenly thinking Talia would watch him even though she explicitly stated she was there but not really there.) They manage to track him down after he attempts to escape but it clearly rattles Nolan enough to the point that he messes up yet again later on with a mother and her child, terrorizing them inadvertently after misreading a situation.

But Nolan has the chance to save face later on when he and Bishop rescue a woman who becomes victim to her abusive husband. The woman, Lynn, stops Nolan and asks him for advice on tracking credit cards but Nolan blows her off, thinking her question is better suited for someone at the front desk. This comes back to bite him when she winds up kidnapped.

ABC/Rick Rowell

By the end of the day though, he makes it through okay, and Lynn comes out alive.

WEST & LOPEZ

The only duo who never actually get out on the streets is West and Lopez. Unfortunately, they get bogged down in clerical work despite West's earnest desire to break all his father's records.

The day isn't entirely uneventful though since West learns a valuable lesson about dealing with victims or the family of victims. A Mrs. Ochoa comes to the precinct after her husband's murder, begging for any of his possessions back but West is unable to provide her with any given their status as evidence.

But by the end of his shift, after giving up his chance to break records altogether, West is able to find an old watch that wasn't technically part of the murder scene. It turns out to have great sentimental value to Mrs. Ochoa and she's grateful to West for returning it to her.

Odds & Ends

- The ending where Lucy gives Tim her bar tab slyly disguised as her own personal evaluation of him was genius.

A new episode of The Rookie titled "Manhunt" premieres March 5th on ABC.