The Rookie - True Crime - Review

With a new episode on tonight, let’s do a recap of the show’s last outing, which was *GASP* four weeks ago.

Just before the show went on a month long hiatus, The Rookie decided to break formula a little bit and delivered a “mockumentary” style episode. The “documentary” in question explores the origins of a cult group named The Worthy, expands on various scandals the cult and their leader were involved in and the “bloody” conclusion of it all.

We learn that former child star Corey Harris (played by former child star Frankie Muniz) bitter and angry from his failed acting career, evolved his acting class into a cult, which he ended up using it as ruse to collect money, via various nefarious schemes including robbery, which he convinced his “disciples” to commit. Eventually he even used the cult as a platform to pitch a script he’d written and make it into a movie and get “back in the game”. In the process of betraying his partner in life, crime and acting so that he could have all the glory for himself, she eventually turns up dead. Corey is the prime suspect but his mumager takes the fall instead, and confesses to the murder. Thinking he’s off scot-free, in an ironic turn he himself ends up the victim of a serial killer, whose infamy he had a hand in building up through his acting classes/cult.

Our trusty cops become part of this whole mess as the starting point of the documentary’s narrative is readdressing the encounter with the cult group Jackson and Angela had in episode 2.06. Everyone gets weaved in and out of the story even further as all the drama of kidnapping, double crossing, body snatching, grand larceny, identity theft and eventual murder surrounds the going ons of this cult.

There are also some personal connections for our characters as Nolan finds himself a bit conflicted and star struck, seeing that Henry, his son, used to be a huge fan of Corey growing up. We also find out this cult is in fact the reason Jackson and Sterling broke up. Evidently Sterling - who is actually named Skipper and is from Australia - used to be a member of the cult... The less we say about this storyline the better if you ask me. I think the only thing I’ll add, is to reaffirm what I said in my last review, that at least they addressed the break up.

I’ve always maintained that the quality of a show can easily be measured by how well it fares when it decides to break formula, and I will happily say The Rookie passed the test. While one can easily claim the episode was more of a filler instalment, it managed to maintain the integrity of the show and stayed true to the characters. Any hard core fan of The Rookie should highly enjoy the episode.

That aside though, what is very refreshing about True Crime is that it actually functions fairly well on its own a parody/satire of the genre, making it a pretty interesting hour of television on its own merit, even outside of the context of the show. Not to mention any excuse that allows Rain Wilson cameo as himself is welcome!

That’s that for the previous episode. Tune in tonight for a brand new instalment of The Rookie!