The Rookie - Bad Blood - Review

With a new episode on tonight, let’s do a recap of the show’s outing last week, which marked another appearance for Matthew Glave’s Oscar “The Recurring Convict” Hutchinson (who much to my personal dismay seems to becoming a bit of a staple on the show), and yet another Castle alum showing up.

In our main storyline Angela pulls Nolan and Harper in on a detail as her kidnapping case, who is the son of a judge, seems to have a connection to Oscar. Following protocol, Angela feels there’s a conflict of interest being the one to question him, seeing as he stabbed Wesley and all, so Nyla and John get recruited for the job. Turns out the daughter Oscar never knew about, has ties to the kidnapping. He haggles his way into day-pass in return for tracking down his old trysts and find who and where his daughter might be. While he drives our duo crazy they do end up finding the daughter, Ashley (enter Castle’s Molly Quinn).

We find out via Ashley the kidnapping was actually staged, because Austin, the judge's son, had a falling out with his parents, and that Ashley too was in on it. But as Nyla and John track down the lead to trace the supposed “victim” they find signs of foul play and realise that things have taken a seriously wrong turn. This is indeed a proper kidnapping case, and Austin’s dealer is now holding him hostage, demanding ransom is more than willing to bleed him dry to get the million dollars they want. Oscar gets Ashley to tell him where they might find Austin, and uses it as pretence of leverage, when in fact he just exploits the extra time out to try and escape. Too bad for him Harper and Nolan know him to well by now so they don’t fall for his play. In the end they get him to tell them where Austin might be and get to the kid in time.

In the conclusion of this storyline, Wesley and Angela discuss how money can destroy a kid, considering how Partice has been pestering them about setting up a trust fund for the baby, and taking Austin and this whole as an example to avoid they decide that they’ll need to be careful with how they raise their own child (though considering how Wesley turned out, even with being a rich kid I think they don’t need to worry that much).
Speaking of children, Ashley for her part feels a bit betrayed for having trusted Oscar, when she realises he mostly used and lied to her, and John berates him for his poor “parenting”. In the end though Oscar admits he did feel something for the girl, which prompts John to dispense some parenting and life advice even he is aware it’ll fall on deaf ears: Oscar needs to work more on himself if he wants to have any positive impact on Ashley and not just be a cautionary tale for her.

On the side of this whole ordeal John’s Ethics Class comes into play again, as Professor Ryan, presents him with a legal question, he is required to answer correctly if he wants to make up a test he missed. He stresses over the answer for the duration of the episode asking even Oscar for advice but in the end decides to give the most diplomatic yet honest approach: he simply doesn’t have enough facts to give an informed answer, which seemed to be the right thing to say, as Prof Ryan does allow him to retake the test in the end.

Elsewhere Tim chases down an old nemesis from his rookie days: a tagger who tagged the shop while he was standing 10 feet away. The tagger has targeted him again after disappearing for almost a decade. He gets all worked up and obsessive over this, getting Tim a second time throughout the chase. In the end they catch the tagger by change when she trips and falls from a ledge on her own. Tim lets her off the hook when he hears her reasons and backstory. Being abandoned by her husband and wanting to feel young again seems to be something Officer Bradford can more than relate to.

While Tim obsesses about his tagger Lucy is on a downward spiral over having Emmett break up with her via text. As retaliation she asks one of Emmett’s co-workers out, and it’s only when Tim points out that maybe Emmett treated the relationship like it didn’t matter because she did the same does she revaluate her vengeful approach.

Lastly Commander West and Sergeant Grey take a vested interest in the trajectory of Jackson’s career, Percy believing IA is the right place to go to “clean up the department”, and whereas Wade thinks becoming an instructor at the academy and starting his influence from the ground up would be more productive. Both men get so caught up in what they believe is right they forget to factor Jackson in at all, which proves frustrating to the young rookie. It’s a very nice C-plot, where the dynamics between the three men are beautifully reflected. Both the veteran cops seeing in Jackson the “future of the department” and wanting to steer him the right direction is a loving sentiment, even if the way they go about it is misguided. And it was also lovely to see in the end Jackson acknowledging that, while clearing his stance of wanting to choose his own path, and still asking they be there for guidance when he needs it. Needless to say they are both willing to do as such and more than happy to duke it out as to who he gets to go to first.

All in all a great episode, even if the cases were a little splintered, and I personally am a little tired of Oscar (no diss on Matthew Glave intended. In fact his relishing and having fun in the performance is maybe the one thing that makes the return of a character who I find has frustratingly overstayed his welcome, at all palatable). I’m also commending the show again for addressing a side love interest’s absence properly.

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