The Rookie Boss Teases Harper/Lopez as ‘Cagney & Lacey,’ a Hidden Season 6 Pregnancy and More

Yes, The Rookie Season 6 will be hosting a wedding (as the ABC procedural marks 100 episodes).

And yes, Nolan & Co. will have to deal with the ongoing threat posed by the criminal mastermind who popped up at the very end of Season 5.

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But there is so much more to look forward to as The Rookie unspools Season 6, starting this Tuesday at 9/8c (where it will now air between Will Trent Season 2 and The Good Doctor‘s farewell run).

TVLine sat down with showrunner Alexi Hawley last week to get a preview of his Cagney & Lacey reboot (of sorts), fresh #Chenford drama, and the (tiny) upside of only doing 10 episodes.

TVLINE | First off, preview “The Curse of the Last Shift” with which you open the season, because you obviously had a lot of fun with that.
I did. You know, that’s of the joy of the [police] “inside baseball,” the stuff that’s real. We have a writer on staff, Fredrick Kotto, who was a police officer for 18 years and so he knows all that stuff. Whenever he brings that kind of thing up, you’re like, “That’s great, because it’s true.” They’re all very superstitious, and to put [Nolan, played by Nathan Fillion] through that — because he doesn’t believe in it, of course, and then it all goes wrong — is  so much fun.

TVLINE | And Juarez (promoted series regular Lisseth Chavez), meanwhile, keeps bringing it up…
Exactly, she’s so superstitious and can’t stop bringing it up because she’s scared of it, so it was a great pairing. A really fun story.

TVLINE | Episode 100 is the second episode of the new season. What’s the plan?
Obviously there’s a wedding — Nolan and Bailey’s wedding is the anchor of that episode. It was really important to me to do an episode that felt joyful, that celebrated our characters. I mean, we’ve done weddings before on the show, some of which have gone horribly wrong, so I felt like it was important to really celebrate and tell a really fun story for the most part.

TVLINE | I’ve seen it and it really is emblematic of the show, because there’s comedy and there’s banter and there’s relationship stuff, but then just when you think it’s going to be a full, light-hearted hour, you throw in some drama. 
I really wanted it to be everything we do. That’s the joy for me of the show, is we do everything tonally. Some episodes skew funnier, some episodes skew more dramatic. I mean, obviously the season finale was an incredibly tense, action-packed thriller, but then you bring in people like Flula Borg [as Randy] or when we can get him, Pete Davidson, and it skews much more comedic. And I love that that world is still the same world. So, yeah, for the 100th I wanted to be able to touch on everything we do tonally, which we got to do.

TVLINE | What sort of character arcs do you have coming up this season?
We have a lot of stuff. Even though it’s just 10 episodes, we’re telling a lot of stories this season.

Lopez (Alyssa Diaz) is just coming back from having her baby, settling back in, but then “the child care of it all” is going to come into play for her and Harper (Mekia Cox), because it’s important to us that we don’t shy away from what being a working parent is like — especially a working mother in this kind of business. How does Harper navigate it when they have trouble with the people that are helping them? It ends up being a really fun storyline where we basically do a ride-along with a nanny candidate in the back seat.

What I love about [Lopez and Harper] is that they really are such a great pair. I know that television has been trying to find their Cagney & Lacey reboot forever, and I’m like, “We have it right here.” They’re just great together.

Also, in the premiere, Harper goes through something following a shooting. We don’t play that out for a long time, but we find moments in every episode to find stuff for the characters that’s dramatic as well.

TVLINE | And for Lucy (Melissa O’Neil), is “the detectives exam” always going to be just around the corner, or are we going to eventually get to it?
No, we get there. We get there, we definitely do, and it is a pivotal career moment for her. I don’t want to spoil it, but ultimately it’s about that drive to become an undercover detective, to commit to it seriously, all while she has somebody trying to take her legs out from under her because of the “five-player trade” she made last season to get Tim (Eric Winter) into Metro.

But also, bringing back Isabel, Tim’s ex-wife, at the end of last season was very purposeful because that’s a window into Tim’s past for him to be reminded of what the cost of being an undercover officer, especially deep undercover, can be. We’re trying to play a little bit fair with the audience and with them about the potential impact that could have on their relationship. [Note: Additionally, Eric Winter teased at the TCA winter press tour, “I’m learning more about Tim this season, things coming from my past.”]

TVLINE | What’s ahead for Nolan, beyond the wedding day?
Nolan will be going through a bunch of stuff, with and without Bailey (Jenna Dewan), obviously. I don’t want to spoil anything at this point, but there’s definitely some drama on the home front, I guess I can say.

TVLINE | And how are you going to accommodate Jenna Dewan’s pregnancy? 
We’ve had a lot of [real-life] pregnancies on the show over the years; this is going to be the first one that we don’t feature in the character. That being said, I think it’s fair to say that there will be conversations and conflict about the idea of whether they’re going to have kids, independent of Jenna literally being pregnant.

TVLINE | That sounds logical because John has a grown son, and Bailey may be rarin’ to start a family….
Right. It’s definitely a conversation. This was the first time that I got an “I am pregnant” phone call from an actress where I didn’t step into the writers room and go, “OK, this is what we’re doing this year…,” because we already had story that we really liked that was about the conversations. So, yeah, we’re hiding it.

TVLINE | What are you most excited about this season? Was there any upside to the condensed, 10-episode season?
I mean, yes and no. I sort of feel like every season has been different, which is good, right? Obviously there have been some obstacles along the way, with the pandemic and all that, but I do feel like, for whatever reason, every season has felt like it’s own thing, and this season is the same. Having only 10 episodes to tell a story does force you to really crystalize it all. We’re probably a little more serialized in these 10 episodes than we would be over 22 — which doesn’t mean that they’re not standalones and you can’t enjoy one without knowing where you’ve been. But the finiteness of it, we made it a strength instead of a problem for us. And you know, I’m super excited about the 100th, I couldn’t be more proud of it.

Want scoop on The Rookie, or for any other TV show ? Email InsideLine@tvline.com, and your question may be answered via Matt’s Inside Line!

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