The Rookie Season 2 Premiere: What Did You Think of Talia's Send-off?

Matt Webb Mitovich

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ABC’s The Rookie reported back for duty this Sunday — on a brand-new night and minus his training officer.

As well reported over the summer, original cast member Afton Williamson exited the light procedural ahead of Season 2, after claiming that the handling of allegations made by her during Season 1, against a crew member and a costar, were mishandled. (A third-party investigation did not support the actress claims; you can read all about it here.) As such, Officer John Nolan was suddenly without his TO, Talia Bishop, following a two-week time jump.

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“It’s not going to be quite the same without Talia,” Nolan said to girlfriend Jessica, as he readied to return from administrative leave. Jessica opined that “taking that job over at ATF was smart [for Talia]. She was never going to have the career she wanted at the LAPD, not after she lied about her brother [on her PHQ].”

And that, save for a bit of playful smack talking by Bradford about his former colleague (and whether her own boot got the lowest score on the six-month exam), was all we heard about Bishop in the season opener.

What was everyone else up to, two weeks after a hospital driveway shootout with a third terrorist involved in the finale’s bioweapon threat?

NOLAN is caught up in a demo/reno of a new place to live, when not taking notice of how Jessica can be not disturbed by harrowing events/crime scenes. It gets to a point where he rolls one of her phone calls, and she calls him on it the next morning at the precinct. He eventually explains that he has felt every iota of his intense first months as a cop, and he can’t imagine growing numb to it, as she has. He wants to feel everything. And that confession leaves Jessica feeling… a bit in love with her fella. But not enough that she’ll have sex with him in his dusty new home.

LOPEZ has moved in with boyfriend Wes, and that has proved to be quite an eye opener for the latter. Apparently, during the mere courtship phase, Lopez cleaned up her place if Wes was coming over. But as cohabitants, she is now “being herself” — which means being an epic, Leaves Half-Eaten Grilled Cheese Sandwiches in the Shower kind of slob. A spat ensues, timed debates are had, but Lopez eventually admits that she has never loved someone like this before and is worried she will screw it up. So yeah, they’re getting a maid.

BRADFORD — who collapsed in the finale due to an adverse reaction to the shot they gave him to counteract bioweapon exposure — is back to riding CHEN extra hard, humiliating her with IED hunts and such. She eventually asks why they seem to back to square one in their dynamic, and he says it’s because in her report on the quarantine house crisis, she omitted his suicidal ideations/request to be killed versus suffer.

Much drama surrounded the slow reveal of which rookies got what score on their six-month exam — namely, who mustered a barely passing 81? After a day of sweating out that mystery, SGT. GREY reveals that it was the hyper-diligent WEST. That gut punch leads West to tank an easy assignment, counseling some local cadets to “stop worrying about overachieving” and instead settle for “the middle.” When West later explains to Grey that he has come to realize he needs better balance in his life, the sergeant agrees — provided that it doesn’t impair his colleagues’ ability to rely on him on the streets. West’s time in the rookie program has thusly been extended, until Grey feels he can trust him with a roomful of cadets again.

What did you think of the Season 2 premiere, Bishop’s send-off, and the Crisis of the Week involving stolen police uniforms?

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