Season six of “The Rookie” premiered on ABC on Tuesday, Feb. 20, following a dramatic ending to season five back in May 2023. This article will contain spoilers, so I hope you’re all caught up on the series.
At the end of season five, the LAPD is attacked by an anonymous group of people for a seemingly unknown reason. Police officer John Nolan and his fiancée Bailey were attacked at their home, and officer Nyla Harper and her husband James almost lost their daughter to an attempted kidnapping. Perhaps the biggest part of these attacks was when officer Celina Juarez was assaulted and officer Aaron Thorsen was shot in the back in an alley in the middle of the night. After finding the suspect they thought was behind the attacks at the end of the episode, it’s revealed that this was a cover for a group robbing a Federal Reserve bank in Los Angeles while the LAPD has their focus elsewhere. We are left not knowing whether Aaron would survive and if we would lose another character in the series.
“The Rookie” is a serious show, but it does have moments of comedy — unusual for a cop show that isn’t primarily a comedy, such as “Psych” or “Brooklyn Nine-Nine,” but that’s part of the reason why it’s been so successful. However, with the season five finale, I didn’t find myself laughing at all and was absolutely horrified at the masks these attackers were wearing. It was like watching a horror movie after Valentine’s Day.
Luckily, the season six premiere was more of a lighter episode while still keeping a serious tone. The LAPD figured out there was a robbery happening at the same Federal Reserve bank, but the main suspects got away. Fast forward to six weeks later and the hunt is still on for these suspects, along with other events happening around the station. John has his last shift before getting married, detective Angela Lopez returns after having her baby at the end of season five and we see a person ride in on a motorcycle. It’s Aaron! It’s his first day back at the station. While most fans presumed he was alive thanks to a sighting in the trailer and some spoilers from “The Rookie” stars on TikTok, it was a huge sigh of relief seeing him back for the beginning of season six.
There were two cases that took up a majority of the episode: Nyla leading the hunt for the Federal Reserve suspects and Officers Tim Bradford and Lucy Chen taking a “wild card” case to help her prepare for the detective’s exam. I thought it was excellent when we see the LAPD raiding a suspect’s home in connection with the bank robbery, and then the next minute the station is playing circus music to make fun of Lucy for messing up her wild card case. That’s what I love about this show: It’s so serious one minute — you’re biting your nails, worried about the characters — and the next minute, you’re cracking up at circus music being played to make fun of Lucy. “The Rookie” does this so well, and the first episode didn’t miss a beat.
The end of the premiere raised more questions for fans and kept everyone on the edge of their seats for the next episode. They catch the main suspect in the Federal Reserve robbery, and his lawyer ends up being Wesley Evers’ ex-fiancée, Monica (who was previously Elijah Stone’s lawyer). She makes a call at the end of the episode, telling the other person to deal with the suspect in a way that’ll help them sleep at night. While the suspect is being transported, he is killed by an unknown assassin.
If I had to take a guess, I think she’s either talking to Oscar (who might be working with Elijah inside prison) or a previous character associated with Sandra De La Cruz, also known as “La Fiera,” Abril Rodas. My theory is that we’ll see that Elijah ordered the hit at the end of the episode and audiences will see him and Oscar become bigger villains throughout season six.
