'The Rookie' Season 3 Episode 2 Spoilers: Will Nolan's team see a cop go down for wrongfully tackling a Black man?
'The Rookie' Season 3 Episode 1 showed us how Lucy and Jackson's trust in their colleague, Nolan, helped him get closer to proving his innocence after he was framed by Nick Armstrong for being a dirty cop along with Harper. Thankfully, the direction that Jackson's investigation took, especially his line of questioning of Armstrong, who was admitted in the hospital after being injured during the gunfight in the finale episode of the show, set up the future trajectory of the current season. The other member of his team, who really is supportive of Nolan, happens to be Angela.
Despite fighting to get a search warrant for Nolan's home and sincerely attempting to capture him after reports of him attacking Armstrong came through, she had hoped that Nolan had a way to prove his innocence. For having shown deference to Armstrong, when Nolan and Harper had first decided to investigate him on their own before handing him over to the Internal Affairs, both the officers were gifted with being framed as dirty cops. However, it is this same deference that is shown to Nolan too by Sergeant Grey and that helps his situation. He is given the opportunity to surrender instead of being taken under custody like a common criminal. Especially considering the mounting amount of evidence against him. The only person who doesn't trust Nolan is Bradford, and he tries to influence Lucy's opinion as well. However, that doesn't really work. Nolan was able to prove his innocence and from the looks of it, Armstrong appears to be dead, however, the consequences that he needs to face are not forgotten, and it is definitely not just a slap on the wrist either. This is inspired and a welcome change from the host of other cop dramas.
This is why the promo of the next episode has us intrigued. One of Jackson and Nolan's colleague ends up tackling down a Black man/boy who is seen in a hoodie and turns out he is not the suspect that they were looking for. Will this episode use the death of George Floyd, attack on Jacob Blake, among other recent cases, to further its plot? If it does, would it present a perspective that is woke? Can we really see another inspired plot progression like the one with Nolan getting punished with a Letter of Reprimand? The letter that could very well lead to him losing the job as he is soon set to appear in front of the review board as a rookie? We will have to wait and watch.
'The Rookie' Season 3 airs every Sunday at 10 pm on ABC, and stars Nathan Fillion, Eric Winter, Melissa O'Neil, Alyssa Diaz, Titus Makin Jr, Mekia Cox and Harol Perrineau, among others.