The Rookie – The Watcher

The Rookie came back last week on ABC with an explosive premiere, and it’s here to deliver another great episode this Tuesday, January 14th. Truly: If this is the second episode of the season, I cannot wait to see how the rest of the season goes!

Last episode, we met two new rookies, Miles Penn (Deric Augustine) and Seth Ridley (Patrick Keleher). Lucy (Melissa O’Neil) was granted an interim TO position and made a bet with Tim (Eric Winter) over who could train the better rookie. Celina (Lisseth Chavez) may still be a rookie, but she’s in short sleeves now! Meanwhile, Wesley (Shawn Ashmore) finds out that a detective is having dreams about his wife.

Episode 2, “The Watcher”, starts off with an intriguing premise — a masked vigilante fighting crime where police presence is lacking. It touches on the gap between cops and the community, and is a surprisingly touching and emotional episode at points. Meanwhile, Tim and Lucy both discover surprising things about their rookies, adding to their depth — Seth’s in particular still has me in a bit of shock! And Nolan (Nathan Fillion) is tested just as much as Celina is during Plain Clothes Day.

There’s a lot of nostalgia within the episode. Food trucks, mentions of a previous Plain Clothes Day, and two certain detectives putting that uniform back on…

The roll call scene is a particular highlight.

Character of the Week: Celina Juarez

Celina finally gets her long-awaited Plain Clothes Day, and it’s definitely filled with a lot of twists and turns. She makes a stand, proves to the audience and to Nolan that she can be a cop by herself, and delivers an outstanding emotional speech.

Ship of the Week: Jayla

James was almost nowhere to be seen in season 6, beyond the 100th episode, but he’s back for season 7! He and Nyla definitely seem to have their ups and downs, but there’s always a path forward when two people really love each other.

Dialogue Teases:

“Two, but they’re vibrating.”

“I’d be proud of myself for not burning the house down.”

“What? You told me to be friendly!”

“They’re not demands, they’re respectful requests.”

Do you have any theories for “The Watcher”? What are you most excited about? Who’s saying the teased lines? Comment below all your thoughts about The Rookie!

Be sure to catch The Rookie live on ABC at 10PM on Tuesdays—or catch up on Hulu the next day!