The Rookie just killed off a character in a shocking death scene ahead of the season 8 finale.
During the Monday, April 27, episode of the hit ABC series, Monica (Bridget Regan) tried to get away from the Feds and the arms dealer she crossed.
She tried to find a way to run away — after having a conversation with ex Wesley (Shawn Ashmore) — but her trip to the airport took a turn when the driver passed the LAX exit.
Monica accepted her fate by just asking that the driver not shoot her “in the face.” Instead, Monica is shot twice in the chest and her body is left on the side of the road for Tim (Eric Winter), Nolan (Nathan Fillion), Nyla (Mekia Cox), Angela (Alyssa Diaz), Grey (Richard T. Jones) and Garza (Felix Solis) to find before Wesley joined them.
“When [showrunner] Alexi [Hawley] called me — I mean, well, first of all, whenever a showrunner calls you, you have to be worried that it’s the call of death. But truly, I was not surprised. I was thrilled that she lasted as long as she did,” Regan told TV Insider. “If you play with fire, as long as she has, eventually you’re going to get burned. And as I said to Alexi and everybody, I was like, she’s not on her ninth life. She’s on her 37th.”
Regan pointed out that Monica “escaped multiple assassinations and prison time.”
“When her number was finally up, I wasn’t surprised. I thought, fair enough. She’s had an amazing run, four years on this show. I’m only filled with gratitude,” she continued. “But what I was surprised by was just how incredibly sad I was for her. Not that she died, but that she never truly flipped, that she actually succumbed to the dark side and couldn’t find her way back. And I felt like there was this version of Monica that could have been something else, but she just could never get there. So to me, that was the real heartbreak of it all.”
The actress recalled being promised an epic onscreen death, adding, “You hear about all these famous shows where everyone’s dying all the time, like The Sopranos, etc. Everyone’s reading the script, going, ‘Do I die? Do I die? Do I die? Do I die?’ I always had that in the back of my mind because I felt like it was inevitable. Either at some point, she was going to go to jail, or she was going to die.”
For Regan, it was special getting to see Monica go out on her own terms.
“What’s so fun about her is she is who she is. The ‘not in the face’ line is how she’s always going to be her vain, fabulous, greedy self. That’s just who she is. She can be terribly smug,” she noted. “With Monica, you’re always walking that line. She has to be confident enough that you believe she can hold her own in this criminal world, but I always wanted her to be believable, but there’s also something deliciously over the top about who she is. She’s so fun, and she refuses to be anything but herself. And so yeah, we were always calibrating.”
Regan admitted that wrapping up her time on The Rookie “was emotional,” saying, “It was heavy. I was bummed. I was like, oh man, this is such an incredible show to be a part of. But I did feel like, creatively, it was time for her to go. Because if we’re going to say that she’s messing with all these dangerous criminals from Elijah to Aiden to Cooper Johnson, it would be unbelievable if it didn’t catch up with her at some point.”
The Rookie airs on ABC Mondays at 10 p.m. ET.
