After not airing on the fall 2024 schedule, The Rookie Season 7 is finally premiering in a matter of days, and there’s quite a lot to unpack following the Season 6 finale. The corruption scandal that turned the police department upside down, Nathan Fillion’s Nolan was shot in the butt, and infamous villains Oscar and Jason escaped prison. It’s been a long wait for fans to see what happens, and creator and showrunner Alexi Hawley told TVLine what’s in store for the upcoming season and the fallout of the Season 6 finale.
“It’s been a few weeks, time enough for Nolan to heal up [from being shot in the butt] – though whether he’s healed up enough or not is a bit of a debate in Episode 1,” Hawley shared. “He’s trying to get back on that horse more quickly than he should. But he’s feeling very pressured because [Bailey’s escaped convict ex-husband] Jason is out there, as is Oscar, but Jason is more of the existential threat to Nolan’s family. We come in with that sense of, ‘We have to catch this guy before he comes for my wife and myself,’ only to — spoiler! — get thwarted by the fact that they have bad information.”
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As for the scandal, which included lawyer and Wesley’s ex-fiancé Monica and saw a lot of private details come out of the force thanks to LAPD psychiatrist Blair London, Hawley revealed that it will have a “ripple effect” throughout the 18-episode seventh season. “It felt important that we kept that alive, that we didn’t just drop the ball on that,” he said. “That gave us a fun opportunity with Wesley coming in to be, as we call him, the hall monitor.’ The DA is making sure that everybody’s flying right, only for Wesley to stumble across a tape, something in the course of listening to officers talking in therapy, that has a personal impact on him.”
Meanwhile, criminals Oscar Hutchinson and Jason Wyler, who is Bailey’s sociopathic ex-husband (played by Jenna Dewan’s IRL fiancé, Steve Kazee), escaped prison, and with the two of them on the loose, everyone is going to have their eyes wide open. And Jason is going to “ultimately pose the biggest threat in the first half of the season,” Alexi Hawley said. “He is sort of the existential threat because he is a threat to the family, Bailey especially. But we’ll also lean into some of the trauma of Bailey’s relationship with Jason that maybe she hasn’t processed yet, the abusive relationship she was in with this guy. That percolates up in the fear of the reunion because part of the drama of the first half of the season is ‘When is he going to show up?’ And that sense of always being afraid is not healthy.”
It should be pointed out that because of her maternity leave, Dewan will not be in the first couple of episodes of Season 7, but Hawley assured that she will be back as Bailey Nune in the third episode, meaning that’s probably when the Jason storyline will truly take off. And it’s hard to tell just what will happen.
There will be a lot going on for the LAPD when The Rookie Season 7 premieres, and fans will want to tune in on Tuesday, Jan. 7 at 10 p.m. ET on ABC to see how it kicks off.