Afton Williamson leaving The Rookie, will not return for season 2
Consider this one of the big surprises leading into this fall TV season: Afton Williamson is leaving The Rookie before season 2.
According to a report from TVLine, the departure of Williamson from the series is “amicable” — and that Alyssa Diaz, Richard T. Jones, Titus Makin Jr., Melissa O’Neil and Eric Winter will all be returning (alongside, of course, Nathan Fillion) for the next new run of episodes. The fact that these particular cast members are coming back is a pretty clear signal as to how the big season 1 cliffhanger is going to be resolved.
The departure of Williamson comes as a huge surprise given mostly that the Bishop – Nolan dynamic was one of the most important ones of the show. Afton’s character is responsible for helping John through many of his early missions and she showed herself to have a big heart and a fighting spirit — even if a lot of love she showed was of the tough variety.
So why lose the character now? There are questions aplenty about that, but it’s not something we may get all of the information on. The show will go on, and it seems like one of the ways that The Rookie is doing that is by bringing Lost alum Harold Perrineau on board the series for a major arc in season 2 as a detective, one that is going to take Nolan under his wing in the early going. Season 2 looks to be expanding the world for some of these key characters; here’s to hoping that along the way, there are a few surprising twists and turns we get a chance to see.
The second season of The Rookie will be premiering on ABC when we get around to this fall, where it will be perched in a new timeslot Sunday nights at 10:00 p.m. Eastern. That’s not a spot that a lot of other ABC shows have found success in, but maybe this is the exception more so than the rule
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