The Rookie episode 4 review: Jackson faces his fears, Lucy the love interest

John and Lucy’s relationship seems to be trucking along quite well on The Rookie, regardless of the warnings she’s received to step away from it and while they have some nice chemistry we wonder if there’s anyone else out there seeing some nice chemistry building with her and Tim? We know that he’s married and his situation with his wife is pretty miserable, but the relationship growing with Tim and Lucy and the respect between them has been mesmerizing to watch. Maybe it’s all just going to remain platonic and we are seeing something that just isn’t there, but for now the working relationship they have has been so much fun to watch.

As much as we have loved the match ups of rookies and their training partners this week all of that is all going to change. Here are the new pair ups: Tim and Jackson, John and Lopez  and Lucy and Talia. Let’s see how this plays out.

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Jackson’s struggles

Tim is hell bent on breaking Jackson’s spirit (as he is with pretty much every rookie) so he takes him on a pretty difficult run as they help out another team of officers in a gun fight. We have already seen Jackson cowering from gun fire while working with Lopez and he’s been looking for a chance to redeem himself and not only show everyone else that he can do this, but also himself. Unfortunately when he had that chance tonight he had the exact same reaction only this time Tim has seen it and he’s not likely to cover this problem up. After talking to Lopez and learning that she covered for Jackson already he doesn’t know what to do without outing what Lopez did. There’s also the political motivation here in that if Jackson washes out because of who his father is we could see his training officer paying the price. In the end though Lopez and Tim don’t want to have a cop out on the street that can’t step up when gunfire happens since that could result in a dead officer. Very sticky situation everyone is in, including Jackson who really wants to work past this problem.

Jackson goes to Tim asking him for help to get past this, but instead Tim tells him to be ready for his last day on the force. Is it really what Tim is angling for or is this just another test to help Jackson past this? Tim has Jackson speak to someone who was in a very similar situation to him and when he sees how it’s consumed his entire life for 15 years it gives Jackson the push to get back out there and try again. When put in another gun fight, Tim orders Jackson to stay in the car, but when he sees Tim in trouble he uses the car to stop the suspect from killing him. He may still be unable to handle firing his gun, but he is still finding ways to have his training officer’s back.

Lucy the love interest

The most interesting pair up is Talia and Lucy since Talia knows about Lucy and John’s relationship and has even warned Lucy that this is going to end badly for her. Talia tries to tell her that it’s different for women on the police force and that something like this could follow her around for the rest of her career if the wrong person finds out, but so far she hasn’t listened. Talia hasn’t given up on trying to show Lucy the light on how damaging her relationship with Nolan can actually be to her career. Lucy has spent a lot of this episode trying to convince Talia that she really likes John and that what has happened to other women on the police force isn’t going to happen to her and this is where we are starting to tire a bit of this storyline. To us, Lucy is the best rookie out of the three of them, she’s growing the fastest and has a lot more to her then just this romance going on with John, but this episode has just had her feel like that’s all she is becoming – a John love interest. Seeing John and Lucy both coming to the conclusion that this relationship has to end was the right thing for this story for now (at least for us) and as fun as it was to see them together it needed to stop since it’s making the character of Lucy become a bit stagnant.

Related – Check out what’s coming up on The Rookie episode 5!

CarterMatt Verdict

This was a great episode for a few different reasons starting with us finally getting a chance to dive further into the Jackson character. There are three rookies on this show that are supposed to have the spotlight, but Jackson has long been in the shadows. We love the idea of a cop that freezes under fire and we are all in on watching him find ways to overcome this problem (just like he did tonight). Also as much as we started out this show enjoying the Lucy and John romance (they have a really nice chemistry together!), we are excited to move on from it for now and we are ready to see Lucy the cop really shine! They may circle back to this romance a bit further down the road and we would like to see it happen, but for the first season of the show give us more of these three as rookies really trying to find their footing in their new careers.

What did you think of The Rookie episode 4? Leave us a comment with your thoughts and tell us what you think of the show so far.