The Rookie: Season 7’s Wiiildest Episode Gave Us an Iconic #Chenford Scene and 3-1/2 Other Big Twists

The following contains spoilers from the Feb. 26 episode/”midseason finale” of ABC’s The Rookie (but calm down, the show is back in just two weeks).

Things were so insane on The Rookie this Tuesday night that even an all-too-eerie, #TooSoon Los Angeles wildfire nearly played second fiddle.

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Nearly.

The Rookie James Alive Dead Shot
The Rookie James Alive Dead Shot

TO CATCH A KILLER

The wildfire made for much mayhem, breaking out just as Nyla, Lucy and Celia spotted Liam Glasser on a hiking trail the serial killer is known to favor. As homes got evacuated, Liam (with his wife, son and baby) was among those led to James’ community center, manned by a few officers of Mid-Wilshire Division.

There, a scuffle arose between James and a hot-headed gang member who was harassing Kylie, one of his community center pals. Liam used the distraction to slip out the back. After being stonewalled by Liam’s Stepford Wife, Nolan surreptitiously asked the son if he knew of a second car his dad might use. The kid was caught lying about a “brown van,” having been told by his dad to say that if the police ever asked. Now realizing the extent of her husband’s duplicity, the wife decided to help Nolan & Co. out.

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Tracking Liam down at a maze of a house, Nolan fell through a weak floor, as Miles watched. Nolan wound up slugging it out with Liam, but found himself bested again and again. Liam grabbed a nearby scythe and was going in for the kill, when Nyla and Angela showed up to save the day, cuff Liam and haul him away.

EMMY SEASON (AKA THE 1/2 TWIST)

After nearly 22 months, we finally got a name for Angela and Wes’ daughter — Emmy.

IT’S GETTING HOT IN HERE

Lucy and Tim were out in a cruiser when they found themselves on a hillside road blocked by the fire — at which instant a flaming tree fell down behind them. With help a good 30 minutes out and Gray struggling to coordinate a water drop, Tim and Lucy huddled in the middle of the road beneath a foil fire blanket. Uncertain of their fate as soon-to-be-baked potatoes, Tim went to tell Lucy something, and the iconic exchange went something like this:

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“Lucy, I want to tell you something—”
“No, no.”
“Why, you got somewhere you need to be?”
“You’re going to say something heartfelt because you think we’re going to die,
and I don’t want to cry right now.”
“I might say something hateful, you don’t know.”
“Yes, I do. I know what you’re going to say. You’re still in love with me.”
“Wow, the arrogance!”
“Am I wrong…?”
“No. OK, you’re not wrong. Of course I still love you. Do you?”
“It doesn’t matter!”
“So it’s a yes.”
“You’re infuriating!”

Once they were rescued and brought to the hospital for smoke inhalation and what not, Lucy spoke of how the near-death experience clarifies one’s priorities. She said that, career-wise, she was thinking about taking the Sergeant Exam in a few months. Tim supported her plan and noted that, as an added bonus, she would then no longer be in his chain of command. “That’s a good point,” Lucy nodded, before accepting his offer to be a study buddy.

LIAR, LIAR, PANTS ON FIRE

With Mid-Wilshire shorthanded by the wildfire crisis, Sgt. Gray apparently had no one even a smidgen better to put in charge of liaising with FEMA, NWS and LAFD but… Seth. Seth, the truth-challenged boot who never writes things down. But Gray cracked the whip, and Seth manned the phones, ably, while scribbling notes (and occasionally hanging up on the deputy mayor).

When Gray got word of Tim and Lucy being trapped, Liam at first kept mum, then quietly raced back to his notes and saw that he had gotten word from the NWS that that road had been ruled unsafe; he promptly tore out that notepad page and stiffed it in his trousers. At episode’s end, Seth visited Tim and Lucy in the hospital and lied that the NWS failed to flag that road. An irked Tim said he’d chew someone over there out, but Seth insisted he’s already given the NWS a firm talking-to. Tim, though, seemed not convinced.

ENDING WITH A BANG

With the wildfire quelled, Liam caught, and the evacuation center clearing out, James was standing outside with Kylie as she started to come clean about Connor, the hot-head from earlier. Kylie knows things about a shooting at a night club, involving Connor’s gang. She is afraid to go to the police, but James assured her she will be protected. Just then, Connor drove by and fired bullet after bullet into both James and Kylie.

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Will James survive? And if not, will he die with Nolan thinking that he was stepping out on Nyla, after Nolan saw Kylie plant an (overly) appreciative kiss on him earlier?

ABC’s The Rookie resumes Season 7 on Tuesday, March 11.

Want scoop on The Rookie, or for any other TV show ? Shoot an email to InsideLine@tvline.com, and your question may be answered via Matt’s Inside Line!

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