The Rookie Season 8 Episode 8 Gives Us Escaped Convicts, Oscar Redundancy & Mama Bradford

Critic’s Rating: 3.9 / 5.0

3.9

We got a little bit of The Rookie meets Con Air with a dash of fugitive action on this one.

The hour was a fun one that brought back the pesky Oscar, only for them to lose him again, showcasing just how badass Nyla and Angela are on their last outing as partners for a while.

Oh, right, and Tim’s mother showed up, too.

The introduction of Tim’s mother was a bit underwhelming, despite the fact that it was amazing to see Sela Ward.

From the looks of things, we’re going to have more of her, and that’s something I’m genuinely looking forward to, but it was still disappointing to see how her introduction came into play.

Genny didn’t want to deal with her mother’s feelings about Genny’s life at the moment, and since she always hosts her mother during visits, it seemed fair to send her to Bradford.

It felt necessary, too, given the state of Tim’s relationship with his mother. To call it “surface-level” would be an understatement.

The hour tries to explain why their relationship is the way it is, but we don’t get any payoff on that until the last five minutes or so, and I wish that took up more of the episode.

But what was most frustrating was learning that Joy had NO Idea who Lucy was.

How are we supposed to take that?

Understandably, Lucy was hurt by this revelation, and it had her reeling all day, even leading her to reach out to the Shop Talk Sisterhood to ask Angela what she knew about Tim’s mother and gauge whether she was entitled to feel hurt or upset.

Of course, that led to mixed results from the girls.

Then The Rookie tries to frame Bradford’s reticence toward his mother as him upholding the patterns from his childhood of being a protector.

Even the conversation with Genny at the top of the hour implied that both Bradford siblings view their mother as someone who isn’t strong enough to handle things or too much excitement, so they try to avoid telling her things that can trouble her too much.

Their mother has been worried about Genny ever since the divorce, and it’s as if she feels the pain more than Genny does.

To a degree, one can understand that. However, what does that leave when you can’t even talk to your mother about good things, either?

It’s shocking to hear that Tim never told his mother anything about his ex-wife, her addiction, or anything else. I don’t even know how you maintain that level of secrecy with someone whom you speak to just about every week.

But also leaving out the good things in your life is a bit disturbing, isn’t it? What exactly do they even talk about then?

Because it wasn’t even that Joy didn’t know Lucy was in Tim’s life, but it’s the fact that she didn’t know about Lucy in any capacity at all.

So, at no point does he even talk about his colleagues at work, or the boots he trains, or anything at all?

How do you sustain a relationship with anyone without sharing any parts of your life, good or bad?

It’s framed as a learned behavior and even a trauma response for Tim from his childhood. And my heart broke hearing what Joy had to say about that.

She said Tim was always a protector, to the point of actively putting himself between his abusive father and his sister and mother. And as a mother, sometimes, Joy would just let him do that.

It’s a fascinating admission from a mother, when traditionally people associate real motherhood with this feral desire to protect one’s offspring.

But it gets complicated and more layered when a woman like Joy is a survivor of abuse, where at some point, maybe she was trying to get a break from the pain, too.

Maybe, in some warped way, knowing that she wasn’t alone on the receiving end of that pain made her feel more kinship with her children.

It’s hard to say where her headspace was during that time, and she only alludes to some of it with Lucy without really getting a proper chance to delve into it further.

From this experience, we’re to glean that there was almost a role reversal, with Tim taking on the role of protector and looking after his mother, and she just let him do so.

I just wish there was a way to connect this to the “Surprise, she doesn’t know about Lucy” bit in a way that felt more sensible.

By the end of the hour, Lucy and Tim never properly talk about this in a way that still gives credence and validates Lucy’s justifiable feelings about this, and then, because it linked back to Tim’s abusive childhood, it’s as if she’s no longer entitled to her hurt feelings because his past trauma trumps that.

Nevertheless, I did enjoy Joy’s conversation with Lucy.

It’s an interesting start to their dynamic, but it could be worth exploring further.

More than anything, I’m eager for a chance of seeing all three of the women in Tim’s life in the same room, hell, Angela, too, if we add her for good measure.

The hour that ended before we actually saw the conversation between Tim and his mother was a bit of a letdown, but I’m holding out hope for more exploration, and I’ll take whatever we get on that front.

Something else that I had higher expectations of was Oscar’s return. There wasn’t as much of him as I imagined, given the teasing that they’ve done.

And I still maintain that The Rookie’s villain problem is irritating. So, basically, they brought Oscar back in for roughly five minutes’ worth of the episode just so he could escape again and taunt Nolan. Yay. Awesome.

It’s the gag that never lets up, and whether it’s Oscar or it’s Monica, I’m over it.

The prison break from the air transport was fairly predictable. And don’t get me started on seeing Brian Letscher guest-starring as the US Marshal. Once I saw Tom from Scandal, I knew he was a baddie.

Letscher always plays baddies, and he plays them well.

His involvement in the prison break on Everett’s behalf was completely predictable, and then we ended up with a bunch of dangerous convicts out in the wild, requiring everyone to track them down before they could cause more trouble.

Out of the bunch, the woman with no impulse control was pretty entertaining. It was more amusing than it should have been that she basically stole that influencer’s phone and live-streamed herself the whole time.

And as scary as it was to know that she was around little girls on a playground, it had more than a few amusing moments, including her snapping at the one little girl for bragging too much.

But Celina and Lucy being able to capture her via the promise of ice cream was hilarious. And one gag I haven’t tired of is everything thirsting over Celina.

Harper and Lopez’s convict was the scariest, though. The way he attacked both of them, banging their heads through the glass, was disturbing. But then they turned it back on him, both women whooping his ass.

Harper and Lopez are always The Rookie’s most badass characters, and they proved it yet again. They were pulling out wrestling moves and the works.

It was a tough arrest, but it’s nice that Harper got a win somewhere because this Glasser situation is still taking a lot out of her.

She can’t win with this one, and what’s been fascinating is seeing how Harper is facing consequences we rarely see any other characters face, given the long list of things they all do.

It’s nice that this hasn’t affected the strong friendship between Wesley, Harper, and Lopez. He feels guilty about having to act on this, but she also knows she messed up.

Therefore, there are no hard feelings there, and they have been supportive of her throughout all of this.

Her latest meeting felt like an inquisition, but what’s worse is the limbo. She hasn’t been demoted yet, she can’t work as adetective, and now she has to work patrol again for the foreseeable future.

How is that not a demotion? And is there more to this case right now than just punishing Harper? It seems like there are other factors at play.

Even with Harper facing this situation, they casually tossed in that Everett will make Bradford pay for not taking his ten-million-dollar bribe.

So, that’s an ominous tone, too. I don’t like it!

Also, will this really result in what, the fourth time in the past five seasons that a criminal fixates on one of our favorites?

The Rookie is gonna rookie, I guess.

Over to you, The Rookie Fanatics!

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