Tonight on ABC their new series The Rookie airs with an all-new Tuesday, April 16, 2019, season 1 episode 20 called, “Free Fall,” and we have your The Rookie recap below. On tonight’s The Rookie episode as per the ABC synopsis, “As the rookies prepare for a big exam to see who moves on to the next stage of training, Officer Nolan and Officer Bishop are called to the scene of a murder and learn that the victim may be tied to a potential terrorist attack on the city of Los Angeles.”
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Officer Bishop made her choice. She called Detective Luis and she told the other woman that not only was she refusing to spy on her fellow officers, but she also reported Luis for the other woman’s failure to adhere to peace officer rule and so now it was Luis facing a hearing. The woman was going to need her lawyer because her boss wasn’t happy with her and so the only one that walked away clean was Bishop. Bishop was informed that she wasn’t going to be fired. She was going to have a letter of reprimand put her in file and would otherwise walk away without any further dealings with Internal Affairs. Or at least that’s how her partner saw it. Officer Nolan thought the letter was a light punishment and he had needed to talk it over with Bishop before he understood that the letter was a permanent red mark that would come up anytime she was about to be promoted.
In other words, this letter could mean that Bishop is never promoted again. She had earlier turned down her chances at becoming a detective and now she was hearing that may have been it. Her sole shot at moving up through the ranks. Bishop was naturally upset about it and Nolan came to express his apologies. He knew that it was going to be hard for her to overcome the past and he was willing to support her no matter what. Nolan and Bishop have a great relationship and Nolan was able to take his partner’s mind off of her own troubles when he brought up his girlfriend. Jessica was staying in the city because she accepted a job from Homeland and so she and Nolan are getting serious. It even made Nolan question if it was the right time to introduce her to his son Henry and he wasn’t counting on Jessica seeming hesitant.
Nolan asked Bishop if he could have frightened Jessica and Bishop assured him that couldn’t be the case. She said that Jessica wasn’t the sort to frighten easily. The two of them also talked about the rookie exam. The exam was that day and the rookies would first have to sit the written exam before taking the oral exam with the Chief. The rookies have been preparing for it and their Sergeant even asked that they be put on light duty while they were answering calls with their Training Officers, but then Nolan and Bishop were called to a scene. The call was to report a dead guy found in the bathroom at the bus station and so Nolan check to make sure the guy was really dead before he called it. This case would normally be passed onto detectives and surprisingly Jessica showed.
Jessica said that the case fell under DHS’s jurisdiction. The dead man was part of a homegrown terrorist cell and it was believed that he traveled to LA with the sole intent on causing mass casualties. Jessica also said that the CDC had to check the scene and both police officers had to go through a cleansing before they had to head back to headquarters. That’s where Jessica gave her briefing. She said that the man identified as Cory was traveling with someone else when something went wrong and his partner killed. It was believed that this partner would still go ahead with the plan and so she passed it over to the CDC to detail what they were all facing. Dr. Morgan explained how the men were known to be working with a weaponized strain of hemorrhagic fever and that they wanted to cause an epidemic.
The CDC only had an experimental vaccine at the time and so the officers at the precinct were allowed to tell people they were close that there was a situation developing. They weren’t allowed to go into detail or cause mass panic and so everyone rushed to call loved ones, but Nolan had stayed behind because he needed to confront his girlfriend. He’s been thinking about it and he correctly assumed that she knew that LA was a possible target when he brought up his son was coming in town. Its why she reacted the way she did. She hadn’t been afraid to meet Henry. Jessica knew that a situation was developing and she didn’t want her boyfriend to keep his son out of the blast zone.
Jessica tried to justify her silence by saying Homeland didn’t have any concrete proof at the time and that she didn’t want to worry him if there wasn’t a need, but Nolan couldn’t trust her or her judgment now. He had to think about what was best for his family and he wasn’t sure if Jessica still qualified. So he kept a distance. Nolan like every other officer went looking for the other terrorist in the city and they did that by finding out who else was on that bus. Nolan and Bishop found a man that took a photo of Corey with his partner and using facial recognition they determined that their suspect caught a ride from another collaborator and then their car disappeared into a residential neighborhood.
All officers had been sent to the neighborhood, but neither Officer Bradford or Officer Chen could go. They had found another man from the bus and this guy had even grabbed their bag by his mistake. He didn’t realize until he searched it and cut himself on one of the vials. This poor man proved to be the first victim of the virus and he accidentally coughed up blood on Bradford. Bradford acted quickly by sealing off the room and so only he was at risk. He stayed in the room with the victim and his partner stayed outside the door because she didn’t want to leave him. They stayed while CDC saw to flying in the vaccine and meanwhile their fellow officers surrounded the terrorists.
The guys had split up on foot and so the officers had to split up as well, but Nolan went with Jessica and they cornered one of the guys. Nolan even talked the man into giving himself up and so the man was coming out with his hands up when Jessica shot him. Jessica would later claim that she saw the suspect reaching for his weapon and only Nolan would know the truth. He talked it through with Bishop and she said that maybe he was wrong or maybe Jessica was denying what happened to him because she wanted him to have deniability if the shooting became a thing. Nolan wasn’t sure what he believed and he didn’t know if he wanted to risk losing Jessica. And so he didn’t tell anyone else what he saw while he finally listened to Bishop’s advice and slept on it before making a decision.
Officers West and Lopez had killed the other terrorist. The guy had run onto a bus crowded with people and they had to lure into the open before they could take the shot, but they got him and it helped ease things between them. Lopez hadn’t been sure if she was the right TO for West because he went through so many changed whiles under her watch and so working together this last time proved that they were good together. They were going to stay partners because only he got it when she complained about her do-gooder boyfriend and only she got it when he complained about living in his father’s shadow. It also helped that both the boyfriend and the dad had been at the scene and so they were both able to make its peace with everyone they had been arguing with.
But Bradford was given the vaccine and he still passed out…
THE END!
