“The Rookie” Season 8 Explodes: Why Monica’s Immunity Deal Has LAPD Officers Furious

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The Rookie has ended its run for Season 7 and there was much to unpack in the final episode. The ABC procedural will be returning for an eighth season, and the season finale for Season 7 seems to be setting up potential storylines. By the end of the episode, Lucy Chen (Melissa O’Neil) and Tim Bradford’s (Eric Winter) relationship, Chenford, were still not officially a couple. To wash down that disappointment, the episode ends with the return of the notorious villain, Monica Stevenson (Bridget Regan). Having leveraged secrets stolen from an NSA facility, Monica was able to get herself an immunity deal. The villainous character walked past a stunned team at the Mid-Wilshire station as FBI Agent Matt Garza (Felix Solis) makes the announcement.

Monica isn’t the only villain to return to the show ahead of Season 8, with Oscar Hutchinson (Matthew Glave) returning for another set of long-running battles with John Nolan (Nathan Fillion). Speaking to ScreenRant in an interview, showrunner Alexi Hawley was quizzed on whether Monica’s immunity poses an immediate threat to anyone in the LAPD. “I don’t know about that necessarily,” Hawley responds. “I do think that it’s enraging and many other things to our cops who have been trying to get her for a full season now, and the fact that she’s now untouchable for her past crimes is really incredibly frustrating.”

Monica’s Immunity Deal Might Provide a Story to Tell in ‘The Rookie’ Season 8

While she might be off on past transgressions, Monica doesn’t entirely seem like one who’d walk the righteous path going forward. Hawley goes on to reveal plans to creatively poke holes in the immunity deal to see how the Mid-Wilshire gang might come for her again.

“Obviously, Bridget owned that scene and that walk away and all that kind of stuff was really great. I think heading into season eight, it’s going to be the frustration of the fact that she got away with it, and also, potentially, what are the aspects of the immunity deal that could give us story to tell, which I think is partly what we’re trying to figure out right now in the room.”

The key to Monica earning her immunity deal lay in her access to secrets gleaned from the Intelligence Community’s databases. Season 8 has the opportunity to explore a storyline surrounding this top-secret information caches. Will it? “That was a callback to the “Speed” episode,” Hawley reveals. “That access card that was stolen from the guy’s wallet on the bus is ultimately how she gained access to the Intelligence Community’s databases and got that information. I’m not sure how much more we are going to get out of that, but I don’t know yet in season 8.”

All episodes of The Rookie are available to stream on Hulu in the U.S. Stay tuned to Collider for updates.

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