When The Rookie premiered in 2018, the titular character was Nathan Fillion’s John Nolan, who was at least two decades older than his fellow first-time officers. However, the series quickly became about their training officers, friends, family and Nolan’s cadre of fellow rookies. One such rookie was Chris Rios, who was introduced at the end of Season 2. Christopher O’Shea played Rios in two episodes of The Rookie Season 2, “The Q Word” and “The Hunt,” the finale that year.
While his appearances were limited, the impact of the character was sizeable. Like most police procedurals on television, The Rookie often overstates the danger and risk faced by police officers in the field. However, “The Q Word” and “The Hunt” finally introduced the concept of corrupt police officers into a series that took a very mythologized view of the force. The story that unfolded following the death of Officer Chris Rios shook the entire series, and threatened Nolan’s future. As The Rookie is in its sixth season, things ultimately went Nolan’s way, but it marked a shift in the series.
Who Was Chris Rios in The Rookie?
Chris Rios was a fellow rookie who graduated from the Police Academy with Jackson West, John Nolan and Lucy Chen. Like West, whose father led the Internal Affairs Division, Rios’ father was also a superstar officer. Both Percy West and Rios’ father worked in the Narcotics Division “back in the day.” At the academy, Rios and West formed a friendly rivalry with a competitive streak. Still, it was all in good fun. The two rookies remained friends, along with others from their class like Hannah Kasulka’s Erin Cole. These characters were introduced in the cold open of “The Q Word” gathering at a bar and commiserating about their difficult first years on the job.
While West and Rios played drinking games, including “beer pong” using glasses of what looked like whiskey, Erin and Nolan stepped outside to get some air. She wanted to talk to Nolan since he “gave the best advice.” She was worried about Rios who, despite being at the top of his class at the Academy, struggled with the job and almost washed out at their six-month exam. She wondered if she should tell their training officers that he “wasn’t ready,” although she knew it would crush him. Nolan simply told her to “be there” for Chris, allowing him to make his own decisions. Unfortunately, Rios’s next mistake would cost him his life.
Though the characters cared about Cole and Rios, the audience didn’t know them. The scene in which they partied with The Rookie’s series regulars was their introduction. However, this makes sense since first-year rookies can’t take days off or even call in sick. While the show is centered on the Mid-Wilshire Division, Rios and Cole were assigned to the Hollywood Division and wouldn’t typically encounter their peers on the job. What happened to both Chris Rios and Erin Cole on The Rookie was more about how it affected the characters fans knew.
How Officer Chris Rios Died in the Line of Duty on The Rookie
During the first act of “The Q Word,” West, Chen and Nolan are prematurely celebrating the end of their time as first-year rookies. They have a month left before they graduate to full-fledged police officers, and they are feeling confident after their two seasons of television-worthy adventures. In fact, Nolan jinxes the calm day by saying he’s “never had a shift so quiet.” A few moments later, a high-speed chase is called out on the radio, and the Mid-Wilshire patrol officers listen in on the radio as it unfolds.
West is the first to notice that Rios is on the radio calling out the specifics of the chase. Officer Tim Bradford, played by Eric Winter, is the first to notice that Rios is “too amped up” on the radio. He and Chen, Nolan and Mekia Cox’s Nyla Harper, and West and Alyssa Diaz’s Angela Lopez all join the pursuit. Eventually, they stop the vehicle and surround it. As the officers take cover behind the open doors of their police vehicles, Rios approaches the car against the orders of his training officer, Greg Serano’s Martinez. Rios speedwalks over to the car shouting to the driver to show his hands, while Martinez tries in vain to get him to stop and take cover.
As Rios gets halfway between the gathered cops and the vehicle, the driver — a gangster named Serj Derian played by Themo Melikidze — shoots him three times. Only two of the shots hit Rios’s vest. He’s rushed to the hospital with West riding along, talking to Rios to keep him conscious and fighting. At one point, Erin Cole shows up having heard that Rios was shot, though she has to leave and go on duty. Despite the efforts of Ali Larter’s Dr. Grace Sawyer, Rios succumbs to his injuries and dies, devastating his colleagues but especially Jackson.
The Shooting of Chris Rios Uncovered The Rookie’s First Dirty Cops
As part of the investigation into Rios’s shooter, Bradford and Chen find files at Serj’s house suggesting they are getting privileged information from a police officer. He is in the wind, so they instead track down his brother, Reuben (played by Hrach Titizian). While conducting that raid, Cole removes the gun that killed Rios from the secure evidence container in Nolan’s car. She tries to flee, ending up in a high-speed chase herself. Eventually, Nolan confronts Cole on the field at the Rose Bowl as she holds a gun on herself. She confesses that Serj and Rueben paid “debts” she had and then “they owned” her. Cole was trying to free herself from their control, which was the confrontation leading to the death of her fellow rookie, Chris Rios.
Nolan tries to talk her down and tells her to “name names.” The first name she says is “Armstrong,” a police sergeant played by Harold Perrineau who was a mentor to Nolan in Season 2. He walks onto the field and shoots Cole down. It’s not until “The Hunt” that audiences see Nick Armstrong was the actual dirty cop working for the Derian family. When Nolan figures this out, Armstrong frames him by planting evidence in Nolan’s house. The Season 3 premiere, “Consequences,” involves Nolan’s fight to keep his job and get justice for Erin and Chris by taking down Armstrong and the Derians. He succeeds, but not before Armstrong is shot and killed.
How the Death of Officer Rios Changed The Rookie for the Better
While Chris Rios was not a character who meant much to the fans of The Rookie, his death marked a momentous shift in the series. Until this point, the police as an organization was too perfect. Every cop was a good one. Everyone from defense attorney Wesley Evers (played by Shawn Ashmore) to every member of Internal Affairs represented an impediment to the good work of The Rookie’s heroes.
The introduction of Armstrong and Cole as corrupt police officers marked an important acknowledgment in the series that the uniform didn’t automatically make someone a hero. That it was Armstrong who was the chief villain stung because he’d been an easy-to-love character in the series. Cole was conflicted and caught up in a situation she had little control over. Armstrong, however, quickly made the turn to evil. While he was hesitant to cover up the death of Chris Rios, by the end of Season 3’s “Consequences,” he was more than eager to kill Nolan in cold blood.
The Rookie didn’t similarly establish Rios and Cole as characters the viewers cared about, leaving the series regulars’ performance to sell the emotion of those losses. Had they appeared in a handful of episodes before the Season 2 finale, their deaths may have had more impact. The cliffhanger leading into Season 3, essentially, wiped away any legacy those characters may have had. Still, Chris Rios is an important character in The Rookie because his death shifted the series slightly closer to reality by showing the “weekly villain” can come from inside the LAPD.
