The Rookie is so close to a reunion for Tim (Eric Winter) and Lucy (Melissa O’Neil) — if she can only stay awake for the conversation they need to have!
The exes slowly grew closer over the course of Season 7 following their breakup, with hookups, opening up to each other while under the influence of essentially truth serum (she’s already forgiven him, and they talked potential baby names), and then seeing her promotion to sergeant as the elimination of one obstacle in their path. Then, in the finale, she got home from a night shift to find him in her kitchen cooking her favorites. As she relaxed on the couch, he said he’d been doing a lot of thinking over the past few months and knew the damage he did but promised he was doing the work to fix what had been broken inside him. She could trust him when he said he’d never hurt her again.
Furthermore, he thought that if they were going to get back together, they should take the next step, and she should move in with him. That was when he realized she’d fallen asleep.
“It made me laugh when we talked about it in the writers’ room, which is sometimes why you do things you do. I do think that the journey they went on this season was a big one,” showrunner Alexi Hawley explained. “There were ups and downs clearly, and they had real issues to fight through, and I think we talked about it before, but it felt important. It needed to be earned. He blew up the love of both of their lives, and so it didn’t feel like it could be earned cheaply. And I think that we’ve seen him do the work. We’ve seen her focus on her prioritizing her career, and now obstacles have started to fall away and they’ve fallen to bed a couple of times along the way because that’s what they really want. But there’s always a fear of, what if it’s not like it used to be?”
What was important when it came to Chenford’s journey back together was making it clear they still loved each other and that Lucy didn’t lose her agency. “Even her hugging him in the elevator, telling him she’s still mad at him, but knowing that he needed that,” said Hawley. “And I thought it was super important that scene where he appreciated the kindness she’d shown him after he broke her heart and that he would spend the rest of his life trying to make that up in whatever small ways that she allowed knowing that again, she sort of controlled because he was the one who did that to her. I feel like we really did find a lot of story to tell about these two people getting past something terrible, and now we’re in a much better place.”
Hawley called that last scene between them in the finale a promise that “a corner has been turned.” And while he couldn’t share exactly when it would happen, he did confirm that they will be back together in Season 8. “Beyond that, I’m not 100% sure yet,” he said in May.
Season 8, which will premiere in the midseason, also has to address if Lucy is on the same page as Tim about moving in together. “That’ll be the question rolling into Season 8,” confirmed Hawley. “I do think that we’ve put those characters through a lot on their journey back, and I think we’re almost there.”
What are you hoping to see from Chenford in Season 8? Let us know in the comments section below.
The Rookie, Season 8, 2026, ABC
