3x06 Revelations

A classic episode of The Rookie. It's an episode that both shows our police officers are above the ground in literally every way going the extra mile to do the right thing like then Tim Bradford turns in his friend to the police authorities for ODing on Oxy taking away his pension from his wife and three children. Yes this is the same episode where everyone in Nolan's college class flips out because they find out he's a cop and think he's trying to infiltrate them. It makes my head spin how moronic these plot points are. They are almost as bad as an episode of Prodigal Son.

We could talk about all the ways cops aren't angels of pure ethics like this. The thin blue line is real and hardcore. The idea that the character of Tim who is a dyed and true Patrolman with a capital P and proud of it for some reason would cross that line because a dude he knows OD'd is a stretch. They have a whole conversation about it. It's not just the one OD it's all the other mountains and mountains of evidence that he can't ignore. They talk about about how turning him in is more than just jail-time it's also a loss of pension, which itself feels like a bit of a stretch because one thing we know about the police is that if there's a way for them to get away with literal murder they'll get it. Then we hear the traditional cop's argument from the wife of the OD cop crying about how is she going to feed her children without that pension.

Then we have, what's sure to be super annoying this season, the ethics course that Nolan is in. There's all this hemming and hawing about whether or now he should tell them he's an officer and Nyla gives what in my opinion was the best advice. "No, unless you want the class to be all about you." I thought that was going to be the end of it because why would this come up? Why would it matter? I've taken classes with police trainees and securities guards about African American Resistance. The ONLY reason I even know that is because of my relationship with the professor. This is an eight person class. Why on earth would you care that a police officer is in the class on Ethics and Criminal Justice. It's my understanding that I'd expect at least a few law enforcement to be in the class. Even if we don't go into a TV version of a college class, where your professor makes up a topic and you have to write a 5 page paper (all unexpected without planning and not on the syllabus) on it with no associated reason or citations needed just 5 pages of thoughts for funsies, the idea that this class is filled with young kids who are into social justice is fine. But these kids are laughably naive. They're all kids and Nolan is like the one adult in the room again of eight people and yet they literally take no issue with this. They debate him, they man-splain defund the police to him when he doesn't support the movement. If we can take a moment to actual think about one point

Nolan: [makes some point about how defunding the police without the support systems would just leave everyone vulnerable, a point which somehow misses the point]
Kid: It can't be any worse than it is now
Nolan: Sure it can

It can always be worse. We could have a team of psychopathic sociopath killers running around kidnapping people and flaying their skin in the Waterman house like a cartoon team of villains. It can be worse isn't an argument. That's like saying we'll get to pay equity later but it could be worse ladies. The fact that it could be worse doesn't mean we take drastic change off the table. We're not floating along okay right now and yeah sure no one likes treading water but you could be drowning. It's an insulting argument but The Rookie has been making this kind of argument since episode 1 so at least it's consistently missing the mark.

Anyway when they kids find out Nolan is a cop they FLIP THEIR ****. I mean they don't know this white man. He could be trying to infiltrate BLM or LULAC (which google tells me is League of United Latin American Citizens). Are these kids idiots? Who knows but even their professor points out that a 45 year old white guy probably isn't trying to infiltrate or spy on them in a college class. They're still offended that he didn't tell them and that becomes a subject of the aforementioned paper. WHY is there all this drama over his job as a police officer? When would he have even done that during the introduction scene when they all introduced themselves and said what drew them to the class and criminal justice as a subject a scene where some of them blow it off by saying it was a prerequisite and some of them use heart felt stories about how criminal justice is more than a class to them and Nolan following the advice of his peers lies by leaving out the part where he's a cop and wants this class to become a TO. I mean do the kids think Nolan should have revealed his job then? That's just stupid because that scene never happened. It's a scene that would have made a lot of sense. Nolan would have been pressured to talk after some black woman who spoke about how her community is downtrodden and he would have had to go up and say he's a cop but everyone told him to lie so he'd say I used to be in roofing and I'm trying to complete my degree and THAT is what a betrayal looks like. That is how you generate a scene that has the class mad at Nolan for sympathetic reasons. Instead them come off as bratty idiots. It doesn't help that in this show we have both young people made at police for behaving unethically and yet every cop we see is twice as ethical. The least ethical cop we've seen who wasn't killed is Smitty who again is practically a joke of a cop and yet Smitty gives out his badge number, Smitty does his job, Smitty goes where he's needed. He's dumb easily distracted but he's not incompetent just a lazy joke and that's mostly by himself. Around others he miraculously is useful and follows orders and the law.

We're six episodes into the post BLM season and it still feels like it's a cop show written by some cops to show how cops are really cool and they have SO many checks on them already and we should just be cool with the cops more. There's not a lot of nuance or complexity here and that's in spite of the show constantly making it seem like there's nuance and complexity here.

That said the other aspects of the episode were actually very solid. Lucy Chen gets a taste of undercover work after peeping on the undercover convention... lol a convention of undercover cops. lol. it still makes me laugh. The hilarious part is that it's just silly enough to probably be real. There's a few dumb moments like someone scanning vin numbers for some reason. A plot point that could have been completely erased and nothing was lost. Here's a fun note. Lucy Chen who grew up in LA, speaks Tagalog (this episode), and Spanish (episode 1) somehow doesn't know what a Luchador is. This has somehow NEVER come up?

Now that the racist Superman arc is over. Jackson can go back to being the gay cop instead of the black cop (I kid, I kid). But his arc is interesting. Working with the community he meets an autistic kid who then gets attacked and they use their knowledge of the kid to figure out where he got hit. It's a solid arc that introduces a new gay boyfriend for him.

You can't watch this and walk away with anything other than the opinion that the cops are somehow super puritans. Unlike on late night movies they don't do a line of cocaine just to get a huge drug dealer. After all then their case is shot. They don't lie and do drugs because they all know there's another cop willing to turn them in even if their wife goes and cries to their face about how "You're supposed to have each other's backs" after all these cops only care about doing the right thing. The only thing they're more passionate about is getting ride of racist cops because they'll pull out all the stops take all the poundings just to get rid of a racist cop surely they'd never ignore it and let it seep. Watching this show teaches you that cops don't tolerate dissent dissidents.

Now we all know some criminals are idiots, but Sato is a perfect example. It's too bad Chen didn't capitalize on it. Lifting your shirt to show you have a gun means your hands are tied up. And then to make the gun easily accessible within arms reach of someone you are supposed to be intimidating? I most definitely would have pulled the gun out of his pants and leveled it at the guy behind him. Because if I were in Chen's position, seated and within 2 feet of the gun in Sato's pants, grabbing the gun and standing up in a single motion would have pulled the gun out of his pants and put it at either his head level or the other guy's head level. Since Sato's likely to not have another easily accessible gun, I would have pointed it at the guy behind Sato leaving Sato to the UC to immobilize. Whether this is a good idea or not, I don't know. But it most definitely would make Sato think twice.

Bradford did the right thing. There is no looking out for your own when someone is flagrantly violating the law. This wasn't just bending the law, but was out right illegal use of opioids and another individual's prescription. So go pound sand Beth. You should have been paying attention to your husband's drug use.