'The Rookie' Season 7 Episode 16 "The Return" Review

Mid-Wilshire’s pathological liar makes his return in the all new episode of The Rookie, appropriately named The Return. 

Seth, after suing the police department for wrongful termination and claiming that his doctor lied about his diagnosis for fraudulent insurance claims, has found his way back into the FTO program. 

Now, given how he left things, it’s valid for the officers to not want anything to do with him —he’s quite literally a liability. What I found odd though was how every officer turned their back to him (no, not speaking metaphorically here, they physically stood up and turned around). It was a tad bit dramatic to me. 

Nolan is tasked with continuing Seth’s training and he made it perfectly clear that he wouldn’t trust anything he said. Excuses won’t fly this time, so Seth really needs to prove himself. When he failed to call code 4 at a scene, my first thoughts were “how did he get this far in the program?” Then a few moments later, a man who was released early due to a clerical error escaped on his watch. Seth, get it together please — this is meant to be your second chance!

One thing I did wonder was how Seth’s lying affected his friendship with Miles since they were in the academy together — got that answer quickly. When Seth tries to talk to Miles in the locker room, things get heated and the two of them start throwing hands. Being the professional liar he is, when Tim asks what was going on, he says he hurt himself on the locker (if he was honest, Miles would’ve been out). 

We get a little moment of redemption for Seth when he helps find where the man he lost earlier would be. They get to him, but he’s not with the friendliest of people. A shoot out occurs and when Nolan was close to being shot, Seth calls out to him and is shot himself. Talk about karma - but if I’m being honest, I felt so bad for him. He was shot in the shins and my goodness, that bullet obliterated his leg. There was no saving it and he had to have an amputation below the knee. 

I’m not sure where this leaves Seth and his lying ways, but I feel as though we didn’t get to the root cause of why he kept lying. I wish there was more time to see a little bit of Seth’s home life and how he turned to joining the police academy. I hope this isn’t the last we see of Seth, but if it is, he did right in the end. He was finally capable of being honest when he was talking with Tamara. Maybe all he needed was someone to care?

Wesley found himself in some trouble when an influencer called him out on a live stream and … yeah that’s all I gathered from that storyline. It felt pointless and we could’ve gone without it. What I did love about this part of the episode though is that we got to see Angela in protective mom mode and it was so badass! 

What are we doing with Tim and Lucy? What am I currently witnessing with them right now? Part of me is excited that Lucy moved forward with what was best for her career and took the Sergeants exam. I wish we got to see more of just how serious she took it this time around (because let’s be real, she was not mentally prepared to take that Detective exam). It would’ve been nice to see Tim help her study (and I do mean help her study, and none of that friends with benefits nonsense they seemingly have going on). 

What was that conversation at the end of the episode? No, seriously, they’ve had no real conversation (no that drug induced conversation doesn’t count to me), yet this Sergeants exam, that is meant to be about Lucy growing in this career, turns into the results being about what happens between Tim and Lucy? Why can’t we separate the two? Can we please stop making how Lucy moves in her career be about her and Tim?

What’d you think of this week’s episode of The Rookie? Share your thoughts! 

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