The Rookie Season 8 Episode 11 Serves Up a Villain-Palooza

Critic’s Rating: 4.2 / 5.0

4.2

Oh, The Rookie. You sure do love your villains, don’t you?

Most of The Rookie Season 8 Episode 11 was just marking the return of villains, the mention of them, or the hints of new ones who would pose problems to our favorite characters.

Oh, yeah, and Skip Tracer Randy. We got him and his half-dozen accents, too.

Much of The Rookie Season 8 seems deadset on putting our boy Wesley through the wringer, and it’s been frustrating to see that his DA aspirations have been thwarted at every conceivable turn.

Why won’t they just let Wesley be great?

The thing about him being a defense attorney-turned-prosecutor running for D.A., married to a detective, is that there’s an endless stream of people from all sides who can come after them or find ways to undermine his ambitions however they please.

Take this entire situation with Novak and Glasser. Sure, it’s the actual killers in the mix with all of this, but it’s the freaking lawyers, too.

You cannot convince me that Vivian isn’t at least partially behind this onslaught of obstacles and drama thrown Wesley’s way because she’s in full-on Hater Mode right now and has her knickers in a bunch about the fact that he sailed past her in this race for DA.

There’s bitter, and then there are startling levels of collusion that may have her cosigning stunning levels of depravity.

And then there’s Malcolm. For one, Sean Patrick Thomas just has a knack for playing some smug and diabolical characters, and Malcolm is no exception. This man is clearly helping Glasser orchestrate some of these moves.

I’m curious what he’s getting out of this. Glasser is manipulative as hell, which is no secret. He’s always able to get people to do what he wants, but Malcolm doing his bidding feels like something else entirely.

It’s also a bit annoying, since it isn’t what we already had with Monica. Hell, is Wesley the only morally uncompromised lawyer on the series?

Actually, I can’t even give him that much credit because he was stuck on Elijah’s thumb for a while, too. Sure, he was unwilling, but still compromised.

Most of the hour, I was practically awaiting Elijah to come out of the woodwork as well. We haven’t heard much about him, but surely, with knowing Wesley is running for office, he’d have something to say about that, or something to do.

Now, we’re left trying to figure out the full extent of how Glasser was able to get Novak to not only take ownership for his murders, but also slip him all of the details that weren’t in the records or released to the public.

And why would Nowak do this for Glasser? He was already in prison for murder, I understand that much, but taking on Glasser’s kills… for what?

I could see that trap coming from a mile away, and it wasn’t even a surprise when it played out exactly as it did: Glasser somehow manipulated the situation, weaseling down the charges until they had only one measly manslaughter charge, and then having that tossed out the window thanks to the confession.

We now have one of The Rookie’s most prolific serial killers just roaming free. The good news is that Galsser is arrogant enough to dive right back into killing people.

It’ll be sad that it’ll likely take more murders before they can take him down. But there’s also a matter of how he’ll approach things with Harper.

He’s been obsessed with her since they first met, and he couldn’t wait to taunt her as soon as he got out of prison. Seriously, taking her doughnuts and trying to talk shit was a choice.

On the one hand, I’m ready for a Glasser and Harper cat-and-mouse game where my girl can finally take him down once and for all. But on the other hand, The Rookie’s obsession with its villains can be tiresome.

They’re like whack-a-mole. Every time you’re done with one, they pop back up again later.

Even villains’ collaboration is nothing new anymore. Glasser/Nowak isn’t even an original album; it’s a remix, reheated nachos, as the kids say.

The Rookie may have some great villains — and they do — but at some point, we have to reevaluate just how good our heroes are if these villainous bastards can’t even stay behind bars.

Shockingly, Skip Tracer Randy’s return wasn’t nearly as obnoxious as I thought it would be, and the entire bit of him having his accent knocked out of him was amusing.

His utter disappointment that he sounded so flat as an American was hilarious, and then his rolling into that Southern accent had its amusing moments, too.

The man somehow always finds himself in trouble, so his landing a job through La Donna, if you will, was funny. Her attempt to escape the police, when it was a lost cause, made me giggle. Accept your fate, ma’am.

It was generally a fun case, and Nolan was on fire throughout most of it with the quips and dry humor.

And even though it was funny and added some levity to the hour, it didn’t feel like a jarring switch-up from other serious aspects of certain arcs.

Lucy was having a hard time during the hour, and it was mostly Tim and Celina who consistently expressed genuine concern for her.

But even with that arc, they had a perfect combination of emotional anguish and humor.

For the humor part, we had Smitty in all of his weaponized incompetence glory.

Smitty turns laziness into an Olympic sport. Tim, making him Watch Commander for the day, was ridiculous because we all know SMitty pretty much plays up his laziness to avoid any real work or responsibility.

The baby monitor and camera setup was hilarious, though. And Chenford being irritated as hell by Smitty messing with valuable things on Tim’s desk had me cracking up. It took Lucy way too long to find that collectible.

And Tim, marveling at how much work Smitty puts into being lazy, was amusing. He took a picture and taped it to the camera so it looked like he was in Zoom meetings just to hide the fact that he was sleeping and snacking all day at Tim’s desk.

Nevertheless, Tim taking the day to partner with Luy was actually a great call. The great thing about their dynamic is that they succeed at compartmentalizing all the different parts of it.

In this case, I like that we had a great deal of Tim speaking to Lucy, as his mentee and partner of many years, about how to work through this case and speak with Martin’s sister.

There are moments when it’s aggravating that Tim feels disconnected as a romantic partner during this, but the counterbalance of stepping up at work almost makes up for it.

It was heartbreaking to see Lucy speaking to Martin’s sister.

But it’s no wonder the woman believed Lucy. She was so heartbroken and weighed down by her actions. Her sincerity in wishing she didn’t have to kill Martin was so pronounced that it was undeniable.

From a legal perspective, Lucy took far too great a risk speaking to Martin’s sister when so many factors were at play. And it could very well bite her in the ass later; I put nothing past The Rookie.

But it was a beautiful, emotional moment, and for the sake of giving Martin’s sister closure and allowing Lucy to unburden herself, it was satisfying to watch.

The Rookie Footnote:

I suppose I’m obligated to mention Bailey. There’s something about the whole Everett Pentagon thing, and apparently, it’s not common for women to be in the specialized force Tattoo woman indicates.

And for reasons beyond my comprehension, Zuzu, under the guise of being “A Friend” of Nolan’s, called him to warn him about Bailey potentially being in danger.

Because not even the robotic/AI villains are spared from returns and overuse on The Rookie!

Why would the sentient robot that manipulated a bunch of teenagers into killing each other contact Nolan to warn him about Bailey? I don’t know.

But I suppose we’re about to find out. Yay.

Over to you, Rookie Fanatics. Let’s discuss this one. How are we feeling about this villain collaboration? Do you think Vivian and Malcolm are both in on this?

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