Abhiroop Das
Created by Alexi Hawley, ABC’s ‘The Rookie’ tells the story of John Nolan and Lucy Chen, as they endure the hardships of the Los Angeles Police Department and rise up the ranks. In the eighth season of this procedural cop drama, both officers have settled into a groove of their own, and Angela decides that it’s a good time to stir things up. The previous episode was centered around a presidential visit, which put Nolan in a team designed to take down a potential assassin, while Chen was tasked with mapping out the perfect pathway in case disaster struck. Luckily, the situation went ahead smoothly, allowing the LAPD to recover and boost their performance with the following episode, titled ‘The Red Place.’
Nolan’s Petty Misdemeanour Detainee Turns Out to be a Cold-Blooded Murderer
‘The Rookie’ season 8 episode 3 begins with Miles heading into a dingy apartment block. He is not here on a police mission, however, and the door he knocks on turns out to be Seth’s, his former fellow rookie, who is now off the team due to a career-ending leg injury. It appears that Miles is here to make amends with his former best friend at the station, and the first step in that process is a long, honest conversation. Elsewhere, Chen and Tim are in a predicament: it’s been three days since Chen moved in, and they have unwrapped not a single one of her belongings. While Tim is eager to get things going as quickly and orderly as possible, Angela suggests a slower, more intimate approach, showing that the couple still has a long way to go before reaching equilibrium.
At the station, Nolan’s first task is a surprisingly mundane one: a man named Ezra Kane broke into the Willoughby Recreation Center, seemingly to escape the cold of the night. As Nolan brings him down for a mugshot and fingerprint scanning, the man fears that he will be going behind bars, but Nolan reassures him that his stay in detention won’t exceed a few hours. Upstairs, Angela suddenly remembers that it’s her and Wesley’s anniversary, and while he didn’t bring it up the entire morning, it is entirely possible that he is merely testing her. Still, before she and Nyla discuss this any further, their computers ping, signaling a recent fingerprint has matched one filed in the database. As it turns out, Ezra is not just a random homeless man Nolan encountered, but the alleged murderer of a family of three.
One of Ezra Kane’s Victims is Alive
Given that Nolan was the one to bring Ezra in, he is deemed the best fit for the interrogation. So far, the man believes he is in the station for a mere break-in, and Nyla’s plan is to keep things that way. With the discovery of stolen credit cards at his disposal, Nolan has the perfect excuse to extend a conversation and fish out details, and his signature, while being deceptively charming and making the process smoother. As the man is fooled by Nolan’s sweet talking, he begins yielding information about his personal life, with enough details lining up to his murder of a husband and wife. While their daughter’s remains were never found, the recovery of clothes in the nearby forest indicated that she was met with a similar fate. Still, Ezra’s calm, vulnerable-seeming attitude belies his monstrous nature, and Nolan is left struggling for details.
The big break comes in the form of Ezra’s credit card details, as one of them appears to show a recent payment to the Hollywood Premiere Motel. Chen and Juarez are close by, so they are sent to check out the site first. To their surprise, a room at the motel is still booked under Ezra’s name, which makes his claim of being homeless a lie. Even more surprisingly, Chen opens Ezra’s room to find the shadow of a person whizzing past and hiding in the bathroom. When the officer duo looks closer, the person turns out to be a scared teenage girl, with cuts, bruises, and scars all over her body. It doesn’t take Chen long to figure out that this teen is none other than Samantha, the missing daughter of the two deceased, who was presumed to have died at Ezra’s hands three years ago.
Not only is Samantha alive, but she appears to have endured three years straight of Ezra’s physical and psychological abuse. With Chen and Juarez intervening on time, however, Samantha is saved and quickly hospitalized. Elsewhere, in the interrogation room, relief washes over Angela, Nyla, and Nolan when Samantha is found. This also means, however, that Ezra is much worse than their initial expectations, and it’s time to tighten the noose around him. Initially, he refuses to admit to having a motel room at his disposal, but soon enough, he catches on to the fact that his cover is blown, and in a shocking instant, we see his real face take over. Still as maliciously overconfident as ever, he waives his right to an attorney and demands a direct conversation with Angela.
Nolan and Nyla Bring the Murderer to Justice
Meanwhile, Seth and Miles’ conversation is hardly going well, as it is mostly Seth venting out about his social decline since the injury. It appears that everyone in Seth’s immediate circle has abandoned him after learning about his pathological lying streak. However, Miles is quick to point out how this attitude from Seth is dangerously close to repeating the mistakes he made in the first place, that is, by not giving his fellow communicators enough room to be heard. Still, the plan backfires when Seth doubles down on his behavior, prompting Miles to leave abruptly, partly due to his failure to strike a chord with his once-best friend. Elsewhere, the interrogation intensifies with every passing minute, as the first crack in Ezra’s stone-cold demeanor appears when the officers crank up the air conditioning, making him increasingly restless.
At the hospital, Samantha appears to have calmed down at last and is eager to help the police, despite knowing little about Ezra’s outer life. The biggest surprise is the death of her parents, a fact which Ezra kept from her for years to threaten her daily. We also learn that Ezra considers himself to be a biblical demon in search of a soulmate, and while he has trapped Samantha against her will for years, he is already on the hunt for a new potential victim. Samantha has one more important detail to add: Ezra has an old car, and the fact that he has been pretending to be homeless indicates that most of his secrets are hidden in the car that he wanted to divert attention from. Nolan’s hunch is right, and a trip to the recreational center reveals the bloodied ID card of a missing girl named Julie.
Ezra confirms that Julie Reeds is indeed the person he has kidnapped, and while a group of police officers is deployed to search the surrounding area, it is fittingly Nolan who makes the breakthrough. Still, as he ultimately finds and rescues Julie inside a parking lot, things are largely touch-and-go. It appears that Julie’s stab wounds were non-lethal, and soon, she can join in celebration with the people who actually saved her life. For Chen, however, the topmost priority is to reunite with Tim and end the night on a warm note. The same also holds true for Seth, who knocks at Miles and Juarez’s door to apologize for his behavior and initiate a campaign against loneliness.
