Reddit Roasts The Rookie: Fans Reveal Their Most Hated Episode
One episode from season three seems to be hated by almost everyone in the fandom.
The ABC crime drama about LAPD's oldest recruit, John Nolan, played by the one and only Nathan Fillion, has always been applauded for creating interesting and believable stories about cops working the streets.
Although the idea of a 40-year-old man joining the police force as a rookie seems a bit unrealistic, the series' creators have used it as an opportunity to shed light on some fascinating details of police work, never letting the premise ruin the overall atmosphere of the show. But it's impossible to make all episodes of a procedural series great, and one example from The Rookie certainly proves that.
When discussing which episode could be called the worst, most fans agreed that the perfect candidate for this dubious honor might be the sixth episode of season three, titled "Revelations."
In the episode, Nolan returns to college to finish his degree to become a training officer. Yes, this does look like the perfect fish-out-of-water storyline, and the potential to make this episode both comedic and a little heartbreaking was certainly there. But unfortunately, the writers decided to go in a different direction, and fans are still upset about it.
Nolan comes to his ethics class and for some reason decides to keep his status as a policeman secret, but when one of his classmates sees him in uniform, there is panic among the students that Nolan has been sent to spy on them. And then — another strange decision by the writers — the ethics teacher assigns everybody a five-page essay on whether Nolan had an ethical obligation to disclose that he is a policeman.
People were just shocked by the superficial reaction of the students, claiming that Nolan had done nothing wrong, and the writers' idea that students could care so much about his personal work life was rather ridiculous.
It was also very odd that the professor chose to agree with the students without even challenging them — especially since this was an ethics class where difficult situations are discussed together, so removing the police officer from the debate about the judicial system seemed unfair.
Overall, many consider the episode a failure, as the confusing college plot was included for no apparent reason, and it was neither convincing nor funny.