Listen, I’m not here to be a John Nolan hater.
It can be a popular sentiment for many in The Rookie fandom, but I’m not a viewer who feels like Nolan has zero value to add to his own series. I, of course, am a fan of Nathan Fillion.
However, The Rookie has fallen into a horrible habit when it comes to Nolan that they need to rectify sooner rather than later because we’re seven seasons into the series, and it’s well past old.
No one likes a main character who can’t face real consequences for their actions, and it’s even more glaring when those around always have to do so.
Whenever Nolan faces challenges, the series magically transports him out of them in due time. Nolan’s punishments, if you want to call them that, always turn into opportunities for him to play action hero and emerge as the badass of the bunch by default.
And some of his more troubling traits are often rewarded when other characters face far different results when they deal with the same.
It’s been an ongoing issue with The Rookie, but it’s been particularly glaring during The Rookie Season 7 when we take into effect some of the things other characters had to deal with in the past.
A prime example this season was The Rookie Season 7 Episode 3.
The hour went out of its way to juxtapose the newest rookies, Seth and Miles, refusing to listen to superiors at a dangerous scene and defying orders to run into a hostage situation with another Nolan mission.
We saw these two rookies ignore their training officers and others around them as they followed their impulses in an effort to save a woman.
The scenes play out humorously, but the danger of what they were doing was as clear as day, and we all knew they’d face some reprimands and consequences for their actions.
They endangered their own lives, that of the hostage, and their fellow officers during that situation.
Frankly, it was pure luck that it worked out in their favor.
But this entire situation was something you’d come to expect from a pair of green cops who are new on the job and have yet to adapt to the rule of law.
They are ROOKIES, so we expect them to make some dumb errors and choices. Hopefully, their supervisors can correct them so that eventually, they’ll be in the best place to go out on their own and be decent cops.
However, the hour also had Nolan going rogue, too.
He’s been spiraling about Jason in the wind. But in his quest to take down Jason and ensure Bailey’s safety, he resorts to doing the most reckless, unimaginable things on a whim, and no one does anything about it.
We saw Nolan go after Moldovo off-book without informing anybody or using any backup. He spent that entire hour with Celina and others checking in on him and picking up that something was off with him, but he refused to confide in anybody.
And then, when he found Moldovo, it resulted in this huge mess that had him abandoning a gunshot victim, leaving a man to bleed out while chasing after Moldovo, only to lose the man anyway when he had to save the victim.
The safety of this citizen was supposed to be the priority. It turned into a total shitshow which is often par for the course with Nolan and so many of his adventures and random quests.
This one was particularly grating and egregious, but one of the most frustrating components was that Nolan didn’t face anything that resembled a reprimand for his actions.
We’ve gotten to a point where Nolan still behaves like a rookie, making reckless and dangerous choices, running on impulse, rarely communicating properly, and endangering the lives of those around him.
Does The Rookie do anything with this, though?
Nope, it always gets brushed off as if Nolan is not only protected by plot armor but also unable to have reasonable and realistic conflict.
Offhand, it would lead someone to assume that because he’s no longer a rookie anymore, the series is simply easing up on him and pushing the narrative that, as a veteran cop, there are certain freedoms and leeway.
But then, you consider Bradford’s arc during The Rookie Season 6. Bradford faced demotion for roping Harper and Lopez into his Ray ambush, and he’s been working himself back in good favor since then.
Mind you, Bradford was at least upfront about some of what he was doing enough for his best friend and her partner to want to help out, which is more than one can say about Nolan when he loops people into his shenanigans and fails to give them pertinent information.
The series has extensively shown how other characters face real repercussions for their actions or even things they don’t have much control over, whereas Nolan doesn’t.
Nolan has placed many other characters in compromising positions, at risk, or has stepped on toes, yet it’s characters like Lucy who get screwed over.
It’s fascinating that John Nolan scored a Golden Ticket, but Lucy helping Bradford derailed her ability to ascend in her career and make detective as she deserves.
Ironically, even within Nolan’s marriage, the issue is highlighted more. Bailey’s Barbie shtick that has her capable of everything at all times only further highlights how The Rookie treats Nolan.
In many ways, Bailey enables this annoying quality in Nolan, and it’s often magnified when they’re together.
Typically, it’s for laughs, but when it’s so consistently a problem for the character and series, it’s unappealing.
It’s well past time for The Rookie to fix this issue, but those are my thoughts. What are yours, Rookie Fanatics? Do you agree? Let us know below!
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Article by:Source: Jasmine Blu
