Series / The Rookie: Feds

The Rookie: Feds is a procedural drama that began airing on ABC on September 27, 2022. It is a spin-off of The Rookie.

After being introduced in a Backdoor Pilot, the series follows Simone Clark (Niecy Nash) who, after years as a mom and guidance counselor, has become the FBI's oldest rookie agent. Having helped thwart a Russian spy plot, Simone now joins a new team that tries to solve cases in Los Angeles.

A combo of low ratings and the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes would find the show cancelled after 1 season.

Tropes

• Amicable Exes:
  • When Simone meets Congressman Damien Roberts as part of a case, it is established that the two had a past relationship, but although the two have some disagreements such as who broke up with whom they are generally friendly to each other.
  • "The Offer" features the appearance of Garza's ex-wife, Special Agent Candace Thurlow. While they divorced due to their differing approaches to their role, Garza forced on solving cases while Candace's priority is her own career, the two still have respect for each other, and when Candace contrasts the ways in which they were greeted by their colleagues after returning from their honeymoon, Garza sincerely apologises for how she was treated as though getting married was all she could have wanted.
• Arbitrary Scepticism: Carter is questioned when he can immediately dismiss the existence of vampires but seriously believe that Bigfoot is real.
• Back for the Dead: "Dead Again" opens with investment banker Paul Morrison, who was declared dead six years ago, found freshly killed in a warehouse.
• Batman Gambit: In "Burn Run", an assassin who specialises in killing people in a manner that looks like accidents stages a plan to force a reclusive billionaire out of his penthouse by killing his former lover, anticipating that the woman's death would prompt the man to attend her funeral and thus be in a position for the assassin to go after him.
• Bavarian Fire Drill: "Star Crossed" sees Simone and Carter intercept a ransom pick-up that descends into a shoot-out with at least four people. Despite the two being outnumbered and their enemies having larger weapons, Simone stops the gunfight by shooting out a tire on each vehicle present and claiming that the FBI have them surrounded, getting the criminals to kick away their guns before they realise they had the advantage.
• A Birthday, Not a Break: The Season One finale "Red One" takes place on Simone's 49th birthday, which she is determined to celebrate as her mother never reached that milestone due to the stress of raising Simone while her father was in custody.
• Broken Pedestal:
  • Simone expresses that she has this when she learns that cosmetics mogul Layla Laughlin has been using human blood in her skin cream. Even after it's revealed that Laughlin didn't know this, Simone muses that Laughlin's problem was a fear of getting old, when people should be willing to accept this.
  • In "Red One", Garza is disappointed to learn that his old mentor was part of a deal putting a notorious terrorist in witness protection in exchange for his information, basically letting the man off for his apparently numerous past crimes]].
• Busman's Holiday: Carter's attempt at a day off with his girlfriend leads to him investigating drug theft at the hospital where she works.
• The Cameo: Nathan Fillion and Alyssa Diaz appear in cameos as John Nolan and Angela Lopez respectively. Brent Huff appears as his recurring character Smitty.
• Chekhov's Skill: It's noted that Brandon did a lot of research on vampire lore when he was working on "Vampire Cop", including being aware of other details such as the concept of "golden blood" (a blood type that only forty people in the world possess).
• Closest Thing We Got: In "Burn Run", with Carter taking a day off, Simone has to investigate a case with her former supervisor Oliver Bailor, who has a tense relationship with her and has been out of the field for a year, as he is the only agent available to help her.
• Comically Missing the Point:
  • Simone assumes that being put in background checks is a "test" by Garza and "I need to prove myself again." She heads off, ignoring Garza, trying to explain, "that's not the takeaway."
  • She finds a lead and brings it to Garza, talking on how she's proving she can be a team player by not going on her own, oblivious to how close she is to being fired on her first day.
• Commonality Connection: In "Dead Again", when the team confirm that investment banker Paul Morrison faked his death six years ago, Simone introduces Morrison's ex-wife (who was framed for the murder of her husband) to her father, reasoning that her father's own experience of imprisonment under false charges will help the woman rebuild her life.
• Disproportionate Retribution: "Close Contact" sees the team have to save a woman from a man who is seeking revenge for the death of his son in a car accident, but the woman was cleared of any wrong-doing as she wasn't drunk or speeding and it was just an unfortunate event.
• The Dog Was the Mastermind: "The Reaper" has Simone and Carver go undercover in a prison to investigate a woman who appears to be the girlfriend of hired assassin the Reaper, only to realise that the woman in question is the actual Reaper; the man they're tracking is her accomplice.
• Easily Forgiven: Antoinette is initially teasingly annoyed when she wakes up after a night with Brendon to find him gone, but is immediately sympathetic when Brendon explains that he left because he got a call that his sobriety sponsor had fallen off the wagon.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: "For Love and Money" sees drug mogul Tobias Kazan make a deal where he will surrender his meth lab in exchange for his daughter's protection in prison from a rival gang. Subverted when it turns out that Kazan's real plan was to get Garza killed in the subsequent raid and he doesn't particularly care about his daughter's safety.
• Everyone Has Standards: In "The Offer", the abduction of Brie Langham is revealed to have been arranged by her brother Tate, with the intention of preventing her taking part in a key vote that would allow Tate to take control of the family company from their father. However, when events result in Brie's original abductors being killed and Brie taken hostage by mercenaries, Tate does his best to help the Bureau find Brie, affirming that he never wanted his sister to get hurt.
• Everyone Went to School Together: It's revealed that DEA agent Xavier Lind (who previously appeared in Rookie) was briefly Carter's roommate when both attended the FBI Academy, but Lind left because he felt frustrated at the hazing where Carter kept trying to tough it out.
• Foil: Simone is this to the protagonist of the parent series, John Nolan. Both are the oldest rookies in the histories of their respective organizations.
  • John is a straight white male, Simone is a bisexual black woman.
  • John is a humble unassuming man who always acts grateful for the opportunity to be a cop, often to the point of letting people walk all over him. Simone is confident and outgoing and often acts as if the FBI should be grateful to have her.
  • Simone's father spent time in prison for a crime he didn't commit. John's mother spent her life getting away with crime.
  • Simone's father is a loving parent who disagrees with her career choice but reluctantly supports her. John's mother is emotionally abusive and only supported her son's career choice as long as she thought it would benefit her.
  • Being an older rookie, John feels he needs to prove himself, but his attempts always backfire. The only time things work out in his favor is when he stops trying to prove anything and just does his job. From day one, Simone let it be known that she considers grunt work to be beneath her, that she was too good to do background checks, and practically forced her way onto Garza’s team. This attitude always works out in her favor.
• For Halloween, I Am Going as Myself: During an undercover mission to the Belarus consulate, Brendon just goes as himself as he is such a popular figure in the country that he can easily draw everyones' attention while Stensen does the real work.
• Guilt by Association: In "Burn Run", Carter's girlfriend Fortune asks him to help her investigate drug thefts at the hospital where she works as she is being accused of the thefts simply because her mother was a criminal (even though her mother had served her sentence and was never involved in drugs).
• Hidden Depths: An old colleague of Stensen's observes that Brendan has potential as a profiler given his background as an actor, as both roles involve getting inside a person's head and coming up with a backstory to define what motivates them.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Invoked when Carter reflects on how his attempts to blend in and avoid making waves is part of the reason he was never promoted, as he never stood out enough to attract anyone's attention.
• Human Resources: "Out for Blood" reveals that a company's famous skin care cream is made by extracting human blood from a captured subject who possesses an extremely rare blood type, so rare that only forty people on the entire planet have the same blood type.
• Hypocritical Humor: After Carter has been talking about how Simone should learn to let go of grudges, he is shown still arguing with Xavier Lind after old grudges concerning him leaving the Academy.
• I Am Not Spock: In-universe. Brendon had starred for years in a show called Vampire Cop and has to keep telling fellow agents and suspects that he's neither a vampire or was a real cop; one episode revealed that there are actually conspiracy theorists certain that Brendon is a real vampire.
• In the Blood: "Bloodline" reveals that the children of serial killer Thomas Clay Briggs (conceived through sperm donations) are being targeted by Roman Griffith, one of Briggs' children, who has convinced himself that he and his siblings have inherited their father's criminal tendencies. Although Griffith kills himself after being caught, Garza notes that the remaining surviving siblings will be kept under observation just in case.
• Irony:
  • Brendon spent six years covered in fake blood playing a vampire detective but initially can't stand the sight of a real crime scene.
  • Simone's dad notes it's going to be tricky to keep fighting for police reform while his FBI agent daughter is living with him.
  • Simone has to laugh at how Laura is a genius profiler but completely missed how her fiancée was sleeping with her best friend.
• If I Wanted You Dead...: Invoked when the team capture a small terrorist group seeking to abduct Congressman Damien Roberts. Earlier Roberts had nearly been killed by a car bomb. However, when the team analyse the remaining bomb fragments, it's revealed that the bomb was a very amateur piece of work, particularly when one of the terrorists has past military experience. This discovery prompts the team to dismiss these terrorists as suspects, on the grounds that if this group had wanted to kill Roberts they would have done a more professional job of it.
• Jurisdiction Friction:
  • An obvious case as often the FBI and the LAPD will be at odds in some cases, although Simone's prior contact with the LAPD has left them open to collaborating with her in particular.
  • "Felicia" opens with Simone and Carter in St. Thomas to catch a crook. They're undercover, so annoyed when a local cop in full uniform strolls up to chat with them while pointing out that, technically, they have no say in this operation to the point they had to surrender their badges and guns when they arrived. They do end up working together to bust the guy and hand him over to the Feds.
  • "For Love and Money" has the team engage in a minor conflict with Detective Naomi Voss when they and her attempt to arrest the same man for different crimes.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: In "Out For Blood," when bringing up a key point about the victim and a suspect to the documentary filmmaker, the agents ask to make sure "this won't suddenly come up forty minutes into the episode, right? I hate when a TV show does that."
• Like Brother and Sister: While Simone states that she will "go Mama Bear" if Brendon is in danger, in general the two come across more like siblings, having bonded at the academy and agreeing to support each other as they rise through the FBI.
• Love Makes You Dumb: Brought up in "The Reaper", as Simone observes that the titular assassin is making mistakes because they're in love and are allowing their accomplice to get away with various mistakes because of the Reaper's feelings.
• Minor Crime Reveals Major Plot:
  • In "Countdown", the investigation into a missing scientist who spent his time looking for Bigfoot reveals a plan to destroy Los Angeles with two dirty bombs.
  • "Seeing Red" opens with Simone discovering a dog-walker who has been attacked, which leads to the discovery that the attacker stole the keys to the walker's clients homes, allowing them to steal a diplomatic pouch.
• Noodle Incident:
  • The second episode opens with a case that for some reason required the team to stage a wedding, with Simone as the bride and Brendan as the groom.
  • Carter has worked three serial killer cases; he caught two of them, but warns Simone not to ask about the third if she wants to ever sleep at night.
  • Garza mentions that he solved one previous case from a few pieces of sand that he identified as being from the Bahamas, and another because of a particular type of hair gel.
• Oblivious to His Own Description: In the pilot, Simone tells a supervisor that a potential federal employee is not right for his job.
  Simone: In my experience, drastic change equals a person in crisis.
  Supervisor: Really. Because I'm talking to a middle-aged woman who abandoned her life and moved across the country to join the FBI. Are you saying I should be worried you're in crisis?
  Simone: Okay, I see what you did there.
• Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: Garza seems to have a knack for this as his unit has a middle-aged rookie, a former TV series actor, a woman who had a breakdown after discovering her fiancée cheating on her and a guy who wants a promotion but is constantly passed over for it.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech:
  • Laura Stensen delivers this to her former best friend Katie, who had an affair with Laura's fiancé for a year before admitting it. Katie points out that Laura was so focused on work she was making no time for either of them, but Laura counters that a true friend would have at least tried to point out what she was doing rather than start an affair.
  • Simone delivers one to psychopathic cult leader Foster Mills to provoke a confession out of him, telling him that for all his arrogance she sees one or two people like him a week in her role as an agent, people willing to twist reality any way they want to make themselves seem superior and hide their own inferiority.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: During an undercover op in a prison, Carter meets a woman he arrested in the past, who has been sent back to prison on an assault charge as her past criminal record resulted in the judge setting an unreasonably high bail. While the woman tried to blackmail Carter to help get her out of prison by threatening to expose his real agenda, even after the case was over Carter pulled some strings to get the woman's bail reduced to a more reasonable rate as he recognises that she has made an effort to turn her life around and the escalated bail was unfair.
• Recovered Addict: Brendon is a recovering alcoholic who is still in his first year of sobriety; Simone notes that she helped him deflect attention from his lack of drinking at the academy by discreetly knocking over his drink during nights out with other students.
• Retired Monster: "Burn Run" sees Carter discover that an attempt to coerce a hospital worker to steal drugs was being orchestrated by a former mobster; the now-old man was let out of prison due to his age, but with his son having exhausted his money he came up with the plan to steal drugs as a way to make himself more money.
• Saying Too Much: "Star Crossed" features a drug dealer's daughter staging her own kidnapping to get money from her father, only to admit it when she's confronted by the team and her father.
• Secret Test of Character: Played for laughs in the pilot as Simone thinks her being put on background checks is part of a plan by Garza to get her to prove herself for the unit. She doesn't grasp that Garza is under pressure not to have a loose cannon like Simone on his team.
• Secretly Wealthy: Antoinette's family back in France are apparently very famous, her father owning a winery while her mother was a model; Antoinette moved to America to get away from the limelight.
• Serial-Killer Killer: In "Bloodline", Roman Griffith at least believes he is this, as he is targeting his half-siblings on the grounds that their shared father was a serial killer and they have all inherited their father's criminal tendencies. However, while two of Griffith's victims were criminals, one of his half-siblings had no criminal record, and at least one other half-sister is shown to be a perfectly normal woman.
• Shut Up, Hannibal!: When Foster Mills learns that his plans have been defeated and his cult's mass murder spree halted, he attempts to begin another speech to Simone, but she makes it clear that she's done listening and leaves him to his last meal before his execution.
• Smokescreen Crime: Attacks on Congressman Damien Roberts are revealed to actually be an attempt to kill his chief of staff, who was accidentally responsible for the death of the man's son in a car accident (all concerned parties confirm that the woman was legally cleared and it was nothing but a terrible accident).
• Spot the Imposter: A supposed Chicago resident gives himself away when he talks about his large collection of sneakers. Carter, who grew up in Chicago, immediately knows something is wrong because people from the city always refer to the footwear as "gym shoes," never "sneakers."
• Stealing the Credit: In "The Remora", the titular criminal is named such by Carter because he basically keeps track of other criminals while they're planning some complex heist and kills them just as they finished their work, allowing him to take whatever they stole and sell it on himself. He attracts the team's attention because his latest theft of plans for a satellite defence system left him with an item he didn't have the skill to properly fence.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
  • Simone expected to join Garza's unit and thrown she's put into background checks. Garza says that, even if Simone did a good job on the earlier case, putting a rookie who's so headstrong and "a torpedo looking for a target" onto a unit that's fighting to be accepted is a bad move. Simone does end up cracking the case to be allowed to join.
  • When a case results in at least one undercover agent having his cover blown, leading to the gang he was infiltrating killing him, Brendon in particular expresses frustration that the dead agent won’t get a suitable funeral, as even with his identity exposed the FBI can’t have a full funeral in case it compromises more of his contacts. Brendon and Simone agree to acknowledge the agent’s death by attending his smaller funeral themselves even if they didn’t know the agent personally.
  • While Simone and Brendon have done a good job on investigating some dangerous and challenging cases, this doesn't mean that they're allowed to skip over the official requirements of passing the tests to become qualified agents. "Burn Run" specifically has them be assigned low-level tasks to complete as part of their training.
• Take a Third Option: The titular character in “The Silent Prisoner” is ultimately revealed to have done this; his brother leads a group of revolutionaries in their home country and sent the future prisoner to America to make a deal, but instead of obeying his brother’s orders and continuing the war or simply refusing and being killed for it, the younger man walked into a courthouse and assaulted the relevant officials so that he would be sent to jail.
• Taking the Bullet: "Red One" sees Simone do this to protect a mother and child from being shot by a man seeking revenge against the husband/father. Fortunately Simone was wearing a bulletproof vest, and the rest of the team are close enough that they are able to arrest the man before he can fire again.
• This Is Reality: In "Dead Again," the team finds a man who was supposed to have been killed by his wife six years earlier was still alive only to be killed for real. Simone and Brendon immediately cite the film Double Jeopardy that the guy faked his death and the wife, upon being released, decided to kill the guy knowing she couldn't be tried for the same crime twice. The other agents immediately point out that's not how the clause works in real life and the woman can, in fact, be charged for the real murder.
• Too Proud for Lowly Work: On Simone's first day, she assumes she will be assigned to Garza's task force. Instead she is assigned to background checks. She is very open about the fact that she considers it a waste of her talent and forces her way onto the task force.
• Wouldn't Hurt a Child: In "Bloodline", while Roman Griffith is targeting his half-siblings in the belief that he is preventing them carrying on the criminal tendencies of their serial killer father, when he finds himself face-to-face with Theo, the son of his half-sister Maggie Whitlock, Roman cannot bring himself to hurt Theo despite his justification that Theo would also have the DNA of his father.

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