Trivia / The Rookie (2018)

• Acting for Two: The fourth season finale has the team meeting a drug dealer who's a dead ringer for Bradford with Eric Winter playing both roles. They then show the guy's girlfriend, who's a doppelganger for Chen with Melissa O'Neil playing both parts.
• Actor Leaves, Character Dies: Due to Titus Makin leaving the show during the break between Seasons 3 and 4 - in the middle of a major cliffhanger - the producers had to kill off Jackson West using a Fake Shemp as they couldn't bring the actor back for a brief arc to sort out the character's exit.
• Billing Displacement: Because everyone after Nathan Fillion is credited alphabetically by last name, Shawn Ashmore is billed second despite not having as much presence as the rest of the cast.
• Cast the Expert: Katy O'Brian plays LAPD officer Katie Barnes in "New Blood". Katy used to be an officer with the Carmel Police Department in Carmel, Indiana before she decided to pursue a career in acting.
• The Danza: Katy O'Brian plays Katie Barnes in "New Blood".
• Enforced Method Acting: After the end of the second season, Harold Perrineau admitted in interviews that whilst he knew Armstrong was hiding something, he had been kept in the dark about his being a Dirty Cop, which allowed him to play the character more earnestly rather than making decisions with The Reveal in the back of his mind.
• Fake American:
  • Nathan Fillion (by way of Edmonton, Alberta) as John Nolan, although he has American nationality alongside his Canadian nationality after 1997.
  • Melissa O'Neil as Lucy Chen.
  • Shawn Ashmore as Wesley Evers
• Hostility on the Set: Afton Williamson exited the show after one season, claiming that she experienced hostility and abuse on set but that no one did anything to alleviate the situation. Both recurring guest star Demetrius Grosse and Hair Department head Sally Nicole Ciganovich were fired from the show after ABC Studios had completed internal investigations.
• I Want You to Meet an Old Friend of Mine: Several of Nathan Fillion's castmates from previous projects have appeared on this show.
  • Sean Maher from Firefly appears in the first season episode “Manhunt” as one of the escapees from the crashed prison bus.
  • Fillion’s Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog castmate Felicia Day appears in the first season finale.
  • Seamus Dever and Jon Huertas from Castle appeared in a Season 2 episode. This episode aired as part of ABC’s “Cast from the Past” week, in which several of their shows invoked this trope.
  • Alan Tudyk, Fillion’s castmate from Firefly & Serenity, appears in a Season 2 episode.
  • Toks Olagundoye from Castle started recurring in Season 3 as Nolan's college professor.
  • Molly C Quinn, who played Fillion's daughter in Castle, guest starred as a suspect in a Season 3 episode that touched on father-daughter relationships. She returned in season 5.
  • Tricia Helfer, who appeared alongside Fillion in Halo 3: ODST, has a guest role as a slippery thief.
  • Tamala Jones, another Castle alumnus, appeared in Season 4 as Aaron Thorsen’s mother.
  • Flula Borg, who appeared alongside Fillion and recurring guest star Pete Davidson in The Suicide Squad, plays Skip Chaser Randy in Season 4.
  • Arye Gross, another Castle alumnus, appeared in season 4 in the episode "Simone".
  • Kamar de los Reyes, who plays Detective Sergeant Ryan Caradine in Season 3, was Nathan's castmate on One Life to Live as Antonio Vega.
• Playing Against Type:
  • Brandon Routh, best known for his roles as the wholesome Ray Palmer and Superman, plays racist Jerkass Officer Doug Stanton.
  • Enver Gjokaj, best known for playing Nice Guy characters like Daniel Sousa and [[Series/Dollhouse Victor]], plays Donovan Town, Harper's not so amicable ex-husband.
• Real-Life Relative: Roselyn Sánchez, who played unscrupulous journalist Valerie Castillo in “The Overnight”, is married to Eric Winter (Officer Tim Bradford).
• Reality Subtext: Annie Wersching (Rosalind Dyer) was dying of cancer when she filmed her final episodes in Season 5, which end with her character's death. She was diagnosed in 2020, the year Season 2 finished, but it's unclear if it had anything to do with why she was absent from Season 4, including why the show never followed up on Rosalind's implication that she would be released because of Armstrong's corruption.
• Recycled Script: Through the first season, Bishop’s primary arc is her desire to make detective as soon as possible. Following Afton Williamson’s departure from the show between seasons, more focus was put on Lopez’s desire to become detective.
• Ripped from the Headlines:
  • The early Season 3 plot regarding Jackson West dealing with a racist training officer was written in following the “Black Lives Matter” protests of the Summer of 2020.
  • Aaron Thorsen's backstory, which has clearly been based on the Amanda Knox story and her being convicted and exonerated of the murder of her roommate, Meredith Kercher, but dealing with judgment from those who assume she's guilty and fighting to help others like her. Also like Thorsen, Amanda Knox was exonerated on the basis that the evidence used to convict her was clearly mishandled and the investigation of Meredith's murder was sloppy.
• Troubled Production:
  • Averted, as The Rookie was one of the few shows to complete a full season order in the 2019/2020 television schedule, with many shows being shut down in the midst of production on their final episodes due to the COVID-19 pandemic - however, producers noted in interviews following the season finale that the pandemic was likely going to affect the way the show was shot going forward.
  • Production of the third season had to be rearranged following members of the cast and crew testing positive for COVID-19 in October and December; ultimately, the season would close on 14 episodes.
• What Could Have Been: Following the real-life murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, Titus Makin felt that he’d be betraying his people by continuing to play a cop and wanted to leave the role. He decided to stay after the showrunners assured him that Season 3 would be tackling these racial issues directly, including having Jackson getting to take down a racist cop.
• Word of God:
  • Showrunner Alexi Hawley is on record as stating that whilst the writers are aware of the Chenford shippers and enjoy writing for the pairing, the characters won’t be embarking on a relationship due to the power imbalance created by Tim being Lucy’s direct superior. When the two finally embark on a relationship in Season 5, Tim quickly moves to a different department so he’s no longer in Lucy’s chain of command.
  • Showrunner Alexi Hawley did not offer any specifics regarding Titus Makin’s departure from the series at the start of the fourth season, beyond the departure being out of his control.
• Written-In Infirmity:
  • Angela's surprise pregnancy in Season 3 occurred because actress Alyssa Diaz really was pregnant. This ended up fueling much drama as Angela's kidnapped by drug trafficker La Fiera, with designs on her baby. Her second pregnancy in season five was also written in.
  • Nyla got pregnant unexpectedly in Season 4 because her actress, Mekia Cox, was actually expecting.