The Rookie fans have been hoping to see more of Lucy undercover, and the showrunner has addressed the chances of it happening soon!
Since The Rookie began, the rise of Lucy Chen (Melissa O’Neill) has been great to watch. She’s gone from a wide-eyed innocent cop to a seasoned patrolwoman and romancing her training officer, Tim Bradford (Eric Winter). Lucy has always had an eye on rising up to become a detective, although she failed to make the cut the last time.
Still, Lucy has hopes for it and then qualified for undercover work. That hasn’t been utilized much, but among the teases for Season 7 by showrunner Alexi Hawley was a storyline of Lucy working with Nyla Harper (Mekia Cox).
Speaking to TVLine, Hawley said that while they were hoping to do that storyline, it likely won’t be this year.
“No, not this season. Undercover episodes are tough, because how do you do something unexpected? In the traditional undercover episode, you go in deep and then something goes wrong and we’ve got to pull you out — and we’ve done a lot of those.”
That may be a letdown to fans, but as Hawley says, The Rookie has already done several undercover episodes with Nyla and Angela (Alyssa Diaz). They’d need something meaty for Lucy’s first major undercover job, and it’s hard to imagine one that would work.
The best option is how they’d need a fresh cop for a case, someone not as well known to be part of an operation. That could involve Lucy and she’d likely jump at the chance to prove herself. For now, she has her own case to work on.
What’s coming for Lucy on The Rookie?
Right now, Lucy is busy as the training officer for rookie Seth Ridley (Patrick Keleher). He appears to be a good cop, even risking his life to save a hostage, which earned him a heroic reputation. He also talks of battling cancer and losing a high school girlfriend.
But Lucy has felt something wrong with Seth as his stories about his girlfriend’s death keep changing. She talked to his school counselor, who shared that Seth was a good kid, but his “girlfriends” were two classmates he barely talked to.
Seth admitted to lying over stress but wanted to be a good cop. He also claimed his cancer had returned, with Lucy deciding not to report him to Grey but clearly keeping an eye on him. That’s likely to play into future episodes, according to Hawley.
“Undercover is still important to Lucy, but you see her step up to become a training officer, at least temporarily, so that’s a new challenge for her that we lean into.”
While Lucy will play like she’s supportive of Seth, she wants to make sure the LAPD hasn’t let in some sort of criminal or mental ticking time bomb. So, in a way, Lucy will be going “undercover” to learn more of Seth’s past and provide an intriguing subplot for this season of The Rookie.
The Rookie Season 7 airs Tuesdays at 10/9c on ABC.