The Rookie – Mad About Murder – Review : Touchdown

Mad about Murder is easily one of my top five episodes of the season, high stakes, multiple storylines and a little bit of old fashioned Rookie fun.

The start of this episode is arguably one of my favourite starts to an episode, Tim showing his personal side to Miles admitting he wants to win the LAPD vs LAFD football game, it was definitely giving me season 2 Bradford vibes and I love it. I’ll be honest I was definitely shocked when the random dude showed up reading out the transcript for the hit team.

Nathan Fillion really does shine through when he gets to play humour and Nolan stealing Bailey’s gear is a prime example of that.

I’m such a sucker for storylines coming back and being mentioned in tv shows, which is why I absolutely love the Celina and Lucy storyline this episode. Celina really has been shining since she became a P2, and this is no different. Stopping her mother from divulging information during her interview with Heather for the Mad About Murder podcast. Then ripping into her was definitely one of my favourite parts of the episode. The woman trying to gain Lucy and Celina’s help was definitely determined and I’m not sure how much I liked Karla saying that they would help, but inevitably we knew that they would.

I really felt for Nyla and James when no one turned up on time for the reform meeting, they put all this effort into helping better the police force but were let down. I truly do hope that over time we will get to see proper support for them and their cause.

Tim’s case requiring the feds involvement only means one thing, high stakes and a great storyline.

I really have come to like Miles and he really is starting to come out of his shell and suggesting changing the training videos shows how much he loves the job. The training videos are some of the funniest and most inaccurate training videos I’ve seen and I’m definitely glad that Miles is updating them, maybe this is why Seth was so bad at his job!

The assassin website not being a prank was not something I was expecting, it’s definitely very real. The people who are targets are less than helpful but regardless Angela and Tim had to interview them just in case.

Smitty really is one of the best characters on the show, saying “time is money” and making Miles pay to speak to him is exactly what I’d expect Smitty to do. Sometimes Smitty has some little nuggets of genuine wisdom, but this was not one of those moments. I think Miles leaves the conversation more confused than helped.

We always love to see The Mid-Wilshire crew in tactical gear and this time is no different, there is always an element of shock when they are in tactical gear, be it that Angela was taken to Guatemala in season 4 or like this time the hit man has been hit himself.

Celina and Lucy interviewing Aria’s ex-boyfriend is incredibly interesting. Lucy puts her skills into play when she notices the significance of Aria having two social media accounts, when her sister Taylor had only mentioned one account. Her family disagreeing with her choice to have the baby made me think that she had just run away to escape the scrutiny. Aria’s ex-boyfriend may have been a jerk for leaving her to deal with pregnancy on her own, but he did at least help Lucy and Celina to locate her.

Personally I love a walk and talk scene; Nolan, Tim and Angela discussing the hitman being murdered was very entertaining, Nolan making the joke “this assassin game is murder” falling flat on Angela and Tim really reminded me of Castle and how Ryan and Esposito would respond to one of Castle’s jokes.

Heather really did bug me in this episode, only caring about Taylor and Aria’s story once the cops were involved was very shady. I absolutely loved Lucy in this scene, it definitely showed how good she will be once she makes sergeant (as if we didn’t already know), Taylor admitting that she agreed with her parents on Aria’s decision to have the baby furthered my suspicion that she was driven away from the family.

It was incredibly weird to see Nolan driving and Tim in the passenger’s seat, but we didn’t have much time to focus on that as they were chasing after Danny Fang, who was then fatally stabbed as he was fleeing. I was definitely not expecting him to be stabbed, from the promo we knew that Malvado was going to kill someone that they were chasing but I was expecting a long range shot not a close-range stabbing.

Some more Miles and Grey, father son duo is exactly what this episode needed, Grey encouraging Miles to just get started on the training videos was such a small scene but one I definitely loved. You can see their bond growing throughout the episodes.

Nolan being the one to announce that he found Malvado genuinely shocked me, I half expected him to keep it a secret since it could have brought up repercussions for Bailey and her actions, and also on him for lying.

The switch between Kaylie and Zach was hilarious, her pretending to keep up the gag and that they wouldn’t spill anything and a straight cut to Zach who was talking like he’d been given truth serum.

Tim and Angela’s hang out after work was by far my favourite scene in this episode and possibly in the whole season thus far. I’ve missed the Bropez friendship being on our screens, and this was a perfect way to bring it back, over a nice drink of Palm Republic.

My quote of the week is from Angela in this scene “hate to break it to ya, but I’m not one of the guys, you’re one of the girls and girls want gossip, so spill it” – I do love Angela always clocking Tim and his feelings, I also love the fact that she isn’t afraid to tell him when he’s messed up. They really are a fantastic friendship.

Lucy apologising to Celina about the podcast really showcased how genuinely good Lucy is as a person, that’s one thing they have consistently showed this season with Lucy’s character. Lucy and Celina definitely stressed me out by going to the house with no back up to begin with, but they definitely can handle themselves.

Celina going into the house on her own whilst Lucy was outside seriously spiked my fear for her, and rightfully so when she pushed down the stairs. Lucy came in with the most badass roll into the room where the woman had a knife to the baby, she was definitely an absolute psychopath. I loved the fact Celina was able to help someone else save their sister and their baby. I feared that Lucy may have killed the woman, however I was glad when she told Tim that she made it out of surgery.

The small interaction between Tim and Lucy after the shooting was honestly one of my favourites of theirs this season, the familiarity and genuine safeness they felt within each other was so intimate. It’s incredibly sweet that we can see that they are keeping each other updated on what is going on in their lives. Lucy is clearly on her way to fully forgiving him, which makes me so happy for Tim considering all the work he has put into himself and their relationship.

Normally I love when prolific murders are caught, however the capture and death of Malvado to me felt like a storyline that shouldn’t have ended, his return would have been the perfect opportunity for Bailey to face some repercussions since an innocent woman died along with a man who should have been sent back to prison after she essentially committed a felony.

I really loved Miles’ approach to the new training videos and having Tim star in them so that he would play in the football game was perfect. Tim’s softer side has really started to shine through and I’m so happy that he is healing mentally for the first time in his life.

The ending of this episode is what I class as the perfect ending to an episode, LAPD vs LAFD. It brought some lightness to the episode, and I smiled all the way through it, it was so nice to see them all celebrate and have fun. LAPD for the win always!

Performer of The Week :

Melissa O’Neil is my choice performer of the week, I absolutely loved how Lucy carried herself this week showing her authority but also her softer side when needed, incredible as always!

var authorcode=’MW’;