It’s the first part of a backdoor pilot of The Rookie, so keep reading to find out what happened in “Simone.”
Something Suspicious
The episode opens with a jogger stumbling across a broken lock on a fence. A guy shows up and tries to get the jogger to go inside with him. As he’s trying to convince him, the audience is shown a knife behind his back. The jogger’s girlfriend appears with their dog, and the jogger uses it to get away from the man. He tells his girlfriend that he’s creeped out and calls 9-1-1 as they walk away.
An Explosive Call
Lucy and John respond to the call. They’re first shown in the shop driving to the scene. Lucy asks how John is doing with Bailey gone for her weekend away with the Army Reserves. This leads to a back and forth about how Bailey and John moved in together without noticing.
Once on the scene, Lucy and John enter the building only to find a timed bomb that has 10 seconds left. The pair barely make it out before it goes off. They still get thrown through the air with the force of the explosion, but both are fine.
Other officers, including Tim and Wade, show up on the scene. They find out that the explosion took out the power for the area right before the FBI show up. The main agents on the case are Matt and Casey, with Matt leading the investigation. He tries to take over the investigation, but Wade puts up a fight due to the risk John and Lucy have already endured. This leads to them agreeing to team up.
Extraterrestial Intruders
In the midst of everything else, Nyla and Angela respond to a call about a man who had an intruder. When asked about the intruder, the man provides them with a sketch and tells them it was an alien. He says it stole his manuscripts about traffic, and he can prove it happened because the alien attacked him. This is followed by him showing off a bruise on his side.
Angela and Nyla look into the man back at the station. They learn he has LSD-related hallucinations. This leads them to wonder if he saw something actually happen, but the hallucinations distorted how he saw it.
Prints are later found at his backdoor, but they’re classified. Nyla reaches out to a friend with high access to find out more, but they’re cleared to know about it either. They do find that the classification status comes from the air force base at Groom Lake, aka Area 51.
Finding the Suspects
The couple, who called in about the suspicious man, are brought in for questioning. They describe him as a white man with a scar under his eye and a Russian accent. After that, Tim comes in and tells them about evidence tracing them to another suspect that doesn’t fit the description just given.
They raid the place of the second suspect and find no one there. They do learn that his high school guidance counselor is training at Quantico at the moment.
Simone’s Introduction
The show transitions to a driving test where Simone is driving chaotically but making no mistakes. She’s clearly in complete control of the vehicle despite whipping around and drifting with each turn. The person grading her still fights her on her driving skills. When asked where she learned to drive like this, Simone replies by saying she actually taught driver’s education and improved her skills while doing that.
She follows up by saying she also coached wrestling to improve her hand-to-hand combat for when she joined the FBI. Her instructor proceeds to tell her things are done a certain way at the FBI. He continues to comment on her age, and she corrects him to say she’s 48, but that’s not stopping her. The rest of the conversation is cut short when a helicopter arrives to fly her out to LA to help with the case.
Simone Knows Better
Simone shows up during a profiling meeting about the kid, Zeke, whom she used to counsel and is now a suspect. Her entrance to the meeting is loud and disruptive when she can’t open the doors properly, which gives her a bad start.
When the person in charge is mischaracterizing the suspect in their profile, she loudly disagrees. She lists her experiences with him and how he’s more likely to isolate himself and hide than anything. Matt and the profiler are quick to dismiss her and her thoughts.
She apologizes to Matt for talking out of turn and asks how to help. They tell her to just go home because she’s not needed.
As Simone exits the meeting, John tells her that she was brave and that they were wrong to dismiss her. He follows up by asking her to ride with him for the rest of the day. The two bond over John having been the oldest rookie in the force and Simone being the oldest trainee at the academy. They swap stories. Simone reveals she wanted to be an FBI agent but got pregnant with twins. Now that her kids are in college, she’s going after her dream. When she starts talking about all the young people she’s training with, John reminds her that her life experience makes up for what she might not be able to physically do compared to her fellow trainees.
Zeke
Simone and John go to the tunnels closest to Zeke’s house. John tells her to stay back, much to Simone’s dismay, while he goes and investigates. John runs into Zeke, causing him to take off. When Simone sees Zeke start running, she gets in the driver’s seat of John’s shop and backs the car up. This leads to Zeke running into it, and she grabs him before he can run off again. The method of catching him is pointed out as unconventional, but Simone responds by pointing out that she caught the suspect.
After this, Zeke recognizes her and begs her to not let the man kill him. This transitions to Zeke cuffed in an interrogation room. John, Simone, and Wade are waiting for the FBI agents and talking about Zeke.
When Matt shows up, he tells Simone off about not listening to him and still being here. Wade tells Matt that he wants Simone to stay and talk to Zeke, but Matt disagrees. Simone leaves with John in her tracks. He offers to recommend places in the area before her flight, and she informs him that she grew up in the area. The talk is cut short when they call Simone back because Zeke says he’ll only talk to her.
When Simone enters the room, she turns the lights off and gets Zeke uncuffed. She talks to the room about how she helped him and let him sit in the calm of her office and wash away the harsh environment at home so he could focus in school.
After some pushing, Zeke admits he was paid on the dark web to create detonators. He says he was told that they were for a research scientist, and Zeke believed it because he was desperate for money. He said he made six detonators, one that was timed and five that were GPS oriented.
John and Simone watch Zeke get placed in an FBI vehicle after the interrogation is complete. From there, Simone decides she needs to get the kid a lawyer because she always promised to take care of her students.
Simone’s Dad
Simone visits her dad, and he shuts the door on her when she says she’s still training at the FBI. After a few more attempts to get in, her dad talks about how he disagrees with her choices because he’s big in the “defund the police” movement. He finally lets her in when she tells him about Zeke and asks for his help.
Simone cooks for her dad, and the two bond over missing Simone’s mom leading to Simone lamenting about missing the bond she once had with her dad. They talk about how he was wrongfully convicted and how he doesn’t understand why she would want to be with the police. Her defense is that she can help from the inside as a good agent.
She says that she’s doing it because black women make up 1% of the FBI. She wants to help from the inside. The talk transitions to her talking about how she’s going to be kicked out soon anyways. Her dad gives her advice on the situation, which Simone questions.
The following day, Simone goes back to the precinct to try to win a second chance. Casey asks Simone why she’s still here. She tells her she has no place in the FBI. Simone defends herself by telling Casey about how her dad gave up on his dreams of being a trumpet player after he was wrongfully incarcerated, and she’s not going to give up on her dreams because of it. Casey responds by telling her it’s a boys club, and to fit in, she’ll have to hide her real self. Simone makes it clear that she refuses to do that.
Evil Plan
The other suspect is shown walking into his apartment. There’s desperate whining as he walks through until a man is shown tied up and in a dog cage. The suspect walks past him to look at a map with different skulls and cross bone stickers in various places in LA.
National Guard Armory
Back at the precinct, they realize the power might have been shut down for a reason. John notices that the National Guard Armory is in the outage area and realizes it would be his target. After this, they cut to the suspect pulling up to the gate at the Amory. He shows the guard a video showing his husband tied up. The suspect promises that the husband will be fine if the guard does as he’s told.
From there, we learn that John warned Bailey. She’s looking into it with other people at the armory. They enter a cage full of weapons and find a man down. Bailey watches the suspect takes off with a humvee.
The Car Chase
John arrives at the armory as the humvee is pulling out. He chases after it along with multiple officers. Under Tim’s instruction, John and Lucy hit the humvee on both sides, making it stop. They get the suspect out only to learn it’s the guard.
Another humvee is leaving the armory unknown to anyone. The guard tells them about what happened and informs them that the suspect stole a bunch of C4 explosives. When back at the precinct, the FBI takes over the investigation. Wade and Tim fight Matt on it.
The Reality of Aliens
Nyla and Angela talk to their man, who thinks they’re “Women in Black” and are against him. Simone pulls them away from him and tells them that they’re going about talking to him wrong. She gives talking to him a try. After a bit of friendly chatting, she asks him how he could only see it. He says it’s a shapeshifter who looks like a white man in his 30s. He continues to describe the man they’ve been hunting. Simone shows him the sketch they have of him, and he tells her that’s who broke into his house.
When all this is brought up to the FBI, Nyla and Angela point out that Simone put the pieces together, prompting Matt to tell her good job. He asks if she thinks he should put her on the task force, and she says a fool wouldn’t. The talk ends with him finally letting her ride along.
Enervo
They raid the apartment the suspect was staying in. Lucy finds where the map once was on the wall. When doing a dry rub, she finds the word “enervo,” which means power, “derived of power.”
As this is happening, the suspect puts explosives in rental container trucks. He gives five guys envelopes with directions and tells them to drive trucks for his research project. He makes a point to tell them to follow the exact instructions and sends them off. The episode ends with him watching from the roof with a grin.
The Rookie will be back next Sunday, May 1 at 10 p.m. ET on ABC with part two of this backdoor pilot event. Check out our other coverage of The Rookie!