The agents are getting some time in the spotlight with this week’s documentary-style episode. When faced with a victim that seems to have been killed by a vampire, they need to figure out what actually happened.
Vampire Cop
Smitty from The Rookie was wandering around while filming his “show” and he stumbles on a body. He sees that the victim was drained of blood, specifically from two puncture wounds in the neck, so he calls Brendon because of his expertise from playing on “Vampire Cop”. The feds jump to work on it because it was a complex case and the body was found on federal land.
The victim was a struggling actor who moved to LA to pursue his career. He had been missing for eight months prior to his body being found, though. It turns out that Brendon didn’t know him, but they hung out in some of the same spots.
The documentary takes a moment to focus on Brendon’s Vampire Cop role. They show several scenes from the show and have a bit about people thinking that Brendon is an actual vampire. His dad weighs in with teeth that he bought and pretends are Brendon’s extra sharp baby teeth. Brendon interrupts him, and his dad tells him that this is his chance to get back into acting.
Anders and Alistair
People who live in the area pointed them to Anders Huxley, who has a major list of priors that set off red alarms. It turns out that Anders has a disease where his skin reacts badly to sunlight, so he’s treated poorly because of it. He had an alibi and wasn’t in the area when the murder happened, though. He reveals to them that he lives his life creating children’s books. Carter is familiar with them because he read them to his son growing up.
Canyon Killer
The case has some striking similarities to an old case that Laura and Mark Atlas solved when they worked together on the BAU. The killer is in jail, so they didn’t think it was him, but they did suspect it could have been a copycat. The people doing the documentary interviewed the killer, and he pushes that he was framed by Laura and Atlas. His proof of this is that Laura wasn’t mentally stable when she arrested him because of her fiance cheating on her with her best friend and because she and Atlas are sleeping together.
The documentary pushes hard on this narrative but Laura denies it all and Garza defends her the whole way and tells them to stop the knowingly false allegations against her. Atlas makes the situation repeatedly worse by forgetting to take off his microphone while talking to Laura privately and each conversation confirms their relationship outside of work.
Layla Laughlin
The victim’s body is stolen from the morgue, which forms a new lead. The person, Jake, who took it is caught on camera, and they find the body in his garage. Jake is easily linked to the victim because the victim was dating Jake’s ex when he went missing. Said ex, Layla Laughlin, is a big cosmetics brand founder who is known for her anti-aging cream.
While investigating, they found traces of the victim’s blood all over Jake. They figure out that it was because of the anti-aging cream. The special ingredient in it was human blood, and they were using the victims. It turns out that he had a special blood type called RHnull, which is also called “golden blood” because it’s so rare.
They bring Layla in for questioning, and she denies knowing anything about it. A follow-up with a warrant to search her residency has them at the location when Layla is fighting with her son. Before the feds can do anything, he shoots her. She dies on the scene. It turns out her son convinced her to let him run her company, and she realized after talking to the police what he’d done.
He had kidnapped the victim after learning about his “golden blood” and kept him held hostage but well cared for, so he could extract his blood to use in the cream. One day, the demand got too high for the cream, and he drained too much blood, which gave the victim a heart attack. With him dead, they drained the rest of his blood and punctured two holes in his neck to get everything from his carotid before dumping him in a shallow grave. The feds found another person with RHnull blood was lured in with his absence to make sure production continued, but she’s doing okay, all things considered.
The Rookie: Feds will be back on Tuesday, January 24 at 9 p.m. EST on ABC. Until then, check out our other coverage of the show here!