Pilot

Pilot
Season	1
Episode	1
Air date	October 16, 2018
Written by	Alexi Hawley
Directed by	Liz Friedlander
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"Pilot" is the first episode and series premiere of the first season of The Rookie. It was written by Alexi Hawley, and directed by Liz Friedlander. It makes the first episode of the series overall, which premiered on October 16, 2018.

Summary

Starting over isn't easy, especially for small-town guy John Nolan who, after a life-altering incident, is pursuing his dream of being a police officer. As the force's oldest rookie, he’s met with skepticism from some higher-ups who see him as just a walking midlife crisis. Throw in a workplace romance, a hostage situation, and some tough love from their new training officers, and the latest Los Angeles police rookie class has an uphill battle ahead of them.

Plot

Act 1

Introduction

John Nolan goes to his local bank in Foxburg, Pennsylvania, to stow his divorce papers and wedding ring in a safe deposit box. He chats with his friend Stacy, the bank manager, about his recent divorce and current lack of direction in life. When a group of robbers invade the bank and hold customers at gunpoint, Nolan draws their attention by rambling when he sees that Stacy was trying to activate a silent alarm. Despite being struck by a robber and warned not to get back up under threat of death, Nolan continues to distract the robbers when he sees the police are arriving. Just as one of the robbers is about to kill Nolan, police officers shoot the robber and stop the robbery, freeing the hostages. The incident gives Nolan some thoughts as to what to do next with his life.

Rollcall

Nine months later, Nolan arrives at the Los Angeles Police Department Mid-Wilshire Station, ready to start his first shift as a rookie officer. As he walks into the station, he encounters Officers Talia Bishop and Angela Lopez. They instruct him to present himself to the station's Captain, Zoe Andersen as part of a "station tradition". As Nolan enters the Captain's office, he quickly realizes he's been pranked. Andersen reveals that she was familiar with Nolan's background and expresses her curiosity about his career path, since he had studied pre-law at Penn State before shifting into construction for two decades and suddenly into law enforcement. Nolan promises not to disappoint a skeptical Andersen.

Meanwhile, another rookie, Lucy Chen, is on her way to the same station when her car breaks down, forcing her to push it for the remainder of the journey. She is stopped by a gangster on the street who flashes a gun and demands the car from her. Amused, Chen arrests the gangster and brings him into the station.

While telling other officers that "rookie day" is his favorite, Officer Tim Bradford encounters rookie Jackson West in the station's locker room and attempts to intimidate him. West, however, responds eagerly by saying that his own father, who's also a police officer, would be disappointed if he proved unable to push himself. Upon reading West's nametag, Bradford recognizes him as the son of Percy West, the Commanding Officer of Internal Affairs of the LAPD, and backs off.

At the roll call, the day shift's Watch Commander, Sergeant Wade Grey, introduces the three rookies: Chen, as a hotshot who made her first arrest even before her shift started; West, as the son of Percy West who broke all of his father's records at the police academy; and Nolan, who was "born before disco died". He then assigns Training Officers (TOs) Bradford to Chen, Lopez to West, and Bishop to Nolan. After sending the pairs out for their patrols, Grey speaks privately with Nolan, saying that he hates what police officers like Nolan represent: "a walking mid-life crisis, who places other cops in danger."

Nolan tells his TO, Bishop, about what Grey said, to which she responds that his age will not matter to her as long as he does not pose an obstacle to her ambitions to become Chief of Police. Nolan then informs her that he had uprooted his whole life six months ago solely to move to LA to become a cop, and due to his age, has to work much harder and faster, and intends to make her look good for that promotion.

Out on Patrol

Nolan and Bishop receive a call regarding a family dispute from an address with a history of such calls. Upon arriving, both see that the couple is unharmed and the husband urges the officers to leave. However, Nolan speaks to the husband privately while Bishop does the same with the wife. Bishop tells the wife that she has to press charges and leave as soon as she is hit by her husband, before she inevitably gets murdered, but the woman tells her that she's got it wrong - although the husband is much larger than his wife and looks physically intimidating, he's "a block of wood, emotionally speaking". Hence, she intentionally provokes him to get a response out of him. Meanwhile, Nolan tells the husband that he can't take things out on her even if she's provoking him, but the husband says that his wife is temperamental, though she "knows better" than to hit him. With nothing to act on, Nolan and Bishop leave, though Bishop ominously predicts that they'll have to return eventually.

While patrolling, Bradford asks Chen why she decided to become a cop. Sensing that it's a trick question (given that Bradford was hard on her during the vehicle and equipment checks), Chen reluctantly talks about being raised by her parents, both therapists, before she is shortly interrupted by Bradford, who abruptly stops their shop and yells that he's been shot to test Chen. She's unable to respond properly and can't identify their current location, so Bradford punishes her by forcing her to walk alongside the shop until she figures out where they are. He finishes her story by saying that she became a cop to piss off her parents for "making her an emotional science experiment." A pickup truck behind Bradford honks due to his slow speed, angering Bradford who insults the occupants. However, they only speak Spanish, so Chen asks for their license in Spanish. Bradford then asks her to translate his xenophobic remarks into Spanish, though Chen only informs them that their truck is in violation of vehicle codes. Bradford pulls Chen aside, revealing that he also speaks Spanish, and admonished her for not translating his offensive comments, claiming that "everything was a test", and she just got another "F".

Lopez and West respond to a possible burglary at a home, and a woman who apparently just emerged from the shower opens the front door. The woman says that she did not call the police, but glass breaking is heard from another side of the house. West stays at the front door, while Lopez finds a woman attempting to escape from the house from an upper floor via the roof. Immediately upon introducing herself, Lopez watches the shocked woman fall off a tree. Both women are arrested and they reveal that they break into houses not to steal anything but to have sex as part of a fetish. While Lopez says that they can only be charged with misdemeanor trespass, West says that it's possible to charge them with burglary as they technically stole water to shower with, impressing Lopez. West then claims to be the "best-prepared rookie in the history of the LAPD", though his proclamation is interrupted when the pair realize the women are having sex in their shop.

Hollywood Boulevard

Nolan and Bishop arrive on to respond to a crazed man smashing a car's windshield with a metal bat while screaming, stalling traffic and forming a large group of spectators all around. Bishop tells Nolan to de-escalate the situation, with Chen and Bradford arriving shortly after to watch. Nolan speaks gently to the man, offering to help him to "handle unicorns" and successfully convinces him to get off the car and drop the bat, though the man takes off before anything else happens. Both Nolan and Chen chase after the man.

During the resulting pursuit which lasts a few blocks, the man is chased through an alley into a fenced area. While Nolan follows a shortcut which would allow him to cut off the suspect by climbing a fence, he gets trapped between two fenced gates chained together, and Chen successfully tackles the man right in front of him. The TOs arrive and Bradford frees Nolan by removing the chain. While the man is being arrested, he shouts at the officers to let him go in order to find someone called Lucas. His cell phone rings, and Bishop answers the call from the man's wife. She informs Bishop that their son, Lucas, was with the man, who says that he left his son in the car and that the "unicorn has him".

As a result of the exceedingly hot weather, a large search is triggered to find Lucas before he succumbs to the heat. Nolan and Bishop cruise around looking for the car, with Bishop unoptimistic about the boy's survival. Nolan spots a car matching the description, and rushes to get out of his shop to reach it, but it is unoccupied. He looks around when he spots a shop with unicorn balloons, with another matching car parked next to it. Nolan sprints to the car and finds an unconscious Lucas in the back seat. As the car doors are locked, Nolan unsuccessfully attempts to break open one of the windows with a baton, but Bishop arrives to break it open using a window punch device.

With the car unlocked, Nolan retrieves Lucas and tries frantically to wake him up, nearly in tears when the boy wakes up, Relieved, Nolan and Bishop hand the young boy off to EMTs. While Nolan is riding on the high from saving the boy, Bishop tells him to celebrate the victory, but also points out how his panic stopped him from using the right device to break open the car window, which could be a crucial mistake in future incidents.

Act 2

Lunch

The three pairs go for lunch at the same food truck area, with the rookies instructed to pick and buy lunch for their TOs. West teases Chen because of Bradford's highly aggressive and punitive teaching style, though Nolan seems to understand the rationale behind such a style, advising Chen to figure out her TO to overcome it. Meanwhile, the TOs sit around discussing the rescue of Lucas. Bradford recognizes that Bishop and Lopez are under each other's skin as they are both vying for a promotion to detective; Lopez is irritated because while being a detective was her childhood dream, Bishop only sees the position as a stepping stone to Chief of Police. Bishop, on the other hand, is irritated because Lopez's willingness to be aggressive gives her an advantage, whereas Lopez says that Bishop's "overdeveloped sense of morality" gets in her way. Bradford expresses his opinion that staying in patrol is the most fun.

Their lunch is interrupted when Bishop and Nolan are called back to the domestic disturbance case as the "situation has escalated".

Each rookie has their own challenges to meet on their first shift, and each deals with them in their own way. West, who is the self-proclaimed "most prepared rookie in the history of the LAPD", freezes under fire; Chen finds that her education in psychology is not going to come in handy in her interactions with her apparently hard-nosed T.O.; and Nolan confronts a child in a locked car, a thug holding a woman hostage, and trying (and failing) to save a man dying from his wounds.

By the end of the shift, Nolan is questioning his decision to reinvent himself, but he stands his ground when Sergeant Grey promises to put pressure on him to perform as a cop.

Cast

Main

• Nathan Fillion as John Nolan
• Alyssa Diaz as Angela Lopez
• Richard T. Jones as Wade Grey
• Titus Makin as Jackson West
• Mercedes Mason as Zoe Andersen
• Melissa O'Neil as Lucy Chen
• Afton Williamson as Talia Bishop
• Eric Winter as Tim Bradford

Guest starring

• Julie Ann Emery as Stacy
• Kai Lennox as Unicorn Father
• Mircea Monroe as Isabel Bradford

Co-starring

• John Nania as Pistol
• Michael Chaturantabut as Shotgun
• Mary Albee as Female Foxburg Cop
• Lauro David Chartrand-DelValle as Male Foxburg Cop
• Anthony Bonaventura as Selby
• Eugene Shaw as Darius Nguyen
• Dorian Kingi as Phoenix
• Kelly Connolly as Hostage
• Tessa James as Rey
• Renes Rivera as Carlo
• Patrick Sabongui as Ghost Head
• Johnny D'Esposito as Blaze
• Dominic A. Iannitti as Lucas (A.K.A. Unicorn Kid)
• Andrea Alvear as Indigo
• J. Francisco Rodriguez as Gardener
• Teya Patt as Woman

Trivia

• California Penal Code 459 - Burglary.
• The bat used by the Unicorn Father in this episode is later used by Nolan in the Season 2 finale.
• BOLO is short for Be On the Look Out
• T.O. is short for Training Officer
• R.A. is short for Rescue Ambulance
• Talia Bishop, Nolan's Training Officer, uses a window punch to enter the vehicle to save the Lukas.
• RD is short for Reporting District
• Opening credits: This is the only time that after the title card is shown, the opening song is played over shots of the Los Angeles area. Also features a longer version of the opening song.
• Many characters have haircuts that are changed in the second episode of the show, as most pilots do. These new haircuts would be the ones that all characters have going forward with the exception of Lucy Chen.

Quotes

• Chen: Officer Chen, reporting for duty.

• Andersen: Officer Nolan, I'd run.

• Grey: I hate what you represent - a walking mid-life crisis. You see, the LAPD isn't a place for you to "find yourself". And I believe if you succeed, my house will be flooded with middle-aged losers looking for some kind of "Eat, Pray, Love" path to reinvention. And that will get my people killed.

• Bradford: I've been shot! Where are you, Boot?! Where are we?!

• Grey (watching footage of Nolan caught in the fence): Is that a gazelle wearing the blues? Or a dinosaur from a long forgotten age?

• Andersen: Officer Bradford should be getting out of intensive care today. If you have some time after your shift, I'm sure he won't appreciate it.

• Nolan: Right now I'm just trying to remember to wear pants.