Review: A mother’s pain on Rookie Blue

Last week, David Sutcliffe dropped by Rookie Blue to play a father who went a little too far when it came to controlling his kids. This week it was Mary Walsh (22 Minutes) who hopped into the sandbox to play … and ended up having quite the impact on Gail.

I’ve watched enough seasons of prison series to know that not all convicts are deadly, but I admit I worried for Gail’s life when she first came upon Odelle (Walsh) in the room where the prison riot had taken place. I kept waiting for Odelle to take Gail prisoner in a bid to get out of Pine Valley, you know, like what had happened to Andy and Juliet with Kenzie. Turns out Odelle was a lonely woman with a tragic story: she was in prison for murdering her husband after he’d accidentally set their house on fire and killed their children. Odelle implored Gail to embrace every day as if it was her last and our favourite blonde cop did just that, pinching Lauralee’s bottom when the two ran into each other at the precinct.

Raise your hand if you knew right away that even though Kenzie was labelled the belligerent convict that it was really Rachelle that Nick should have kept his guard up for? Yeah, me too, though it was still interesting to learn (and see) how she got everyone’s guard down and then attacked. Her plot to kill a fellow inmate almost came to fruition; if the assault team—aided by Shaw and Diaz—hadn’t arrived when they did the situation would have had a much bleaker conclusion.

Prison riots are claustrophobic scenes where I suspect something bad it going to happen, so I was glad when Andy and Juliet emerged unscathed. Well, as unscathed as you can be when a knife is being held to your throat. “Uprising” (directed by Gregory Smith) allowed for the two to get to know each other a little more, especially Andy, who learned as we already have that Juliet is not exactly who she appears to be. Kenzie recognizing Juliet means she was in Vancouver and involved with a drug dealer who worked for a gang. Juliet said things got messy, and I wonder if she became so involved in the gang she got addicted to drugs or even witnessed a murder and failed to intervene. Whatever it was, it was enough she appears to be an unwilling participant in an internal investigation into the precinct. (Erin Karpluk is the queen of playing awkward characters, so it was a joy to see she and Missy Peregrym going back and forth in the car about Nick and the baby.)

Speaking of the baby, I’m betting that although things appear to be OK spine-wise for the little girl so far, a major health issue for she and/or Marlo will threaten to tear the tenuous relationship between Marlo, Swarek and Andy apart. This is Rookie Blue after all, and there can’t always be happy endings.

Notes and quotes

• “Is it true that Peck has retractable fangs?” That line from Duncan had me giggling for minutes. His body roll? Disturbing.
• “No one’s seen a pirate in a cop costume before?” — Shaw
• Speaking of Shaw, only Matt Gordon could rock an eyepatch like that. Fingers crossed the eye infection lasts another week or two so that we can get more images like this:

Rookie Blue airs Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET on Global.