Review: Rookie Blue finales with a bang

OK, I admit it, I let a lot of time lapse between episodes of Rookie Blue that I sat down and watched. So when I tuned in to Wednesday’s season finale, a lot had changed. Swarek and Andy for instance, have grown from a schoolyard crush into something mature and real and the show itself has hit its stride. (The shot of the CN Tower with the Rookie Blue logo transposed over it made me smile.)

Swarek and Andy’s little back and forth over takeout coffee outside of Ted’s house was cute as all get-out. I’ve wanted them to be a couple since I saw them in the pilot episode, so to see them in the “honeymoon phase” was awesome. Of course, it couldn’t continue. This was, after all, the season finale of Rookie Blue, meaning something bad had to happen. And it did, thanks to car bomber Ted McDonald, played with aplomb by Shawn Doyle. (I’m still pissed off that Doyle’s last series, Endgame, was cancelled.) Doyle’s portrayal of Ted–a man who lost his young son in a diner bombing four years prior–was notable not just because he played a disturbed man with such conviction (“Put your hands in the air like you just don’t care!!”), but that he made me care about him because he’d lost his son on the boy’s birthday, the first unsupervised visit the pair had.

“Everlasting” wasn’t all about Ted, however. Gail and Nick discussed found some comedic moments while on a stakeout, and Chloe was still crushed over her breakup with Dov and tried desperately to win him back. (Who else caught Being Erica‘s Erin Karpluk as the cyclist that Nick doored?)

And while I was happy to see Shaw back out on the road with Andy, it was his insistence that he remain on the beat after dropping Ted off at the precinct that put her in mortal danger. Swarek’s interrogation of Ted revealed the disturbed man wasn’t done yet, and his query about whether his computers and hard drives were in the precinct made my heart sink. “There are bombs in the computers!” I immediately realized.  And so there were, at least one detonating while Andy was in the evidence locker retrieving them. The explosion occurred with over 10 minutes still left in the episode, enough time to spotlight the after effects of the blast: Andy was bent over, so she was spared with just a few scratches and blown-out eardrums. It was the perfect opportunity for Swarek to show just how he felt about Andy in his own special way (Quote of the night: “I got smoke in my eye!”).

As for McDonald, he cut his own wrists with a razor blade in the interrogation room, exiting Stage Right without offering any closure for Swarek. Problem was, it looked like Diaz had neglected to frisk McDonald well enough to discover it. Either that, or the police are as corrupt as the bomber inferred and someone murdered him.

Meanwhile, Gail and Holly dropped bombs on each other; the former wants to adopt while the latter is leaving for a job in San Francisco in two weeks, throwing their relationship into question. At the other end of the scale were Traci and Nick, respectively, seem destined for blossoming relationships for Season 6.

But the biggest explosion of the episode came in the closing seconds: while Swarek and Andy smooched in bed Dov was discovering that Marlo is pregnant … with Swarek’s baby?

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4 thoughts on “Review: Rookie Blue finales with a bang”

  1. Even though you prefaced it at the beginning by saying it had been a while since you had watched an episode, this wasn’t the first appearance of Erin Karpluk on the show (as referenced by Nick’s comment about the toothbrushes.)

  2. Really too bad about Holly and Gail parting ways after spending so little time as a couple during the season. I hope they bring Holly back in season 6, otherwise I probably won’t watch.

  3. I agree that it would be very disappointing and a typical soap opera which Rookie Blue isn’t or I thought it wash’t, if Marlo is pregnant with Sam’s child. What writer would think that would be a good storyline and who would even want that to be a story. I don’t even like Marlo’s character. I am not sure why the writers and ppl think she is a good cop. Have ppl forgot what occurred in S4.

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