There’s another season of The Rookie in the books, and the show will continue on next year. However, more often than not, The Rookie that comes back for a new season looks a little different than the one that went away.
Hopefully, they bring back more of the things the series did right and a lot less of what was wrong.
In general, The Rookie tends to get the more personal stories right, and that tradition continued this season.
The unfortunate side effect of this is that tension-breaking comedy is often then relegated to the police storylines.
Sometimes, it’s done effectively like in the two "documentary" episodes. Other times it undercuts the gravitas of these stories, especially when the suspects are used as the punchlines.
Each season, it seems that the series is less and less about Nathan Fillion’s John Nolan. While some might see this as a problem, it’s not a fatal one... yet. First, Nolan has been through a lot in the series.
Real police officers might go their whole careers without getting in one shootout, and Nolan goes through one each week.
He’s also been framed, and he’s buried two friends. This is on top of the divorce that upended his life, sending him to the LAPD in the first place.