Previously on Rookie Blue, Andy and Swarek got engaged, a mysterious bomb went off in 15 Division’s evidence room, and Gail had a whole episode almost all to herself and her social worker and her attempt to adopt Sophie, and therefore was delegated to the back of the line.
That being said, this episode was good and dramatic, but it had very little Gail so the screenshots won’t likely be particularly abundant. BUT half the episode was full of Very Important Plot that will definitely come into play as the sixth seasons starts its descent toward the finale.
We begin at the Black Penny, amidst an engagement party for McSwarek, lead by Oliver, who is promptly asked to be Sam’s best man. Because he is, you know. The best man. (Besides maybe Nick, but he’s more of a boy, tbh.)
While the boys are bonding, Andy calls Traci into the bathroom in a panic because she’s misplaced her engagement ring. (Spoiler alert: Swarek found it and gives it to her later. I’m only telling you this at all because I like Traci’s quote.) They make an action plan to find it, and Traci tells her not to worry: “There’s nothing in this world that isn’t somewhere.”
Meanwhile, in the Big Leagues, Noelle gets some flak from Santana for hiring Juliet without telling him first. She gets all nervous and runs to Swarek, saying they can’t have Santana find out they’re sort of investigating him by trying to find out if he hired someone to help him blow up the evidence room. Noelle tells Swarek that Santana wants a report by the end of the day, which would be fine except right now the only suspect is Oliver.
Speak of the opposite-of-the-devil, Oliver is bouncing around the precinct like a teenager before a big game because he’s playing drums in his daughter’s band tonight and he couldn’t be more excited.
Swarek tells Andy about the Santana business, so she suggests they involve Dov, since he was investigating it anyway. He tells them where the bomb came from, and they go to find the guy who sold the cop the bomb bits. They find out the man and his daughter vanished so they go to check it out. The local detective is super helpful in that she lets them in the house. She’s less helpful in that she shrugs and says, “We looked,” and suggests perhaps they have been raptured.
The Case of the Week for the rest of 15 Division is a missing kid, but he vanished from his yard, and without a car or suspect, they can’t issue an amber alert. Which is one of the most terrifying factoids I’ve ever heard.
The mother of the missing child says her son, Evan, was reading fantasy books outside (helpful but very specific?) when he disappeared. She says he’s a solitary kind of kid with no friends, and she has no idea where he could have gone.
They start with interviews, and Gail talks to a neighbor who saw him at 8am when he was painting a headboard he found.
The neighbor says Evan is sweet, but before he can give too many details, Chloe tells Gail that this neighbor is a registered sex offender. Gail takes him in to see Nash, but he promises he’s not a pedophile. 20 years ago, when he was 25, he caught caught having sex in a car with a boy who said he was 18 but was actually 17. And even though if the boy had been a girl it wouldn’t have been an issue, he was forced to register as a sex offender, more or less because he’s gay. Something I didn’t even know was a thing, different ages for consent depending on gender. Though I guess it’s because 20 years ago in the US, there were still states where “sodomy” was against the law.
Gail is sympathetic to this man’s plight
Andy and Swarek are sort of at a standstill at the Bomb Dude, Chris’s house when a nosy neighbor pops in and says she’s taking care of Tarzan, the dog that was left behind. She tells them of the night that Chris’s daughter, Ava, was brought home in a cop car by their oh-so-helpful detective, and the two grown ups began to fight.
Meanwhile at 15, Nick talks to another neighbor who also weirdly salvaged something today, who mentions seeing Evan’s dad creeping around the house earlier that very morning. When Nick mentions this to everyone, the husband swears he was just borrowing the garden hose, and the mother says he wouldn’t do it, because he doesn’t even pretend to want custody. You see, mama left out one important detail: Evan is on the autism spectrum. She didn’t mention it because she was afraid the cops wouldn’t look for him if they thought he was just some wandering special needs kid, which is a totally valid concern, because this revelation keeps Oliver from being able to put out an Amber alert.
McSwarek goes to confront the detective about the fight she failed to mention, but the detective says her orders to pick Ava up came from over Sam’s head. And this same person told her not to look into Chris and Ava’s disappearance. Swarek suspects this could all somehow be connected to Oliver getting his daughter’s drug charge dropped.
The Rookies talk about the junk the neighbors all seemed to have found that very morning when Gail realizes there could have been a pickup-like Big Brother or something-which means there could have been an non-suspicious van in the neighborhood around the time Evan went missing.
The first neighbor tells her where he found the headboard he picked up and off they go. Oliver finds a fantasy book in a pile of old furniture and looks for a wardrobe in case Evan went off looking for Narnia. Sure enough, when they pry open the door of an old cabinet, Evan is inside, unconscious. When he wakes up, he’s scared and confused, but Oliver rocks him until he’s calm, happy the boy was found safe-something I’m sure doesn’t happen often enough in their line of work.
While Oliver proves himself a hero, some of the rest of his squad is trying to prove him innocent. Dov finds Ava playing some mythical RPG online from a library, so Andy and Sam head off to find her. When they do, she runs from them, shouting about them being fake cops and blowing her rape whistle, much to their confusion.
Ava calls Andy Officer Murderer and freaks the freak out at them, despite their insistence that they’re here to help. Chris appears from the stacks to try to save her, but Andy and Sam manage to convince him they’re the good guys. Chris calms down and confesses that he sold a cop some bomb components in a rush because he had a badge, but then he saw the bombing on the news and knew something was fishy. He called the number he was given to find it disconnected, and next thing he knew his daughter was being picked up for “cocaine possession,” but Ava insists that she’s only 15-she’s never even SEEN cocaine.
Chris saw this for the threat it was and grabbed Ava, a stack of cash from under the mattress, and nothing else, then took off. Andy begs him for a name, so Chris gives her one: Oliver Shaw.
Swarek and Andy, out of time and leads, go to Oliver and explain everything, especially how this would all look to IA. But Oliver is shocked and appalled. When Izzy shows up to head to their show together, something clicks inside Oliver.
Oliver Shaw has dedicated his life to this job for 20 years. He has missed a lot of his children’s milestones (though he knew them all by heart), and he managed to convince himself it was worth it because of days like today, days where he saves the kid. The days where just this once, everybody lives. But now he’s going to be blamed for a bomb he didn’t plant? Well, it’s the straw that broke the camel’s back, so Oliver hands over his badge and his gun. He’s going to go drum in his daughter’s band.
Traci drives Chris and Ava…somewhere-to a safe house, I imagine-when her phone goes off. Chris starts shouting and Traci is like, “What is your damage?” when Chris points to the phone and says WHY IS OLIVER SHAW CALLING YOU IS THE COURIER SICK AHHH. Wondering the same thing, Traci looks at her phone, but it’s not Oliver calling her. It’s Steve Peck.
Traci goes to meet Steve for their dinner date, but suddenly phrases that were so innocent before, like “Crazy Grill” and “pay the price” seem menacing. Like, to the point where I found myself wondering if the actor tried to turn up the creep factor in this scene, or if he was trying to just be good ol’ Steve Peck and it’s this new knowledge that tainted my perception. I KNOW the writers were messing with me, but still. Creepy.
Traci somehow manages to pretend she’s fine and doesn’t suspect him of being a dirty, dirty bomber man, bless her heart.
What did you think of “Best Man”? How do you think Gail will respond to this accusation?
(Remember, no spoilers from the future, Canada. We’re getting close to the end-it’s important to keep those secrets to yourself.)
