[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for The Rookie Season 7 finale “The Good, the Bad, and the Oscar.”]

Well, the title of The Rookie Season 7 finale certainly is apt. In fact, you can break down the major parts of the episode in those three categories.

The good: Chenford is so close to getting back together. Lucy (Melissa O’Neil) arrives home exhausted from working the night shift — the Dream Team? Cops who park their cars and take naps — to find Tim (Eric Winter) cooking for her. He’s talking about them getting back together and taking next steps (moving in together!) only for her to fall asleep. The Oscar: Matthew Glave does return as the villain and even kidnaps Nolan (Nathan Fillion) and threatens to kill him, but Nyla (Mekia Cox) comes to his rescue, with the help of a teen and his drone. Oscar flees. And the bad? Well, that’s Monica (Bridget Regan), who’s revealed to have made an immunity deal in the final moments.

Below, showrunner Alexi Hawley breaks down the finale and teases what’s ahead in Season 8.

When did you know that you wanted to end the season with that reveal about Monica and the immunity deal?

Alexi Hawley: When we were breaking the bus episode, I think, which is the next time we saw Monica, as we were trying to figure out where we wanted to go with her, since we’d been away from her for a while. That’s where we started to come up with that. And then it just felt like ultimately a way to sort of have a cliffhanger without really doing anything that puts anybody in jeopardy because I’m a little allergic to those these days, just given the state of the business.

Her walking in was so good.

She was great. And Bridget, I mean, she’s a pro, she knew exactly how to milk that moment, which I knew she would. It was great.

What can you say about what this means for next season and how much of Monica we’ll see? It doesn’t necessarily mean that we would see all the time, right? Because she could be working behind the scenes like she did this season.

Correct. I think ultimately she will definitely play a part in Season 8. It’s obviously early days. The writers’ room literally just started [on May 5], but I think there are facets to the immunity deal that we can play with that keep her sort of active in our world that really work with our storytelling.

Does anyone in that last scene think that there’s anything they can do to still get Monica behind bars?

Look, I think they all want to; I think it’s tough with immunity deals especially made at the top of the food chain for anybody lower to affect them. But we’ll see. Never say never.

Are they feeling more pessimistic than maybe ever when it comes to Monica?

I think so. It was obviously a huge shock for them in that moment. I think when we come back in Season 8, they’ll probably have had time to process a bit. But yeah, no, I don’t see them as people who give up on wanting to put a bad person behind bars.

But how much can they actively be trying to do? So when they have this immunity deal to work against.

I think it’s very difficult upfront for them to get any kind of approval to do anything officially.

So Chenford. Tim and Lucy are so close to getting back together. You’ve left them in a promising place — it seems like all they need to do is actually have a conversation they’re both awake for, then they would be back together. Why end on that?

It made me laugh when we talk about it in the writers’ room, which is sometimes why you do things you do. I do think that the journey they went on this season was a big one. There were ups and downs clearly, and they had real issues to fight through, and I think we talked about it before, but it felt important. It needed to be earned. He blew up the love of both of their lives, and so it didn’t feel like it could be earned cheaply. And I think that we’ve seen him do the work. We’ve seen her focus on her prioritizing her career, and now obstacles have started to fall away and they’ve fallen to bed a couple of times along the way because that’s what they really want. But there’s always a fear of, what if it’s not like it used to be? So that being said, look, I mean, I think we’ve earned where they’re going, and the promise of that last scene is a corner has been turned and we’ll see.

Did you always want to make sure that it was clear that the love was still there between them throughout all of this?

Yeah, and I really do like that we found moments along the way to make sure that she never lost agency, even her hugging him in the elevator, telling him she’s still mad at him, but knowing that he needed that was a way to give him. And I thought it was super important that scene where he appreciated the kindness she’d shown him after he broke her heart and that he would spend the rest of his life trying to make that up in whatever small ways that she allowed knowing that again, she sort of controlled because he was the one who did that to her. I feel like we really did find a lot of story to tell about these two people getting past something terrible, and now we’re in a much better place.

But are they on the same page when it comes to next steps and moving in together like Tim suggests? Because Lucy did just take this next step in her career.

Right. Well, I mean that’ll be the question rolling into Season 8. So you’re asking the right questions, that is the question that we’re talking about in the room going into Season 8. But that being said, I do think that we’ve put those characters through a lot on their journey back, and I think we’re almost there.

What can you tease about them in Season 8? Can you say if they’ll be back together, even if you can’t say exactly when?

Yes, I think I can say that. I’ll give you that one. So beyond that, again, I’m not 100% sure yet, let’s talk in a few months.

How long will Lucy be on night shift?

I think ultimately that obstacle would get old fairly quickly, so it’s on us to figure out a way to move past that at some point.

But I do like that you really showcase that she is ready for this new position just with this episode and the way she handled that team.

Yeah, for me, it’s always really important — Melissa’s such an amazing actor and I love Lucy Chen as a character and always feel like we put her through the wringer. We try and put everybody through the wringer. And yeah, she’s a badass. Of course she stepped up and took over. The dream team is real. We have a former police officer on staff, and that was his story based in some reality when he used to be a cop, which we’ve also always loved to do, is find the real of policing. But yeah, how does she get these guys in shape and how does she do her job and all that kind of stuff was really important to show in that episode.

Disney / Mike Taing

Oscar remains out there, and I have to say how much I enjoyed everything we got with him and Nolan in the finale. Oscar’s fun. Why have him still free a season after his escape?

I love Matthew who plays Oscar. It’s one of those classic cases of you write a character in Season 1, it was also meant to be a prisoner escaped a prison bus crash, and then you cast somebody and you’re like, that guy’s magic. We need to see him again. And so Oscar’s grown over the years. I mean, I think in a show full of nemeses for our characters, he’s just a really fun one. I do think that at some point we can’t keep letting him get away. And so yeah, I would say next season we would need a little bit of resolution on that.

Do you know yet how much of a presence he’ll have? Because we didn’t see him this season until the finale. Are you planning on drawing that out again? Do you not know yet?

I don’t know yet, honestly. We are lucky enough to have been around enough to have a lot of characters that we love. We’ve always had really good villains. Monica is one, obviously the character that Annie Wersching played, tragically who passed, but even Harold Perrineau‘s character, Detective Armstrong way back. So we do love our villains on the show. And so that being said, I think we rolled into Season 7 going, there’s some fresh story to tell, some fresh things to do. And Jason [Steve Kazee] became a priority for us just because of ultimately the story we wanted to tell about Bailey [Jenna Dewan] and coming to terms with the way in her mind she had thought about her abusive relationship and realizing that she just didn’t want to admit for it to be as bad as it was. So that was important to us.

Yeah. Also it feels like Jason was the most danger to someone’s life.

No, 100%. I mean, Oscar is out there being Oscar, being sort of the most fun worst person in the world a little bit. But yes, there was not as much urgency to deal with him.

As Nolan and Nyla’s [Mekia Cox] conversation reminds us, she had a rough year on and off the job. Why did we want to put her through so much? Is she going to get any sort of reprieve?

It is hard to say. It’s not like we set out to be mean to her, so to speak. It did feel like — we have the joy of having a large cast of incredibly talented actors who are a joy to write for and who can do anything. And therefore some seasons are — some storylines just sort of grow for some actors, and others don’t necessarily get as much time. But we’re lucky enough from season to season to be able to go, “OK, well…” And it just felt driving into Season 7 that we wanted to explore some stuff with Harper and with James [Arjay Smith], and part of it was a commitment to keep talking about injustice and the justice system and the disconnect between James as a community activist and her as a police officer and how those things are inherently at odds. And so that’s where that started. Then obviously him getting shot and all that was just something that felt like obviously super dramatic storytelling. We’ll still give her plenty of dynamic storytelling in Season 8. I don’t think it will be the same level of personal, but I don’t know. It’s still early days,

Disney / Mike Taing

Angela (Alyssa Diaz) and Wesley (Shawn Ashmore) are one of the most stable couples on tv, and we really saw that this season. Then you bring back Monica. When you’re talking about them looking ahead, how much is the Monica of it and how much is it something else?

Monica at this point has impacted many of our characters. Obviously, she and Wesley were engaged at some point, way, way in the way back. So I think her being back will be an impact on everybody. I think Angela is very secure in her relationship with Wesley, so I don’t think she feels threatened by Monica in any way, shape or form. I love the stability of them. Obviously there’s less drama in stability, but we found ways to tell dramatic stories with them that aren’t cheap, sort of, is he cheating? Is she cheating? Stuff like that. So yeah, I just think they really love each other and they’re just sort of meant to be together.

You can have that stable couple because there’s drama other ways, too.

Yes, exactly. And so that’s part of our conversation in Season 8 is, how do we lean in on both of them, because he’s complicated professionally as well. He was a defense attorney who became a prosecutor, partly because he wanted to shake up the system and how happy is he with how that’s going? And then obviously it’s not like we didn’t put him through the wringer several seasons ago with Elijah [Brandon Jay McLaren] and all that kind of stuff. So yeah, there’s still ample things to talk about with them.

With Sean (Michael Trucco) dropping out of the DA’s race, what are we going to see from that race in Season 8? Is that going to be part of the, or are you kind of just dropping that?

No, I think that’s a good question. I was sort of alluding a little bit to the Wesley of it all. I think that there’ll be some interesting story to tell there. It’s obviously early days. The writers’ room literally just started, but I think we found a way to keep that going with our characters that’ll be dynamic. So yeah, no, you’re not wrong. We’re going to keep that going.

The Rookie, Season 8, 2026, ABC