The camera focuses on Andy McNally (Missy Peregrym) again in the second season of Rookie Blue. Maybe it’s because she’s the most attractive character, or because the storylines seem to flow naturally around her. But it might be that, out of her entire class of police officers, she’s the one most likely to screw up, the most likely to stumble (or bumble) her way into a situation that she’s been taught to avoid. But in the end, we’re sure that the team will come together, work together, and save the day.
Andy’s fellow “rookies” include Gail (Charlotte Sullivan), whose problems stem from her concerns (justified or not) that she’s handled differently because multiple family members are also cops. (That hasn’t proved true for Andy, whose father is a cop, but it may be that her father’s problems interfere with that.) Chris (Travis Milne) is Gail’s love interest, but he’s often the one doing things the “right” way, and struggling with Gail’s anger and the lawbreaking of the other cops. His roommate and buddy, Dov (Gregory Smith), wants acceptance so badly but only seems to find it with a new love interest in the second season. A fifth rookie, Traci (Enuka Okuma), works to raise her son alone, and has an on-again/off-again relationship with both her son’s father and an older officer, Detective Barber (Noam Jenkins).
Besides Barber, the batch of older detectives include Luke (Eric Johnson), who cheats on Andy with his ex-girlfriend and fellow officer, Jo. The majority of the tension and the comparison to Grey’s Anatomy that seems to be bandied about come from Andy’s relationships with both Luke and Sam Swarek (Ben Bass), who was her training officer. There are a few more officers who are involved in some side stories, like the Sergeant Frank Best (Lyriq Bent), who is involved with Noelle (Melanie Nicholls-King), or Oliver Shaw (Matt Gordon), another training officer who works to relate to the rookies after their graduation. But again, outside of the case-by-case cop stuff, most of the drama involves the Andy/Luke/Sam love triangle and the… Gail/Chris/Dov love triangle, which was just a little weird.
Season three was greenlit just a few episodes into this second season, and it’s not too surprising that fans are clamoring for more. They’ll certainly dig the featurettes included here, as well as the interviews with the folks behind the show. Still, there’s enough action to make the hi def version worth watching again, especially the last four episodes, where Sam and Andy finally get their “do they or don’t they?” issues worked out. Writing this mere days before the premiere of Season Three, it’s fair to say that there’s some anticipation growing in my house!
The show is undeniably soapy sometimes, but the drama involving criminal cases and interpersonal communications issues is significantly entertaining. I was curious to see how the show would do when the rookies weren’t rookies anymore, but they kept it ratcheted up. We saw a group of people, a community, work through their issues while having to do their jobs, even on their bad days. To me, that’s love. Too often, we want to define love as only what feels good or what is convenient, and more often than not, Rookie Blue highlights love shining through the darkest moments of betrayal, the fear of real danger, and the ups and downs of relationship, making it well worth watching.
