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‘The Rookie’ Season 9 Officially Brings a Major Cast Shake-Up

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ABC’s The Rookie has always prided itself on depicting fresh talent joining the Los Angeles Police Department. The police procedural started out with the lead protagonist, John Nolan (Nathan Fillion), becoming the oldest rookie to join the force. Along with Lucy Chen (Melissa O’Neil) and Jackson West (Titus Makin Jr.), we have been able to watch these rookies traverse their way through a dangerous, high-pressure career. Throughout the past eight seasons, we’ve also met some truly great officers, including Aaron Thorsen (Tru Valentino) and Celina Juarez (Lisseth Chavez), and some not-so-great ones, like Larry “Badger” Macer (Greg Grunberg), who washed out on his first day for accidentally firing a gun during roll call, and Seth Ridley (Patrick Keleher), who turned out to be a pathological liar. Now, with one more rookie graduating from the lowest ranks, The Rookie will be getting more recruits in Season 9.

In the Season 8 finale, it was questionable whether rookie Miles Penn (Deric Augustine) would actually continue on with the Mid-Wilshire precinct or not. After fumbling a shift where a shootout occurs in the station, Miles seems prepared to accept the consequences. However, Nyla Harper (Mekia Cox) discovers that Miles isn’t at fault. Not only does she not boot him from the rookie program, but she actually states that she’ll put in a recommendation so that he’s accelerated out of the program, and can graduate early. Creator Alexi Hawley noted in an interview back in May that Season 9 will, in fact, feature Miles as an official police officer, who is 100% done with his training. This sets up an exciting opening for new storylines for Miles’s character — who will he partner up with? How will he handle being out on the streets on his own? Will his fellow officers stop treating him like the newbie? But aside from getting to see Miles grow and mature, this also means that The Rookie now has an opening for a new rookie to join the team.

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Which Action Hero Would Be
Your Perfect Partner?

Rambo · James Bond · Indiana Jones · John McClane · Ethan Hunt

Five legends. Five completely different ways of getting out alive — with style, with muscle, with charm, with luck, or with a plan so intricate it probably shouldn’t work. Ten questions will reveal which action hero was built to have your back.

🎖️Rambo

🍸James Bond

🏺Indiana Jones

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🔧John McClane

🎭Ethan Hunt

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01

You’re dropped into a dangerous situation with no warning. What do you need most from a partner?
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You have to get somewhere dangerous, fast. How do you travel?
How you get there is half the mission.





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Good communication is the difference between partners and a liability.





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Your enemy is powerful, well-resourced, and has the upper hand. How should your partner approach them?
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Things go badly wrong and you’re captured. What do you trust your partner to do?
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What does your ideal partner bring to the table that you couldn’t replace?
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10

It’s the final moment. Everything is on the line. What do you need from your partner right now?
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Your Partner Has Been Assigned
Your Perfect Partner Is…

Your answers have pointed to one action hero above all others. This is the person built to have your back — for better or considerably, spectacularly worse.

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Rambo

Your partner doesn’t talk much, doesn’t need to, and will have assessed every threat in your immediate environment before you’ve finished your first sentence. John Rambo is not a man of plans or politics — he is a force of nature shaped by survival, loyalty, and a capacity for endurance that goes beyond anything training can produce. He will not leave you behind. He has never left anyone behind who deserved to come home. What you get with Rambo is the most capable, most quietly ferocious partner imaginable — one who has been through things that would have broken anyone else, and who chose to keep going anyway. You’ll never need to ask if he has your back. You’ll just know.

James Bond

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Your partner will arrive perfectly dressed, perfectly briefed, and with a cover story so convincing it’ll take you a moment to remember what’s actually true. James Bond is the most professionally dangerous person in any room he enters — and the most disarmingly charming, which is the point. He operates in a world of layers, where nothing is what it appears and every advantage is used without apology. You’ll never be bored. You’ll occasionally be furious. But when it matters — when the mission is genuinely on the line and the margin for error has collapsed to nothing — Bond is exactly the partner you want. He has survived things that have no business being survivable. He does it with style. That is not nothing.

Indiana Jones

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John McClane

Your partner was not supposed to be here. He does not have the right equipment, the right information, or anything approaching the right odds. He has a sarcastic remark and an absolute refusal to accept that the situation is as bad as it looks. John McClane is the greatest accidental hero in the history of action cinema — a man whose superpower is stubbornness, whose contingency plan is improvisation, and whose capacity to absorb punishment and keep moving would be alarming if it weren’t so useful. He will complain the entire time. He will make it significantly more chaotic than it needed to be. And he will absolutely, unconditionally, without question come through when it counts. Yippee-ki-yay.

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Ethan Hunt

Your partner has already run seventeen scenarios by the time you’ve finished reading the briefing, and the plan he’s settled on involves at least two things that should be physically impossible. Ethan Hunt operates at the absolute edge of human capability — technically, physically, and intellectually — and he brings the same relentless precision to protecting his partners that he brings to dismantling organisations that shouldn’t exist. He is not easy to know and he will never fully tell you everything. But he will carry the weight of the mission so completely, so absolutely, that your job is simply to trust him — and the remarkable thing is that trusting him always turns out to be the right call. The mission will be impossible. He will complete it anyway.

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A Fresh Face Will Breathe New Life Into ‘The Rookie’

As much as viewers love the familiar characters in the series, it’s also true that The Rookie thrives when it can bring new characters onboard. In that same interview, Hawley stated that rookies are “always an opportunity to serve two stories. One is, who that person is, and then how that person affects everyone around them, especially their training officer.” With that in mind, including at least one brand-new character in Season 9 is an exciting prospect. Not only would a new character inject a different energy into the show, but it would also provide a variety of ideas for storylines for them, especially dramatic ones that can bring the whole crew together. As Hawley mentioned, a new rookie can also highlight different partnerships, and seeing characters paired up in new ways is always fun. Getting to see our beloved, familiar characters in new situations is also a way to insert characters we already know into thrilling scenarios, and allows us to see different sides to their personality.

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The world of law enforcement is always changing, so the Mid-Wilshire police precinct needs to reflect that. Bringing in a new rookie can help showcase how the police department is evolving over the years/seasons. It would be entertaining to bring in characters from all walks of life that can also illustrate the diversity of Los Angeles. The Rookie is most successful when there is a naive or rough-around-the-edges rookie who needs to learn the ropes and discover the harsh realities of being a police officer. So, having a young (or old) recruit joining the gang would be instantly compelling to watch. Luckily, we’ll still get to follow the adventures of Miles and his fellow officers, but it’s high time that another rookie gets to come along and shake things up.

The Rookie does need to stay relevant, especially because its spin-off, The Rookie: North, will be debuting soon. The flagship series won’t want to lose any viewers to the new series because audiences are tired of seeing the same characters and storylines. Making Miles a regular member of the force and debuting a new rookie (even if they don’t last) will certainly help ensure that the series stays relevant, even after being on the air for so many seasons.

Seasons 1–8 of The Rookie are available to stream on Hulu. Season 9 will premiere in January 2027.


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The Rookie
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Release Date

October 16, 2018

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Showrunner

Alexi Hawley

Directors
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Tori Garrett, Chi-Yoon Chung, Michael Goi, Sylvain White, Lisa Demaine, Lanre Olabisi, Bill Johnson, David McWhirter, Liz Friedlander, Daniel Willis, Toa Fraser, Anne Renton, Jon Huertas, Cherie Nowlan, TK Shom, Rob Seidenglanz, Valerie Weiss, Barbara Brown, Charissa Sanjarernsuithikul, SJ Main Muñoz, Nelson McCormick, Marcus Stokes, Adam Davidson, Anna Mastro


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