‘The Rookie’ Boss Explains Chenford Reunion and Living Together, Grey’s New Job, More

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for The Rookie Season 8 premiere “Czech Mate.”]

The Rookie kicks off its eighth season on January 6 with some very good news for Chenford fans: The fan-favorite couple takes a major step!

Yes, Tim (Eric Winter) and Lucy (Melissa O’Neil) get back together after taking a moment — during a major op coinciding with what’s going on in Prague with Monica (Bridget Regan)! — to discuss their relationship. And rather than ask her out, “I want to ask you to move in with me. I’ve spent enough nights without you that I want you all the way in my life,” he says. And so with a promise from him to be a better communicator, she says yes! But there’s already another obstacle coming their way: There needs to be a new watch commander, and it’s obvious who it will be. Garza (The Rookie: Feds‘ Felix Solis) offers Grey (Richard T. Jones) a position as senior liaison with the Monica task force. He says yes without talking to his wife Luna (Angel Parker), after the two had some tension over her next chapter and what it’s meant for their relationship.

Below, showrunner Alexi Hawley unpacks the premiere and teases what’s ahead for Chenford, Grey’s new job, and much more.

Chenford is back together. I loved their conversation. Did you always know that you’d be putting them back together in the premiere?

Alexi Hawley: Yes.

There was no debate?

No, there really wasn’t. I mean, I really did. I mean, I felt like at this point, pitchforks and torches would hunt me through the streets if I didn’t, but I didn’t do it because of that. But look, I think we’d earned it. I think by the end of the season, Tim had done the work he needed to do and it had forced Lucy to grow a little bit. Obviously, her focus on her career and all that was a little bit spurred by the fact that she felt like she’d sort of sabotaged herself a little bit to try and get Tim set up in Metro and all those storylines. But I felt there was a maturing that happened on both sides. But at the end of the day, there still needs to be a little bit of a conversation still, which is what we did in the premiere. So beyond that, I think, yeah, let’s see what happens with them living together.

Speaking of, I was going to say, they’ve talked, Tim has promised to be a better communicator. What is next? Are we getting to live with them in happiness for a bit?

[Laughs] Yes.

But because it does seem also that you may have been introducing another obstacle for them with that question about who’s getting Grey’s job and then cutting to them.

Yeah, look, I don’t think that was subtle. [Laughs] But yeah, look, there’s going to be something to navigate. I think Episode 2 actually, Lucy finds what I think is a funny way to try and navigate separating the personal and the professional. They’re both sergeants and so that’s not a problem. But yeah, they’re still trying to navigate how to be in this relationship, this committed relationship, while they both have different jobs and all that kind of thing. But I think we find some really interesting ways to push them and challenge them both individually and as a couple in Season 8.

I’m so intrigued by Grey’s storyline and what you’ve set up for him in the premiere because he accepts Garza’s offer without talking to Luna. What does that mean for his marriage and also what does this mean for his job, this offer that he’s accepted? There are still question marks about exactly what this job is, what it means for him.

Right. I mean, I think with Luna, it became very clear in this premiere that she’s very focused on her career, which is understandable. She made a choice to be a stay-at-home mom and help raise their daughter, which is something that she loved doing, but now she’s coming at, “What does the rest of my life look like? And I really want to make a difference and to do something,” and to do that, again, she’s a rookie, not to hit it on the head, but Luna’s starting at the beginning of a journey in the same way Nolan did at the very beginning of the show. And so she needs to commit to that. She needs to put the hours in and the time in and work her way up. And so that means her priority has to be that. And so I think what Grey takes away from that is a sense of, well, he needs to focus on his career, too, not necessarily at the expense of their marriage. Although I think there definitely will be challenged this season for sure.

If Luna wasn’t focused on her next chapter, would Grey have said yes as quickly as he did?

No, I don’t think so. I mean, I think he probably would’ve gotten the yes. I loved Harper’s answer, which was very much both, I want to stay married and I have young kids. Grey doesn’t have the young kids anymore. But I mean, I think, no, it would’ve been much more of a conversation, if he didn’t feel like Luna was focusing on what she needed to focus on, and so she was not going to hold it against him if he did the same thing.

So what are we going to see from Grey when it comes to this job?

We’ve set up this idea of this sort of joint task force between the LAPD and the FBI sort of run by Garza on the FBI side and by Grey on the LAPD side. And so there’s a task force office that we introduce in the season, and they’re sort of putting together a hit list of big bads, for lack of a more nuanced term, that Monica is going to help them target. It allows us to expand the scope of the show sometimes beyond L.A.

So then is Felix recurring this season?

We see Felix a bunch this season.

And then are you bringing in other recurring characters in that office?

Yeah, I mean, we’ll see Elena again, who Michelle [Núñez] played on Feds because I thought she was great and he’s her uncle, and that’s a fun little storyline. But yeah, we love all recurring characters on the show. I’m always excited to figure out ways to bring people back, whether it’s Michael Trucco as Sean Del Monte or Felix as Garza. They really add something to the show.

So Michael Trucco is definitely coming back?

Yeah, we see him again. He’s a busy man, so it’s hard to get him, but yeah, we got him.

You brought up what Harper (Mekia Cox) said. Are we going to see that offer come into play with her thinking about her job and what she wants to take out of it and maybe doing something different while figuring out a way to maintain that family life?

Not that exactly. We do have a storyline that really challenges her on a career — that puts her career in jeopardy that’s coming up down the road. We will have another undercover adventure for her also coming down the road. So not necessarily the task force lingering, but yeah, she’ll be challenged this year.

And what about what’s coming up for Nolan (Nathan Fillion) as he continues to move further and further away from being a rookie?

Yeah, he’s still going down the path of being a training officer and all that. I think we’re going to introduce some real big challenges for him as well this year, including into the marriage. I think there’s some interesting things to mine with him and Bailey [Jenna Dewan] and Bailey need to constantly keep shaking things up on her end. It’s sort of why she does so many things as she just constantly needs to keep moving. So yeah, I think there’s some interesting things.

I like the moment on the stakeout with Wesley (Shawn Ashmore) and Angela (Alyssa Diaz) and it’s like, oh, this is a good time to talk through issues. And it was like, wait, are there issues here? And it’s like, no, they’re fine. But what is coming up for their relationship and their marriage?

Yeah, I mean, I love them as a couple. The Wopez of it all is really, I think, a very compelling relationship. And so we’ll see them dealing with some stuff this season. I think ultimately, we have a storyline where Wesley is struggling with whether to run for the DA’s office now that Del Monte dropped out last season and the conversations about what that might do and then the challenges that might pose to both their family and their relationship and all of that. There’s a lot going on there.

Celina (Lisseth Chavez) and Miles (Deric Augustine) as roommates — I feel like there has to be a lot of humor there, right?

Yeah, they’re funny together. They’re so odd couple in a certain way, but yeah, there’s some stuff we do with that that’s really fun. So I kind of like them as potential besties.

Are there any other major storylines for the characters that you can preview going forward after the premiere?

We’re going to see Tim’s mom this season for the first time, which I think is something we’ve been talking about for a while. We’ve had a lot of parents show up on the show, a lot of them toxic. Nolan’s mom was toxic, obviously Tim’s dad was so we didn’t want to go down that road, but who is this woman who sort of navigated being in an abusive relationship with this guy who was also abusive to the kids? I don’t want to spoil who we got, but I’m really excited about who we got to play the part. And I think it’s going to be interesting to see how that affects the Tim-Lucy relationship as well.

The Rookie, Tuesdays, 10/9c, ABC