The following contains spoilers for The Rookie Season 4, Episode 19, "Simone," which aired Sunday, April 24 on ABC.
The Rookie has featured multiple high-profile cases in Season 4. One recent episode featured a man taking an entire hospital hostage to try and safe his wife's life. Another episode showed one of LAPD's finest being accused of murder. After a brief break for a wedding, the series continued the high drama with the first part of a two-part event designed to introduce a potential spinoff.
Rife with drama, "Simone" was about a Russian spy who wanted to plunge Los Angeles into chaos with numerous explosive devices. The episode also served as the backdoor pilot for Niecy Nash's FBI spinoff. Here's what happened and how Nash's character Simone Clark stole the episode named after her.
The episode started when a pair of hikers reported suspicious activity at a power relay station. Nolan and Lucy investigated and ended up running for their lives before a bomb exploded and knocked out power for hours. While they were being patched up, the FBI rolled up and tried to take over the investigation. Sergeant Grey convinced the agents to collaborate, so they set up a joint task force.
It didn't take long to find their first suspect. Thanks to finding his DNA in the bomb residue, the task force identified Ezekiel "Zeek" Freemont and tried to find him. Coincidentally, Zeek's former guidance counselor Simone Clark was currently a trainee in the FBI academy -- so the FBI agent in charge had her flown in from Quantico. However, when Clark arrived, she kicked up too much dust.
Clark walked in while an FBI psychologist was giving his professional opinion on Zeek, and Simone made it clear that she didn't agree. The agent in charge wasn't overly pleased and tried to send Simone back to Quantico, but Nolan persuaded her to stay. Together the two of them found Zeek, and Simone was able to get him talking during interrogation. That's when they found out that Zeek had sold multiple, GPS-activated detonators to a Russian man with a scar on his face. The man also needed explosives, but using a hostage and a diversion, the Russian stole 200 kilos of C4 from the National Guard armory.
While all of this was happening, Harper and Angela were investigating a home invasion. The man wasn't all there mentally, and he was convinced that an alien had attacked him. The two detectives were at a loss, but Simone talked to him as well. With her people skills, she soon figured out that the same Russian had attacked that man. He stole the man's manuscript on traffic patterns in Los Angeles so that he could send the city into chaos. That clarified his target -- the LA freeways. Unfortunately, that's where the episode ended, and the story will have be wrapped up next week.
Simone didn't start the episode on anyone's good side, but she gained recognition with her special ability to read people and identify with them. Without her, the task force wouldn’t have gotten Zeek to talk, and they wouldn't have connected the dots to the Russian man's next target. The most interesting part, however, was that Simone didn’t go to school to be psychologist or anything similar. She gained all of her knowledge first-hand as a guidance counselor. She stole the entire episode without any professional qualifications -- and she'll probably continue to win more people over when the storyline concludes.
To see how Officer Nolan and Trainee Clark stop the Russian bomber, tune into The Rookie. New episodes air on Sundays at 10 pm ET, on ABC.