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“Rookie Blue” recap (5.4): Break Before I Bend

Previously on Rookie Blue, Gail walked out on Holly implying she might be done with their relationship, Andy got assigned to train the worst Rookie in the history of rookies, and Chloe returned from the dead to be as bouncy and bubbly as ever.

We open with Andy and her Rookie booking a guy who likes to steal things from people’s cars, but before they can book him, Andy has to use the ladies’ room. She tells Rookie Duncan to stay put and not move and comes back to chaos as two of the booked criminals got into a fight, but Rookie didn’t step in to stop it because Andy told him not to move. Not the sharpest tool, but at least he listened?

Chloe is in the gym working on her fitness, and Dov comes in to ask if she should really be doing all that working out. Oh and Chloe has a scar now. I guess it was hidden by her outfit last time. Anyway Chloe says she has energy to burn but Dov doesn’t get her double meaning and gives her a peck on the lips before scurrying away.

In the break room, Swarek saves Andy from some terrible coffee from the precinct machine because he brought her a cup, like friends do. Because they’re friends now. Totally just friends. He asks about her Rookie and she says she’s not having the best time. They then have some adorable flirtatious banter…like friends. Definitely just friends.

Oliver tells his team that they’re going into a neighborhood that needs a little extra police presence, but Diaz wouldn’t know that because he strolled in a little late. After the meeting, Chloe pulls Nick aside and asks him to find out why she and Dov haven’t “mingled limbs” since the accident. Nick agrees to try to find out why, even though he looks like he’d rather go through his Fight Night beat down again, because it’s hard to resist Chloe’s desperate, manic, puppy dog eyes. In Oliver’s office, Andy tries to find a way to tell Oliver that Duncan is kind of the worst but ends up second-guessing her instinct and blaming herself for his failings. So Oliver tells her to try loosening up on him and seeing if he will surprise her and actually be good at his job. Seems risky considering their line of work, but I guess if Rookies were never given second chances, we’d have an entirely different cast of characters on our hands. In Gail’s squad car, Diaz is acting squirrely and he says it’s because he’s jacked up on caffeine since he had a late night last night, wink wink nudge nudge. Diaz says maybe Gail should try getting back on the horse but Gail says she never got off hers. Diaz is confused; he thought Gail and Holly broke up. Gail insists they didn’t…she just doesn’t talk to Holly anymore. That obviously doesn’t mean they’re broken up. And hopefully Holly understands Gail Logic well enough by now that she also knows this. Diaz says he wishes he was cold like Gail and Gail looks like she wishes she could cold-clock him. He asks if it’s a lesbian thing, being able to detach emotionally like that, and she responds by aiming for a pothole, causing Diaz’s coffee to spill all over him.

Andy lets her Rookie drive on the way to call about a dead guy in a stairwell, but when they get there, the gunshot victim isn’t actually dead. Andy sends him for the medic kit but he seems a little too hesitant for someone who is supposed to have McNally’s back. On the way to find his next of kin to take them to the hospital, the Rookie is being judgy and saying that since this guy has a rap sheet, despite having kept his nose clean for ten years, he probably had it coming. Andy is a lot calmer in her requests for him to open his mind and telling him that people have the capacity for change, because I would have been shouting it at him.

Meanwhile, Nick and Dov are going door to door in the apartment building, and Nick awkwardly tries to ask about Dov and Chloe’s sex life. Dov doesn’t bite, but Nick doesn’t push it because he’s never been so uncomfortable in his whole handsome life.

Chris and Gail are on a different floor, also canvassing neighbors for information. And by that I mean Diaz is going door to door while Gail eats an apple and watches. They split up because Diaz has enough energy to burn to take the one flight down but Gail will happily wait for the elevator I imagine it’s kind of hard to move wearing a uniform jacket that’s twice your own body weight. She goes to throw out her apple when she notices a laundry room door slightly ajar so she goes to check it out. Inside, she finds a woman bleeding out on the floor. She runs to her and tries to calm her down, and the only thing the woman says is, “Sophie” over and over. Gail pleads with the woman to stay calm and look at her, assuring her with comforting words. Andy and the Rookie show up at the first vic’s address and find a little boy home alone, who says he lives with his dad and grandmother, but his grandmother is at work. Andy tells him that his father is in the hospital and they take him down to the precinct.

The grandmother meets them down at the station and Andy sends Rookie Duncan (after a few very obvious hints) to get the kid, Marcus, a drink from the vending machine while Andy asks the grandmother for information about the vic. Duncan is not particularly great with kids and insults the poor boy for wanting grape juice instead of root beer. But Marcus comes right back at him and tells Duncan that he has little girl hands.

While the boy was distracted, Andy finds out from the grandmother that the vic does electrical work in the building. She radios this information to the cops still in the building and they conform that there are tools still in the electrical room and it seems likely he could have been an innocent bystander.

The woman in the laundry room also looks like it could have been accidental collateral, since it seemed like the gunshot came down through the vent. They break into the apartment above to find another vic, this one dead on the floor, with a packet of heroin shoved in his mouth. The skull on the packet indicates a local gang, which means a cease fire that had been in place has officially come to a halt.

While the forensics team cleans up the laundry room, Gail complains about being covered in another person’s blood, saying Diaz will have to ask around to find out who Sophie was alone because obviously she needs to change. Diaz puts on his Earnest Voice and tells Gail she did a good job today and Gail, as unable to take a compliment as ever, simply retorts, “Yeah! I know!” Nash and Brother Peck make a stellar investigative team and figure out exactly what’s going on re: the gang truce and its abrupt end. I’ll spare you the details, it’s a lot of wibbly wobbly coppy woppy stuff. Oliver sends his team back on the streets, telling them to have each other’s backs, which means someone will definitely not have someone else’s back. My money’s on Gerald.

Speaking of Gerald, Andy is teaching her Rookie about the importance of paperwork and how details are key. And as if the universe decided to help her out with her lesson, the mention of grape juice triggers Andy’s memory and they realize that Marcus might have been with his father at the time of the shooting.

Meanwhile, Chloe is like a cat in heat, scratching up Nick trying to find out what he learned from Dov. When his answers are unacceptable, Chloe sends him back into the battlefield, begging him to actually get through to Dov this time.

Andy asks Marcus’s grandmother where her grandson went and she says she sent him home to get her pills. On the way to the house, Andy tries fruitlessly to get through to Marcus’s cell phone and Duncan wonders why Marcus wouldn’t have just told them in the first place. Andy says that not everyone sees cops as the good guys.

When they get to the house, they learn from Marcus that he was with his father when the shooting happened, and that he even knows who did it: Shay Bishop.

Andy helps Marcus get his grandmother’s pills when an SUV pulls up. She asks the kid if he told anyone that he saw the shooting, and he tells her that he texted his friend because of some bonehead thing Rookie Duncan said to him at the station. Andy tells Marcus to hide and calls for backup, but Duncan just sits in the car, paralyzed by fear.

She calls for real backup but still yells for Duncan to help her. Instead, he just turns off his walkie while Shay Bishop enters the house calling for Marcus. Andy and Shay Bishop get into a stand-off, Andy telling him to put down his gun and Shay insisting he can’t let Marcus talk about what he saw. He shoots at McNally and takes off, but before he can get too far, backup arrives and grabs Shay, no thanks to Duncan, who is still buckled in the squad car like a total Gerald.

Andy is just grateful everything worked out, though, and so is Marcus, who thanks her with a big hug. When she gets outside, Andy asks Duncan what the hell happened, and he starts lying through his teeth, stammering about getting lost and having a broken walkie. She calls his bluff and turns his walkie back on and storms away, not wanting to listen to his BS anymore.

Gail is making coffee in a mug that is obviously not hers, as it says DAD on it, when Diaz comes in. She tells him that she’s been researching but can’t find anyone who knows who she was; there wasn’t even a missing person’s report. This makes Gail feel lonely and sad for the woman she comforted, but what makes her sadder is that Diaz had come by to tell her that her Sophie didn’t make it. In a final attempt to figure out who this woman was, Gail asks if the woman had any keys on her. If she was doing laundry, she would have had to get back into her apartment. When Diaz says they didn’t find anything on her, Gail decides to go back to the building to check one last time.

Nick, afraid to face Chloe’s wrath once more, decides to flat-out ask Dov what gives. Dov admits that he’s afraid. He watched Chloe die right in front of him, he doesn’t want to do anything to push it. Nick, in his last move as mediator, calls Chloe over and is like, “Chloe, Dov thinks he’s going to kill you if you guys bang. Dov, Chloe might die if you guys DON’T bank. Noooow kiss.” And kiss they do.

Gail finds some keys under the washing machine in the apartment building and a little girl comes wandering in looking for her mother. A thought strikes Gail and she asks, her voice wavering a little, if the little girl’s mother’s name is Sophie. The little girl says no, her mother’s name is Trina, but before the sigh of relief is fully released, she continues and says that HER name is Sophie and asks Gail if she knows where her mother is. Gail’s eyes fill with tears and she squeezes her eyes shut, willing her broken heart to keep it together. Gail’s soft spot for children has been the one of the most consistent character traits to ever go across five seasons of any show and it still gets me every time. Right in the feels.

Andy files a report about what happened at Marcus’s house to Oliver, which means Duncan will be suspended pending investigation, and he could lose his badge. Which surely won’t please Uncle Commissioner, but suits me just fine.

Meanwhile, in a dark dark corner outside a dark dark building, Diaz deals in something awfully shady. Which might shed a little light on why he was acting so amped up earlier…

Swarek drives Andy home in silence, and she rails on him for not saying anything encouraging on the ride, saying nothing at all. Swarek, for once, doesn’t get angry, doesn’t get snarky. He just applauds her for believing that people can be better. This is exactly what she needed to hear-what she needed to see-and she kisses him. He’s her proof, he’s her reason to keep believing that people can be better.

What did you think of “Wanting”? Were you, too, offended by the appearance of a dead body that did not immediately result in a Holly appearance?

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