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“Rookie Blue” recap (6.11): Over and out

Previously on Rookie Blue, Andy and Sam got engaged and made it through him having a baby mama and (most importantly) got a dog named Boo Radley who is probably really good at finding bodies, Gail met her snarky match in Frankie Anderson, homicide detective, and Steve Peck was outed as a dirty cop (though to be fair he got dirty because he was being used as a puppet by dirtier cops) and this discovery threatened to shake up life as we know it at 15 Division.

We start this episode much like we started the first episode of the season, with Andy nowhere to be found. However, where in the pilot it was Sam itching to leave, this time it’s Andy who is shouting orders-because it’s their wedding day. She’s out of sight because she thinks it’s bad luck to be seen on her wedding day, but Sam still gets an eyes-closed kiss out of it anyway.

At 15 Division, Traci is also running around, because she’s the maid of honor, but Jarvis won’t let her leave until she has a plausible theory for her murder investigation. Traci delegates some wedding details to some of her Rookie friends and follows an impatient Frankie back to the drawing board.

Duncan tries to get himself invited as a plus one, but he is no Holly, so he has no takers. Dov and Chris are ready to go pick up some flowers and head to the venue when the father of the groom comes stumbling in. He says he got a one-day pass on his parole and that Sam told him to grab a ride with the guys, so they reluctantly tell him to get in.

Andy, meanwhile, is running around her apartment in her wedding dress, looking for her vows. Nick stops by to give his last-minute regrets and well-wishes, because he’s heading to Vancouver to be with his gal. While he helps Andy look for her vows, she tears her dress, but he sews her back into it. On his way out, he puts his sunglasses on her face for her something borrowed.

Andy continues her search for her vows solo, until she gets a call from the car company saying her driver is going to be 40 minutes late. I guess they don’t have Uber in Toronto yet, because she decides to drive herself and hops into Sam’s pickup.

At the precinct, Traci is frantic to find a solution to her case and has enlisted Gail and Frankie’s help. Chloe is in the room too, helping Traci by finishing Andy’s wedding slideshow, blubbering in the corner while the grown-ups do their job. The victim is a woman who was found stabbed at the bottom of a staircase with a hammer lying next to her, and her husband came home and found her, leaving him their only suspect. They wonder aloud what the motive is, and Frankie thinks marriage itself is enough motive.

On the road to the wedding, Mr. Swarek convinces Dov and Dumber to make a pitstop at a shady empty house, supposedly to pick up a wedding present. He comes out of the house with a gold pocketwatch and says it used to be Sam’s and soon it will be again.

After turning around at a dead end with a stalled convertible, Andy finds a hitchhiker and sort of accidentally picks her up. The girl doesn’t have a set destination, and is kind of squirrelly, but Andy tries not to get too involved, since she IS on her way to her own wedding. She finds out the girl’s name is Starr, and finally the twitching and jumpiness gets to Andy, so she asks what’s up. Starr says she had a bad ride before Andy picked her up, and that’s when Andy notices the blood on Starr’s arm. Instead of calling it in, Andy “I Need To DO Something About It” McNally turns the car around to arrest the man who assaulted Starr. But when she gets there, the man is stabbed, and it becomes clear who did it when Andy turns around and Starr is high-tailing it out of there in Sam’s truck.

Andy calls Duncan, but her phone dies before she can explain what happened, so Andy makes the guy, named Angus of all things, tell her about how Starr robbed and stabbed him and why he was in the car in the first place. It turns out sweet Angus was just on his way to surprise his girlfriend who he missed so much and decided to stop to help a sweet-looking girl on the way.

Traci and Gail are acting out some possible murder scenarios when Chloe interrupts again with her sniffling happy tears.

Chloe looks at the murder board and points out that when SHE cooks a whole chicken, sometimes she forgets to defrost it, and uses a knife and a hammer to break it apart. The rest of the team isn’t sure if they buy that the woman just fell down the stairs with her cooking tools in her hands, but it’s a working theory, and that’s all Traci needed to get excused for the wedding. They’ll figure it out for real later. Traci tells Frankie that she’s her plus one, because she drives like a maniac and they need to get to the wedding FAST. Traci tells Gail she can thank her later, but Gail points out that Holly is her Plus One Forever and besides she doesn’t even like Frankie, her sweat smells like cinnamon…DAMNIT.

At the church, Sam is starting to get worried. This is exacerbated when Traci, Gail and Frankie show up, thinking they missed everything, with no idea where Andy is. Sam’s dad pulls him aside and is really kind of terrible and basically says that Sam is a sissy and that’s why Andy is a runaway bride, but Sam stands up to him, and isn’t ashamed of loving Andy and letting himself be loved. Mr. Swarek tells his son he’s glad he’s not like him, and I think we’re all grateful for that fact.

After Duncan’s call with Andy got cut off, he used his singular brain cell to decide to find her and make sure she is okay, and find her he does. They drive to Angus, with ambulances close behind, and the day is saved. Andy uses Duncan’s phone to call Sam and say she’s on her way; and though he tells her he had no doubt she’d show up, his relief is palpable.

I usually hate TV weddings, because they’re all the same, and they’re just as boring as real-life weddings (lezbehonest, the reception is the fun part) but Andy and Sam’s vows were actually really sweet and unique. Or maybe I’m getting soft in my old age.

My favorite part of Andy’s speech was when she derailed from the classic, “for better or for worse” list and added, “For the great and the hard, for the dreams and the truth behind the dreams.” I thought that was really beautiful and I hope whoever wrote this episode used/will use it in their own vows. I also enjoyed her very McNally addition, “I won’t obey you but I’ll always hear you.”

It was all very lovely. And don’t think I didn’t notice Frankie eyeing Gail in the church, as if she admired how happy Gail looked for her friends.

Anyway, at the reception, Oliver gives a speech and there is dancing and happiness abounding. Frankie and Gail have gravitated toward each other, but their magnetic similarities still place them at opposite sides of the same couch.

Frankie continues her anti-marriage tirade and is like, isn’t it weird that we can get married now? (She makes it sound like it’s recent, but I’m pretty sure same-sex marriage has been legal in Canada for a solid decade.) Gail’s like, “I dunno it’s not that weird I think I have a tux I could–oh, you mean ‘we’ as in, ‘us gays’?” Then scoffs and sarcastically agrees that equality is terrible.

Duncan finds Andy on the dance floor and thanks her for letting him crash her wedding. He also takes this time to tell her that he’s being transferred. She’ll kind of miss his stupid face. (I won’t. Bye, Gerald.)

Andy goes back to her new husband and they muse about how doggone happy they are. They look out over their ragtag bunch of unlikely friends, their chosen family, and feel the joy radiating off each other like light from the sun. Andy tosses the bouquet down to Chloe and everyone cheers when she and Dov kiss.

The next morning, Swarek wakes Andy up by dumping Boo Radley on the bed. It’s The Day any and all changes will be announced, and they’ve got to get to work.

Meanwhile, across town at the Rookie Pad, Frankie comes strutting out of Gail’s bedroom in boyshorts.

Dov, Chloe and Chris’s jaws hit the ground as they watch her unapologetically help herself to coffee. She gives them an “I dare you to ask me a question right now” look, and they just smirk and leave her be. The magnets stopped resisting their pull and finally came together.

When the Rookies arrive at the locker room, Chloe finds a new redhead fiddling around in her locker. She scares the newbie away and starts to panic that this means she got transferred. They all scurry to the announcement board, but they have nothing to fear. It shook out like this: Oliver is a commanding officer again, because he missed being In Charge, Dov is going to train to be a detective like he wanted, all of our other Rookies are being promoted and are no longer Rookies at all, but TOs with rookies of their own. And they all report to the new gal in charge, Traci Nash.

At parade, Oliver hands out assignments, and when he mentions that Gail’s rookie looks a little nervous, she smiles the most wolfish smile.

While the music swells, singing of “lessons I learned,” Oliver tells his little ducklings, old and new, to serve, protect, and don’t screw up.

You guys. This felt like a series finale. Which I feel torn about. I mean, I guess technically it’s a win-win. If Rookie Blue doesn’t get renewed, it was a solid ending. But if it does, they did leave it open for a whole new world of awesome. The day-to-day of our Rookies being TOs would be great, and there’s still the deep dark depths of the Peck Dynasty still to be uncovered. I do hope we get more seasons, because I’ve been hanging out with these guys every summer for the past five years and I’m not ready to say goodbye.

What did you think of “74 Epiphanies?” What was your favorite thing about this season? Would you want Gail to play the field next season (try to imagine her speed dating) or find someone to settle down with? TELL ME EVERYTHING.

In case this is the last Rookie Blue recap I’ll ever have the pleasure of writing, I want to thank you all for playing along, and for using #GailPlusOne, even though the Canadian and US airings made it hard for us to live-tweet episodes together. Gail Peck is one of the most well-developed characters on a crime-of-the-week style drama, and she will always have a special place in my heart, as will Charlotte Sullivan for being not only the first phone interview I ever did for AfterEllen, but also one of the most thoughtful, sweet, genuine souls I’ve ever had the pleasure of talking to.

So, goodbye, at least for now, and remember: serve, protect, and don’t screw up.

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