‘The Rookie’ Season 8 Gets Major Update About Premiere

Meredith Jacobs May 13, 2025, 12:00 pm

Richard T. Jones as Grey, Alyssa Diaz as Lopez, Mekia Cox as Harper, and Nathan Fillion as Nolan — 'The Rookie' Season 7 'Three Billboards'

The Rookie is gearing up to bring one of the villains on the loose back “in a big way” by the end of Season 7, showrunner Alexi Hawley has told TV Insider. He also promised a cliffhanger that “hopefully will make people very excited about what’s going to happen in Season 8.” The bad news? It’s going to be a bit of a wait to see that, as ABC unveiled its fall 2025 schedule on Tuesday, May 13, and this drama is not on it.

With that in mind, what do we know about another season? When will it premiere? What’s the latest cast change (someone’s been promoted!) before the end of Season 7? Read on for all of those details and more.

Will The Rookie return for Season 8?

Yes! The show was renewed on April 3, 2025. The news came just after the 12th episode of the show’s 18-episode current season.

When will The Rookie Season 8 premiere?

An exact premiere date has yet to be announced, but we do know that it will be in 2026, in ABC’s midseason. That’s when Season 7 also aired, for a nearly continuous run of 18 episodes.

Who will be in The Rookie Season 8 cast?

The Season 7 cast consists of Nathan Fillion as John Nolan, Mekia Cox as Nyla Harper, Alyssa Diaz as Angela Lopez, Richard T. Jones as Sergeant Wade Grey, Melissa O’Neil as Lucy Chen, Eric Winter as Tim Bradford, Jenna Dewan as Bailey Nune, Shawn Ashmore as Wesley Evers, and Lisseth Chavez as Celina Juarez.

Deric Augustine and Patrick Keleher joined in recurring roles as the show’s new rookies, Miles and Seth, respectively. Seth’s repeated (and serious!) lies got him kicked out, but Miles isn’t going anywhere. Deadline reports Augustine has been upped to a series regular.

So, barring anything shocking happening in the Season 7 finale, we expect to see everyone back.

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When is The Rookie Season 7 finale?

The Season 7 finale will air on Tuesday, May 13, at 9/8c.

Showrunner Alexi Hawley told TV Insider that Monica (Bridget Regan) will “come back around again in a big way by the end of the season” after popping up again in the “Speed” episode.

“We’re sort of driving towards a big splashy episode, which we like to do obviously at the beginning and the end of the season. I think ultimately it will relaunch potentially some laid aside storylines, but also just really put Nolan in sort of primal jeopardy and then also just see where our station might be headed in Season 8,” he teased of the finale.

The showrunner called the cliffhanger “fun” and “unexpected.”

Is there a The Rookie Season 8 trailer?

Not yet.

Is there going to be another Rookie spinoff?

Possibly! In December 2024, there was one announced to be in the works.

All Alexi Hawley would share when TV Insider asked for an update ahead of the Season 7 finale was, “Just that there’s a script that I’ve been going back and forth with ABC about. They give notes and I do the work and I’m an ever-hopeful human being. And so I would love nothing more than to expand the universe and go make it. So we’ll see. I don’t know. I mean the business right now is a little what it is, but I mean, I remain hopeful. We’ll see what happens.”

In December 2024, this potential new spinoff was described as being set in the state of Washington and following “a male cop who is stepping into a new phase of life in his second act.”

In Hawley’s May 2025 update to TV Insider, he confirmed the plan is for it to be “another patrol show set somewhere else. All I can really say is, I think the magic of Rookie does live in the fact that anytime they get out of their police cars, anything can happen. And I think that that’s something that I would try and replicate in a spinoff.”