‘The Rookie’ Aftershow: Patrick Keleher Talks Seth’s Injury, Reveals Deleted Scene (VIDEO)
[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for The Rookie Season 7 Episode 16 “The Return.”]
Apparently, all it took for Seth (Patrick Keleher) to be honest with his coworkers was getting fired, returning to find everyone shunning him, trying to prove himself, and getting seriously injured and losing his leg as a result on the job.
“He was so blatantly honest,” Keleher tells TV Insider as part of our Booked: The Rookie Aftershow for the Tuesday, April 29, episode. “This is the only time, I think, pretty much the entire season where he has to leave it all out on the table, and he finally tells the truth.”
Seth returns to work, and no one’s happy about it, to the point that everyone turns their backs on him when he walks into the station. “I had to leave to go to New York because I was doing a play called Fatherland, and we did an off-Broadway run, and that was my conflict,” explains Keleher. “When I was done, I came back and shot Episode 16. So coming back and then filming that scene where everybody stands up and turns their back, it felt too real. I remember telling everybody, ‘This doesn’t feel right. It feels like I really am being shunned.’ And yeah, it was a little too real.”
There was originally a scene before that: Tamara (Dylan Conrique) dropping him off. “It’s how the episode was supposed to open. And in that scene, they just had this conversation. She says, ‘You can do it,’ and we get to see a little bit more inside their relationship,” Keleher reveals.
Seth’s first time around, he had Lucy (Melissa O’Neil) as his training officer. This time, it’s Nolan (Nathan Fillion), and he saves his life during a shootout (which results in the injury that leads to his leg being amputated). How much was that him trying to prove himself, and how much might it have been a glimpse into who Seth really is and can be if he stops doing, as he says, what he always does, making himself a victim?
“I think he wasn’t trying to prove himself. I think that was a very natural instinct, he just saw and he acted the way that he naturally did,” says Keleher. “He’s a good kid at heart, just a little mixed up in the head.”
But his character has been changed now, he continues, with losing his leg “the biggest thing” to do so. As for who he is now, Keleher doesn’t know. “I would say pretty damaged. I don’t know where he is at. In that last monologue, he talks about, ‘Nobody at the station wants me anymore. This is it. I’m done. I’m done.’ And no one tries to cheer him up and says, ‘No, dude, you have a second chance. You can come back in and if you really try, you can be a good cop.’ So I don’t know where he is.”
Watch the full Booked: The Rookie Aftershow above with Patrick Keleher about Seth’s return, filming key scenes from Season 7 Episode 16, and much more.
The Rookie, Tuesdays, 9/8c, ABC
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P
I can already forsee "Skip Tracer Seth." (insert eye roll here.)
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O
I truly think next week will be a filler episode, trying to delay the indication of Lucy making Sargeant so her and Tim can finally get back together. I think they will indicate that she made it in the last episode;18, leaving us on a cliffhanger when her and Tim get back together.
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R
He will end up with a desk job at the HQ and he really doesn't deserve that. What a butt head! Rookie is better off without Seth as he isn't trustworthy.
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100% agreed. The lies he told about previous girlfriends were sketchy at best. Maybe I can see that as a new kid trying to fit in & explain away his puking at the overdose scene, but if he really was a "good kid at heart" he would've come to Lucy later & fessed up to the embellishment. Then you have him losing track of that note about the road closure during the wildfire that almost got Chenford killed. That was a mistake by Lt. Grey putting him in such a high stake, high stress role during that crisis. You can see him flustered the whole time trying to juggle multiple phone lines & thread the needle with politics & people's lives. HOWEVER, the minute he goes back & rips that note out of the pad & throws it away rather than, again, owning his mistake, he lost me as even remotely a supporter.
And what the heck was that mess with the cancer relapse? That was some wild pathological lying right there! For him to refuse the blood test, dare Grey to fire him, & then have the balls to sue the city for discrimination & just hope to heck that they didn't call him out on bribing the doctor for the fake diagnosis was insane! Both he & the oncologist should have been booted permanently right then & there.
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I think he's gonna come back again. He's dedicated to the job. And a knee down amputation it's bad. A lot of cops have and are still doing the with a similar disability. If not, well that's sad. But, at least he had a good run.🤷♂️🤷♂️🤷♂️🤷♂️
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I'm mixed concerning the character of Seth.
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O
I would also love to see a sequel that has Lucy and Tim together, when they are the main characters!
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