‘The Rookie’: Can Lucy Help Fix Tim’s Relationship With His Mother?

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for The Rookie Season 8 Episode 8 “Grand Theft Aircraft.”]

To say that Tim’s (Eric Winter) mom, Joy (Sela Ward), visiting doesn’t get off to the best start for Lucy (Melissa O’Neil) is an understatement. After all, Joy has no idea that Lucy exists, let alone is living with her son, when she first arrives. But by the end of the Monday, February 23, episode of The Rookie, it’s looking like Joy’s relationships with both Tim and Lucy will be in a much better place going forward.

Joy was supposed to be staying with Tim’s sister Genny (Peyton List), but she sends her to his place since she never stays with him. Joy thinks Lucy’s just one of Tim’s coworkers, then he says they’re dating. As Joy’s getting her luggage, Lucy, of course, questions Tim. He says they’re not close and he was going to tell her but didn’t get around to it. The conversation continues as they drive to work. Yes, Tim talks to his mom every other weekend, but they don’t discuss personal things. And so, yes, that means that Joy doesn’t know anything about what led to the divorce with his ex-wife, Isabel.

Celina (Lisseth Chavez) picks up on the tension and, once Lucy fills her in, suggests she call Tim’s BFF Angela (Alyssa Diaz). Nyla (Mekia Cox) agrees it’s weird that Tim hasn’t told his mom anything about Lucy or Isabel, but she also doesn’t recommend trying to get between them by calling Joy herself. Still, Angela know that “empires will rise and fall in the time it takes Tim to handle it.”

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She’s right — after talking to Genny about the boundaries (“a barbed wire fence in front of a field of landmines in front of a moat,” as she puts it) he has with their mom, he cuts his FaceTime with Joy short after confirming that yes, Lucy does live with him. (He does, however, tell her the relationship is “very” serious.)

And so Lucy and Joy do end up talking at the end of the day. Joy tells her that even as a child, Tim protected her from his abusive father, to the point that he’d force him to direct his anger at him — and she’d let him. Lucy points out that she was being abused and terrified, and it wasn’t her fault, but Joy thinks she should’ve been the protector, and he doesn’t tell her things because he doesn’t think she can handle any drama. But she wants to know her son, and Lucy says the first step is telling him how she feels. And so when Tim gets home, Lucy leaves mother and son to talk … a conversation that, unfortunately, we don’t see.

Elsewhere in the episode, as part of Grey (Richard T. Jones) and Garza’s (Felix Solis) task force, Nolan (Nathan Fillion) joins a military transport of inmates from Vegas to Los Angeles, and among them is none other than Oscar (Matthew Glave), picked up trying to rob a gas station. But when one of the other inmates, Everett, who sold the services of his private force of mercenaries to the worst countries where they’ve been accused of multiple war crimes, has his people free him (with the help from a dirty U.S. Marshal, played by Brian Letscher), he also lets the others go to create chaos. In the process, Oscar escapes (again), though he calls Nolan at the end of the episode to brag and promise he’ll be more careful going forward because he doesn’t want to be shacked again. Nolan hangs up on him.

Disney/Mike Taing

Plus, Nyla’s hearing for her inappropriate threats to Glasser (Seth Gabel) takes place, and at the end of the episode, Grey tells her she’s being sent back to patrol. She’s still a detective, so she hasn’t been demoted, but she is back in uniform and has to be careful going forward. Oh, and now we’re a bit worried about Tim, who refuses to be bribed by Everett into letting him go, and the inmate warns him that his mistake will come back to haunt him.

What did you think of the introduction of Tim’s mother and the rest of the episode? Let us know in the comments section below.

The Rookie, Mondays, 10/9c, ABC