‘The Rookie’ Boss Explains Why Monica Died: ‘It Was Time’

Given the situations Monica (Bridget Regan) had been able to escape up until the penultimate episode of The Rookie Season 8, it was a shock to see her killed off — and very much dead, with a lingering shot of her body. (“Alexi wanted to be like, ‘She’s dead, dead. She’s dead. Dead, capital D, Dead, period,'” Regan told us with a laugh.)

But why did that happen? When TV Insider spoke with showrunner Alexi Hawley recently, we had to find out.

“It felt like it was time. Ultimately, it felt like she’d escaped a lot of things,” he explained. “And I never like to just tread water or feel like we’re telling the same story over and over. So I think it just felt like it was a natural end. And yeah, it felt like we needed to give her a really powerful ending.”

Before her death, Monica had a touching goodbye with her ex, Wesley (Shawn Ashmore), one that Hawley called “so powerful.”

“Those two actors are so brilliant. When I talked to Monica about it, I did tell her I’d give her a Viking death, and it felt like — but I remember talking to her in Prague about Monica and sort of layering in trying to keep the dimensionality of that character going. It’s very easy to fall into, she’s just a villain, but I thought we did a really good job this season with showing the cracks in that armor she wears every day,” he said. “I just think that that scene was so powerful where she’s like, ‘I know every move I made, but I still don’t understand exactly how I got here,’ was really emotional.”

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That will be the last time we see Monica. “We don’t do a ton of flashbacks. So I think that story is told,” Hawley pointed out.

Regan told TV Insider she wasn’t “surprised” by Monica’s death. Rather, “I was thrilled that she lasted as long as she did. If you play with fire as long as she has, eventually you’re going to get burned. And as I said to Alexi and everybody, I was like, ‘She’s not on her ninth life. She’s on her 37th. She’s escaped multiple assassinations and prison time and being thrown in a wood chipper,'” she pointed out. “But what I was surprised by was just how incredibly sad I was for her. Not that she died, but that she never truly flipped, that she actually succumbed to the dark side and couldn’t find her way back. And I felt like there was this version of Monica that could have been something else, but she just could never get there. So to me, that was the real heartbreak of it all.”

Will you miss Monica? Let us know in the comments section below.

The Rookie, Mondays, 10/9c, ABC