‘The Rookie’ Cast & Boss Tease Season 9 Challenges, Talk Chenford Wedding

The Rookie isn’t just returning for its ninth season in January, it will also be celebrating 150 episodes in the new year. And so when the stars — Nathan Fillion, Richard T. Jones, Melissa O’Neil, Mekia Cox, Alyssa Diaz, Shawn Ashmore, Lisseth Chavez, and Deric Augustine and North‘s Jay Ellis — and showrunner Alexi Hawley stopped by TV Insider’s New York Comic Con studio, we had to get the scoop on that — and try to find out what we could about the upcoming Chenford wedding. (Remember: They got engaged before they were kidnapped, and wouldn’t it be great to know there’s joy coming after the “hell” they’ll be going through?)

“It’s rarefied air these days,” Hawley told us of reaching the milestone in the video above (check out part 1 here). “We all, I think, are very conscious of how lucky we are to be here and how amazing our fans are to have carried us to this place and feel responsibility to entertain as much as physically possible.”

As for the episode itself, he called it “a ride,” “fun,” and “classic Rookie,” meaning, “We do all things tonally. You have a good time. You’re also like, ‘Please don’t do that.’ And then everything in between.”

He shared even less about the Chenford wedding we know has to be coming at some point, explaining, “To be honest, the writers’ room is still percolating a little bit. We’ve been lucky enough to be on the air long enough to have done a fair amount of weddings on the show, so always want to do something original. So yeah, we’re still trying to think about when and where and if that will happen.”

But he did note, “We’ve been very purposeful about Tim and Lucy’s relationship. Obviously it didn’t even officially start until Season 5, so we made you wait. But I think well worth it. And obviously, they’ve been through a lot of stuff. So we’re very respectful of it, and we’re very mindful of it. And we know how special it is, so we want to keep it special. So that’s why we’re very purposeful about where it’s going.”

Watch the full video interview above to see the cast detail their characters’ biggest challenges this season.

The Rookie, Season 9 Premiere, Wednesday, January 6, 2027, 9/8c, ABC