‘The Rookie’: Richard T. Jones Reacts to Returning Villain Twist — What’s Next?

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for The Rookie Season 7 Episode 11, “Speed.”]

The officers were left puzzled at the end of this week’s episode of The Rookie when another player was revealed in the case involving a bus taken hostage while Nolan (Nathan Fillion) and Celina (Lisseth Chavez) were riding undercover.

It turned out that a woman they thought was pregnant, Denise, was actually scheming — and got away with a passenger’s wallet and the device inside. She uploaded something then called … Monica (Bridget Regan)! The corrupt lawyer had been right about how everything would go down during the hostage situation. Denise thought the card would be useless once the man reported it stolen, but Monica said that it had more information on it than just login credentials and the assumption would be that it was police evidence, not stolen to be data mined. She also reminded Denise that she was being paid a lot of money to not ask where he worked — and that her child’s life was contingent on her silence. The officers did find Denise, but she wasn’t talking at the end of the episode.

Below, Richard T. Jones reacts to that twist and teases what’s to come.

Monica is back, although the officers don’t realize that just yet. So what was your reaction to that twist?

Richard T. Jones: It was a surprise. Dealing with Alexi [Hawley], you never know exactly where he’s going with scripts, where we’re going when we’re reading it. So it was always kind of a cliffhanger. When you think of this particular script, the Speed episode, I was very kind of nervous because I’m a big fan of the movie Speed. So I was like, man, what are we doing? But then after reading the episode, I was very pleased and it was kind of a shock that Monica was involved.

What can you tease about what’s coming up there next with Monica? What is she up to?

Monica’s always up to havoc. She’s stirring the pot. She is coming in full force, and once again, she’s playing both sides in the situation.

Can you say if this is something that we’re going to be seeing pieces of in every episode going forward?

I think we start seeing it develop little by little until the finale, and then the finale we see a lot more, and then we actually see who’s behind the whole [thing].

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What’s coming up for Grey?

Grey’s Grey. He always babysits a lot, so he’s more concerned about his people and keeping them right. He’s the biggest counselor of everybody. So he’s a bit in everybody’s life trying to counsel, trying to guide them into success in the field and actually at home as well. So he has a little bit of everything going on. It’s hard to say what’s he doing in particular because his storyline is so involved in everybody else’s storyline. That’s probably the best way I can explain that.

Me and Luna [Angel Parker] are great now that she’s working at the hospital. We’re understanding each other, that she’s there and I’m here. I think we’re fine over there. It’s just more about being the great counselor that Grey is.

Is there anything coming up where Grey is going to need someone else to give him advice?

[Laughs] What’s funny about Grey is the only one he really takes advice from — it is not really advice, but he gets help from either Felix or Tim. I think Eric’s character advises him a little. But right now, no, nothing coming up this season that will be him getting any advice.

Oscar (Matthew Glave) is still out there. What can you tease about when he pops up again?

Well, we need to get him, but he’s hid his head pretty well. So we’re trying to figure out — that’s kind of where Nolan’s focus is, is to get Oscar. So right now he is definitely in the wind. So we’re still trying to put all those pieces together at this point in the storyline, and so I’m very excited to see where Alexi goes with that also.

How much are we going to see Grey in the field going forward? Are we going to see more of that like we did in this episode?

I think there’s a couple more episodes I’m in the field, not much. But come next season I’m going to push to be in the field even more.

It would’ve been really fun to see you on the bus.

[Laughs] That would’ve been great. I was trying to get on the bus, to be honest with you, because I wanted to roll around a little bit, but now I’m just in the command vehicle, so I’m following the bus. So I’m Joe Morton in the movie, so I’m sitting there trying to keep everybody on pace and focused on the job to be done.

The Rookie, Tuesdays, 9/8c, ABC