2 out of 5

Created by: Alexi Hawley and Terrence Paul Winter

covers season 1

While I did not think highly of Castle beyond star Nathan Fillion’s charms, it admittedly had a huge uptick in quality when Alexi Hawley took over as showrunner in season 8. Still, that’s a long time to wait to reevaluate a show, so I hadn’t associated much with Hawley beyond his association with Fillion when The Rookie was announced, with Nathan, again, acting as enough of a lure to get me to check it out.

…And the formula scored on The Rookie, with a fully likeable cast, effecting relatively believable procedural elements (also witnessed in Castle’s eighth season), a great balance of episodic and ongoing storylines, and a core central idea that was flexible enough to jump between comedy and drama fish-out-of-water takes without it feeling forced. The Rookie has since had its off beats, of course, but on the whole, it’s a show I constantly look forward to.

While not exactly an offbeat, a questionable beat came with the introduction of FBI trainee Simone Clark, as played by Niecy Nash-Betts. Nash-Betts can be great in roles suited for her offhand style, and the “oldest rookie on the team except the team is the feds” premise palette-swap wasn’t a bad setup for her character, but it was a dynamic that worked best in moderation, and it was given two episodes in order to set things up for this here spin-off, The Rookie: Feds. That it felt like a stretch at those two episodes should be telling.

The sweet spot for Hawley might be more street level affairs, as the potentially grander scope of the FBI on Feds lends itself to the phoned-in, CSI-like investigations of “classic” Castle – the cases we handle, episode by episode, never quite come across as important, or impactful, and when grafted grander forensic tools and opportunities, the gaps in writing that stuff with any realistic (or at least suspension-of-disbelief) edge start to become very apparent.

The show does have two things working for it to paper over these gaps, though: a very fun supporting cast – as with the parent show, no one you don’t enjoy spending time with – and a strong bond with The Rookie, meaning we get crossover episodes literally every few episodes, and the juggling of cops on the beat with FBI backup does work really well (as we can cut to the cops whenever the feds have to do more complicated things), plus it’s just a ton of fun seeing so many actors whose screen presences we enjoy just pinging off one another, rapid fire.

Unfortunately, I mentioned supporting cast, and I didn’t say Nash-Betts. She just… doesn’t work here. Fillion’s bit as John Nolan, the forty year old rookie, feels like it makes sense; Nash-Betts’ Simone Clark’s guidance-counselor-turned-fed never does. It always feels like a joke. The actress is effective, but it’s like there are two competing shows happening – one is a bit more lightweight, like a half hour comedy, and the other is a more thrilling procedural. It seems telling that the spin-off actually stuck us with two rookies, with Kevin Zegers playing Brendan, an actor-turned-fed, and since he’s the straight man to Niecy’s comedy, he gets to play things more in line with a procedural, and makes for a more compelling character.

This isn’t to suggest that Nash-Betts can’t do drama or action, rather just that her acting style here (whether because that’s her shtick, or she’s directed a certain way, or both) doesn’t sync with chunks of the show, making her leading character come across as the odd one out… but not in the sympathetic way I’d think the show intends.