Prolific character actor David Dastmalchian is set to appear in two episodes of The Rookie this season, reuniting him with The Suicide Squad co-star Nathan Fillion. “Reuniting” might be doing some heavy lifting there, since Fillion was only in about 2 minutes of The Suicide Squad and didn’t share the screen with Dastmalchian — but still, the two DC veterans will get to bounce off each other on Fillion’s ABC cop comedy.
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Over at TVLine, they spoke with The Rookie showrunner Alexi Hawley, who teased that Dastmalchian will be appearing in a two-part story later in the season.
“I was so excited to get him,” Hawley told the site.
The original premise for The Rookie centered on a middle-aged man (Fillion) who decided to become a police officer and the hijinks he got up to. Since John Nolan is no longer a rookie — in fact, six seasons in he is pretty well-established in the department — the world of the show has expanded a bit, opening up interesting stories for a number of other characters, including some of the younger officers around him.
According to Hawley, one of this season’s potential storylines centers on a will-they-or-won’t-they romance between Tru Valentino’s Aaron and Blair, a psychiatrist played by The Originals‘ Danielle Campbell and now working for the department. Per Hawley’s comments, Blair is “a rookie psychiatrist in the same way that Aaron’s just on the other side of being a rookie police officer. And we’ll be exploring what that could happen if you’re an attractive officer and she’s an attractive shrink, and having fun with that idea.”
The Rookie airs on Tuesday nights at 9 p.m. ET/PT on ABC. You can check out the official (and dated) synopsis for the show below.
Starting over isn’t easy, especially for small-town guy John Nolan, who, after a life-altering incident, is pursuing his dream of becoming an LAPD officer. As the force’s oldest rookie, he’s met with skepticism from some higher-ups who see him as just a walking midlife crisis. If he can’t keep up with the young cops and the criminals, he’ll be risking lives — including his own — but if he can use his life experience, determination and sense of humor to give him an edge, he may just become successful in this new chapter of his life.
