We’re back! The Rookie Season 8 Episode 15 ‘Survive The Streets’ once again pretends to be a true crime show, abandoning its essence and the development of the characters we care about. And we don’t know when this will end…but it’s time it did. Ready?
Here we go!
A Failed Experiment in The Rookie Season 8 Episode 15 ‘Survive The Streets’
The Rookie Season 8 Episode 15 ‘Survive The Streets’ is a waste of time. It’s 40 minutes of your life you’ll never get back. I wouldn’t mind ending the review here, really. There’s nothing I can say that makes it clearer than that. But I prefer to explain why.
As you know, these episodes aren’t my favorites. They never were. I like true crime, but I don’t tune in to this show to watch one. Because this is a procedural. However, I’m always open to the possibility that these episodes will appeal to me, or at least entertain me. Although they’ve never succeeded at either—until now, at least.
It’s already bad enough that the series tries to be a true crime show, but The Rookie Season 8 Episode 15 ‘Survive The Streets’ takes it a step further and tries to be some kind of bizarre documentary about cults and aliens with cameos from stars we love—a device whose purpose is unclear but which aims to distract us from…whatever this episode is trying to be.
So The Rookie Season 8 Episode 15 ‘Survive The Streets’ ends up being, well, a mess—with some high-profile cameos, admittedly. This episode isn’t the procedural we love and settle in to watch. It also fails to be the true crime show it pretends to be. And it’s certainly not a documentary about cults or aliens. So it’s in no man’s land. So much so that you have no idea what you’re watching.
And that makes the things worse.
Pretending to be a true crime show? We can’t stand it. But we understand it’s a special episode and all that. But trying to add a twist and overcomplicate things with cults, aliens, and celebrity cameos? The worst thing they could have done. The Rookie Season 8 Episode 15 ‘Survive The Streets’ goes from boring to…well, bad, to put it politely.
And, while we’re at it, we have to talk about these “special” episodes.
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Fewer Characters…and More Filler
We understand that they make these episodes once or twice, even occasionally. But we can’t understand this habit of the last few years of making one every year, like a fixed date—a date we hope will be forgotten in the next season (season 9, yay!!!!). And, to make matters worse, these episodes always air at the very end of the season.
Yeah, in those final episodes where they should be pulling out all the stops, and yet they prefer to focus on…this. And The Rookie Season 8 Episode 15 ‘Survive The Streets’ rubs salt in the wound because we’ve just come through several episodes focused on characters we don’t care about, which felt more like filler than anything else.
In the last batch of episodes, we had two dedicated to Bailey, and the episode 10, that should have been Lucy’s—in which she suffered one of the most traumatic experiences of her life—was more focused on Dash than on her. The same goes for the previous episode, which was supposed to focus on Celina. These episodes barely developed the characters we watch this show for.
In short, the show wasn’t having a good run of episodes. So the last thing we wanted to see was an episode like The Rookie Season 8 Episode 15 ‘Survive The Streets’ where the characters we care about aren’t developed at all.
We need the show to go back to being the series we love. The series we want to watch when we sit down on the couch every Monday. Let it focus on the characters we actually care about and we’re here to see. And, of course, let the show stop, forever, pretending to be something it’s not. Not even for one more episode.
Now, with that said, is there anything good in The Rookie Season 8 Episode 15 ‘Survive The Streets’? Yeah, the cameos from our friends from ‘Fun and Games’ and from Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki. We weren’t expecting them. And even less that we’d be so emotional watching them talk about Supernatural—we thought we were over it, seriously. We don’t quite understand why they’re there—although the episode makes an effort to explain—but it’s an oasis in the desert.
And we clung to it.
However, is the episode worth watching for this? Nope. Do you want a tip? Find this scene elsewhere and save yourself 40 minutes of your time. You’ll thank us later. We said what we said.
The Rookie Season 8 airs Mondays at 10 pm on ABC.
