Like The Rookie‘s Lt. Wade Grey (Richard T. Jones), Shawn Ashmore is no fan of April Fools Day. “In general, I don’t like it,” the clinically proven wonderful human being admits to Booked: The Rookie Aftershow. “I think a good April Fools joke is fantastic, but everyone is trying to do it, so it’s transparent and just a bunch of failed jokes.”
Or in the case of The Rookie, a bunch of real problems. In tonight’s episode, we got a solid sampling of pranks that work — more of #Chenford’s so-real “faux” hookups, please! — and ones that create more work for our heroes, who found themselves in the thick of a modern-day Purge thanks to an ill-advised post by Libby (Kayla Maisonet), the now-jobless intern who ran the LAPD’s social media.
“I think that’s what The Rookie does so well and I’ve heard Alexi [Hawley, the showrunner,] say it so many times, that when they do a traffic stop, you don’t know if it’s going to be funny or tragic…you just don’t know.” He adds that the episode “extrapolates on that idea” where it’s all fun and games until looters in light-up masks show up with Molotov cocktails.
“It’s like, okay, we’re dealing with this fun idea, the romance and the Chenford of it all and all these different things, and then life can happen in the precinct, it flips, it becomes this life-or-death situation. I love that. When I was reading the script, I didn’t see that coming and I thought that all the rioting and kind of Purge stuff was done so well. It was really effective and scary. And I was like, ‘Yeah, this a situation we do not want to be in.’” Lucky for Ashmore, his Assistant D.A. was spared a bulk of the madness — and the week of night shoots that it took to create the assault on L.A. “Well, I was there for one of the night shoots at the very end,” he laughs, noting how Wes was busy handling a murder-case client with an unfortunate name. “I come walking up and I’m like, ‘Okay, I’m going to wrap up the Ben Dover case again!’ [But] yes, I was happy that I wasn’t up for five nights in a row till about four in the morning!”
Check out the full video above for Ashmore’s takes on why he’s relieved to see Wes and wife Angela (Alyssa Diaz) living their happy-Evers-after (get it?) after seasons of drama, where he sees his character’s career going, and who is behind all of the show’s glorious Instagram and TikTok posts.
And no, it’s not that Gen Z nightmare who tweeted out that it was Parking Ticket Amnesty Day.
