First airing its two-episode backdoor pilot during The Rookie season 4, The Rookie: Feds officially premiered in September 2022. The spinoff stars Niecy Nash as Simone Clark, a guidance counselor who becomes the oldest trainee in the FBI Academy. James Lesure, Britt Robertson, Felix Solis, and Kevin Zegers are also included in the main cast. Despite decent ratings, the show was canceled by ABC after the first season, disappointing viewers of the franchise.
The flagship series continues to invite Fed alumni back as guest stars, including fan-favorite characters such as Robertson and Zegers’ Laura Stensen and Brendon Acres. While the two appeared in The Rookie season 6 finale alongside Felix Solis, the plot-heavy installment provides little time for personal conversations. When speaking with ScreenRant, showrunner Alexi Hawley shares that he enjoys Laura and Brendon’s dynamic and hopes to get them back together again in The Rookie. Check out his full response below:
ScreenRant: Could we ever see Brendon and Laura as a duo again in The Rookie? I was always curious if the intention was to build up a romance with those characters since we, sadly, didn’t get another season of The Rookie: Feds.
Alexi Hawley: Down the road, for sure, I’d like to see them together again. Some of it is literally just about availability and stuff like that. We’ve had Felix back, we’ve had Antoinette and him back as well. We just haven’t managed to land the right story with the right availability to get them back together. But I always really liked them.
More About Laura And Brendon’s Dynamic In The Rookie: Feds
The Pairing Shared Similarities With The Rookie’s “Chenford”
Laura served as Brendon’s training agent in The Rookie: Feds, and the two form a bond despite their contrasting personalities. They share a pointed scene with The Rookie’s Chenford early in the show, intended to highlight the duos’ similarities. All signs pointed to an eventual romance between Laura and Brendon, which would likely have mimicked Tim and Lucy’s will they/won’t they dynamic.
Both characters are romantically involved with other people throughout The Rooke: Feds, and The Rookie season 7 confirms that Brendon is still dating the FBI’s lab tech and forensic biologist, Antoinette Benneteau. While it may no longer be possible to give them the slow burn romance fans were rooting for, The Rookie can still show how Brandon and Laura’s relationship has evolved off-screen since The Rookie: Feds season 1.
