‘The Rookie’s Best Recurring Joke Lets the Show Poke Fun at Itself
As we wait for Season 7 of The Rookie, it’s a good time to look back and reflect on some of the show’s finer moments. One of the strengths of The Rookie as a police procedural drama is that the show doesn’t take itself too seriously. The series does not strive for realism and always features a solid dose of comedy, which can be seen going all the way back to the first episode. Whether it’s the true crime documentary-style episodes or Tim Bradford (Eric Winter) and Lucy Chen (Melissa O’Neil) meeting their doppelgängers, Dim and Juicy, The Rookie demonstrates its willingness to have some fun with its plot or simply just poke fun at itself.
One of the more recent examples of this is a recurring gag that started in Season 5, where John Nolan (Nathan Fillion) has a frustrating encounter with a garage band. The garage band made a second cameo early on in Season 6, marking the return of the “Daddy Cop” song, a recurring gag that perfectly illustrates why The Rookie is such an entertaining show.
The Garage Band First Appears in the Season 5 Episode, “Daddy Cop”
Officer John Nolan first encounters this mysterious garage band in the cold open sequence of Episode 13 of Season 5, appropriately titled “Daddy Cop.” Nolan and his rookie trainee, Officer Celina Juarez (Lisseth Chavez), make a routine traffic stop after a driver runs a stop sign. Officer Juarez starts writing a citation for the driver, and it just so happens that the officers are parked in front of another house with a band practicing in its garage. As the officers write up a ticket for the driver, the band starts improvising a song about Nolan and Juarez; notably, the lyrics are quite catchy, as the lead singer, credited as Rodge (Zander Hawley), starts singing, “Arrest me, but make it sexy.” Even Officer Juarez enjoys the tune.
Nolan looks at the band to get them to stop, clearly unamused, but the band continues with their song before shutting the garage door. The lead singer and frontman of the band is portrayed by Zander Hawley, who also happens to be the son of The Rookie creator and showrunner, Alexi Hawley. The series has used his music before, but this is the first time Zander appears as an active character in the series.
The Rookie’s cold open segments are often reserved for comedic moments like this one, which usually involve Nolan or his colleagues finding themselves in some quirky, oddball situation before they get into the usual meat of the episode. The show’s central plots tend to be more serious business, but the cold opens traditionally provide a fun, humorous gag to set the mood for the episode. These sequences are usually punctuated by the upbeat tempo of the show’s signature theme song, “Chin Chin” by Kings & Queens. The cold open in “Daddy Cop” provides a nice variation of the theme song, with someone voicing the song’s trademark lyrics, “I’m gonna win for you like I know you want me to do,” a cappella, offering a fun twist on the usual gag.
Rodge and His Garage Band Return Early in Season 6 of ‘The Rookie’
Rodge and the band make another appearance to cause more mischief for Officer Nolan in Episode 2 of Season 6, “The Hammer.” Nolan and Juarez are back at the same house from the earlier episode, answering a noise complaint from dispatch, and just as the garage door rolls up, Rodge cues up the same song. The band adds insult to injury as a gospel choir exits the house for the song and another guitarist starts jamming along with the music on the sidewalk. Nolan lets Juarez take over, but even the rookie officer can’t resist the temptation and starts dancing around to the catchy song. At this point, “Daddy Cop” Nolan has enough and walks back to his patrol car in defeat before the scene transitions to an annoyed Sgt. Wade Grey (Richard T. Jones) reviewing the footage with Officer Juarez.
Nolan marries Bailey Nune (Jenna Dewan) in the same episode, so it’s almost like the band was serenading poor Nolan with a wedding present. As Nolan and Bailey seek to complete their nuptials throughout the episode, a series of mishaps and misadventures occur, so the cold open sets a tone of “just another one of those days” for Officer Nolan. It’s an enjoyable episode that also features the return of the hilarious Flula Borg as Skip Tracer Randy, and Chastity (Meg DeLacy), the girlfriend of Nolan’s half-brother, Pete Nolan (Pete Davidson). The show comes up with a contrived reason for Randy attending the wedding in Pete’s stead as Chastity’s date, but that is par for the course for The Rookie. It’s still one of the funniest episodes of the abbreviated sixth season.
The Recurring Gag Makes ‘The Rookie’ Television Comfort Food
The best way to sum up the garage band gag is that it exemplifies the entertainment value of The Rookie , which could be compared to television comfort food. It offers a traditional procedural style of old-fashioned network shows, but it also features that more modern, dramedy gloss that makes it an easy viewing experience. The gag also pokes fun at the show’s premise, depicting the older single dad, John Nolan, who became the LAPD’s oldest rookie police officer in the first episode.
The Rookie often depicts outlandish and unrealistic moments that are difficult to digest, but the show is not going for the dark, gritty realism of other cop dramas like The Shield or Southland. Since the beginning, The Rookie has been one part police procedural drama and one part comedy, and it’s maintained that balance relatively well over the past six seasons. The comedy enhances the series, along with the likability and charm of its lead characters. That formula is undoubtedly why The Rookie has proven to be the little engine that could for the last several years, gradually becoming one of the most-streamed shows on the planet. It’s that mix of comedy and dramedy that global audiences find so compelling has pushed the show to a seventh season renewal.
