Warning: The following contains spoilers for The Rookie Season 4, Episode 16, “Real Crime,” which aired Sunday, March 13th on ABC.
Two weeks ago The Rookie introduced a hilarious new character, and last week the series set itself up to write off another one of its original cast members. “Real Crime,” though, was back to focusing on newer additions. Officer Aaron Thorsen was introduced as the new rookie (which will change when The Rookie launches its FBI spinoff), but he joined the Los Angeles Police Department with a well-documented and troubling past. The latest episode had that past rear its ugly head in both the worst and best ways.
Thorsen came from a rich family; his mother was a television star and producer, and his father was a part of a former hip-hop group. However, the family really enjoyed the spotlight while Aaron was an exchange student in Paris. After his roommate Patrick was found dead in their apartment, Aaron was accused and later convicted of murder by the French police.
There was a whole TV series about the case (like Snoop Dogg is getting on Starz), and Thorsen became known as a murderer. The situation was so bad that even after he was exonerated, a negative reputation followed him around. But it was that year and a half in jail that made him decide to become a cop. He wanted to change his reputation and he prevent more wrongful convictions like what happened to him. For all of Season 4, he’s worked to prove himself as Detective Harper’s trainee and done an admirable job.
But then his mother Yvonne wanted to film a reality TV show about Aaron’s time as a cop. At first Aaron was against the idea, but he eventually agreed because it was a way to change his image from murderer to crime fighter. “Real Crime” made The Rookie focus on a fictional true crime series, and it featured some unfortunate déjà vu for Thorsen. Producer Morris Matthews was notoriously “callous and exploitative,” and while filming the episode about Aaron, he turned up dead. Since he wasn’t exactly on Aaron’s good side, everyone suspected the rookie cop of murder — again.
However, The Rookie soon came up with plenty of other suspects. Aaron’s dad was connected to a 20-year-old murder. Morris had made some QAnon followers mad. Yvonne happened to mention that she hadn’t given the LAPD all of the footage from the reality show — which included a clip where Matthews admitted he knew who killed Aaron’s roommate back in Paris. Clearly, the two cases were connected and the original killer had struck again.
Following that lead, Angela Lopez discovered that the killer was Rowan, another one of Aaron’s friends from Paris who always traveled with lots of luggage – filled with drugs. When Patrick found out about his smuggling operation, Rowan killed him, and when Matthews tried to rat him out, Rowan killed the producer too. While Thorsen may not ever get closure from his roommate being murdered, at least he could start living without people believing that he’s a killer. That was clear at the end of “Real Crime,” when Patrick’s father showed up to apologize for thinking that Aaron had killed his son. Hopefully that development bodes well for Thorsen’s future on The Rookie.
To see more of Officer Thorsen and the LAPD, tune into The Rookie. New episodes air on Sundays at 10:00 p.m. ET/PT on ABC.
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