The Rookie Season 7 just started, but Nyla and James are already heading down a rocky road, and creator and showrunner Alexi Hawley spoke to PopCulture.com about what’s in store for them. In Episode 2, “The Watcher,” Arjay Smith’s James Murray held a meeting with some of his activist friends at the house to discuss ideas about rebuilding trust with the police. While it seemed like it was only going to be a handful of people, it turned out to be much more than that when Mekia Cox’s Nyla Harper came home from work.
She felt she was being ambushed as people immediately went up to her to demand answers. Nyla wondered aloud if they “got married too fast.” Considering she and James have two very different passions that intertwine with each other and not always in the best way, things might be coming to a head between them. Hawley said it’s “sort of been built into their relationship from the very beginning.”
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“She’s a police officer, and he’s a community activist who has issues with the way the police thing is done,” Hawley continued. “The line we’ve been walking is that Harper has her own issues with policing. There are plenty of cops who know that policing is imperfect and should be fixed. But there’s disagreements about how and all those kind of things. But what we’re seeing this season is sort of the same fight over and over and over again.”
“Something will happen that’s destructive,” he explained. “In this case, it’s really the fallout from the corruption scandal that Monica was shepherding last season and getting to the point where, which is universal in a relationship, if we keep having the same fight over and over again, maybe there’s a problem. Which sort of pushes her towards action ultimately. Like, is there something she can do? Action is stronger than words, but also has some unexpected consequences, which I don’t want to spoil.”
It was only just a matter of time before more complications arose between Nyla and James, no matter how great together they may seem. It’s hard to tell what will happen with them, especially since things seem to be getting more tense. There will be a lot to look forward to as it sounds like it’s only going to get worse and fans will want to tune in on Tuesdays at 10 p.m. ET on ABC to see how their relationship troubles continue.
