One of “The Rookie‘s” most steadfast and steely detectives just had a close call with a serial killer that left her rattled, but don’t expect Detective Harper to stay down.
In the Season 7, Episode 4, titled “Darkness Falling,” the team’s investigations led them to a field’s worth of bodies left by an unknown serial killer. During the investigation, Nyla Harper — a seasoned detective honed and hardened by years of undercover work — slipped up at the scene of a crime, didn’t notice the suspect approaching her, and wound up injected with a mystery substance and temporarily paralyzed.
“I think it scared her in a way that she has not been scared in a long time,” said actress Mekia Cox, who has played the tough, street-smart cop since Detective Harper used her “Golden Ticket” to transfer to Mid-Wilshire in Season 2.
“She’s usually pretty good, like she’s usually on her feet. She usually knows where the bad guys are, and she mis-stepped this time, and she got hurt,” Cox said. “Being paralyzed temporarily — she doesn’t know it’s temporary. She’s thinking to herself, could this be it? Could I be done with my career? Her career is her life. So yeah, this really jolts her, and I think it’s hard for her initially, because she has not been in this position in a while.”
According to Cox, she didn’t have to work too hard to get into that headspace even though Nyla is pretty much always tough as nails. “I didn’t have to do that much,” Cox said. “Honestly, the set that they made of that basement was creepy, so just being in that environment kind of makes you go, ‘OK, wait a second. I got to make sure I’m looking around each corner.’”
And that creepy vibe is also part of what unsettled Nyla, according to Cox. “She’s been a detective for a while now, and so her position has been different. She’s not out in the field as much as she used to be, so maybe she is a little bit out of practice, and she hasn’t been in these high-adrenaline situations in a while,” Cox said. “She’s usually used to not messing up. She’s used to always knowing where everyone is, and her Spidey senses weren’t acting in the way that they should be, so and that was a first for her.”
Don’t expect Nyla’s scare to take away the “no guts, no glory” mindset that got her there in the first place, though. “I think it’s too ingrained into who Nyla is,” Cox said. “I think it scares her. It does. I think it definitely scares her initially, but I think she’s back into, ‘I messed up once. I’m not going to do it again. That’s not gonna happen again.’”
“The Rookie” airs new episodes Tuesdays on ABC, streaming Wednesday on Hulu.
