Tonight on ABC their new series The Rookie airs with an all-new Tuesday, April 8, 2025, season 7 episode 13 called, “Three Billboards,” and we have your The Rookie recap below. In tonight’s The Rookie season 7 episode 13 as per the ABC synopsis,
“When anti-LAPD billboards emerge throughout the city, the team searches for who’s responsible. Meanwhile, a car bombing prompts an investigation, Miles reconnects with an old friend, and John and Bailey assess their ability to adopt.”
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Someone was putting up billboards all around the city. The billboards called Officer John Nolan a dirty cop. They posed it as a question. Like they were asking people if Nolan was dirty. He asked his friends and none of them believed this was pushback for him wanting police reforms. He was doing latter with several other officers. None of them were targeted. It was just Nolan. Nolan didn’t know who he upset that much. He asked his friends and they reminded him that he arrested a number of people over the years. There’s a chance that someone was posting the billboards in the hope of tanking him. And his possible testimony in any future cases.
On a personal level, Nolan hated it. He and his wife were thinking about fostering if not outright adopting. They were currently doing interviews with a social worker and so this billboard could sink their chances. Nolan hated those billboards. He looked into it. There was no way of legally taking them down because libel was hard to prove with a question. He simply had to live with it and go about his day like he normally would. He was driving with Lucy tonight when they saw a speeding car. They flashed their lighst. Got him to pull over when suddenly someone on a motorcycle drove by.
The motorcyclist threw a grenade into the pedestrian’s window. He killed the driver. He left before the cops stopped him and so it’s a good thing Nolan got a good look at the motorcycle. He described in great detail in the APB. The victim was Viggo Nash. He recently moved to LA with his wife. He was from Las Vegas and he has a rap sheet there. There were a few misdemeanors. There was also one armed robbery. The cops called his wife. She wasn’t answering. Celina went to go see her in person when she spotted the motorcycle exactly as Nolan described.
Celina called for backup. She went into the house. She found the wife tortured, but alive. Backup arrived right as Celina was about to catch their bomber and that’s when they threw another grenade. The grenade distracted the cops long enough for the killer to escape again. The cops had no idea what any of this was about. What helped was that they still had the motorcycle. The motorcycle was registered to Mack Wheeler. He was a known associate of Viggo Nash from Vegas. Wheeler might have killed his friend to stop him from talking to the cops.
The cops did pull Nash over. They would have questioned him. Only it doesn’t explain torturing the wife. The cops theorized that Nash might have brought something to LA and Nolan would have honed in on that if the billboards hadn’t progressed into something more. They came to be plastered on buses. The buses left off the question mark. It made it libel and so he could get those removed. It just wouldn’t work for Lopez and Harper. Their faces were plastered on another billboard asking if they were corrupt. Which meant this might be about the police reform after all.
Plus, the social worker saw the billboard. She later contacted Nolan and Bailey. She interviewed them again. They confessed to all the things that happened to them on the job. This included Bailey’s ex-husband breaking out of prison just to get killed by a hitman. The social worker heard everything and she told them facts. She told them that they would never be cleared to adopt a baby because of their dangerous jobs. It would be one thing if one of them had a safe job. It was difficult because they both had dangerous jobs.
Nolan gets shot at. Bailey runs into burning buildings. The social worker told them that a child wouldn’t be safe with them. They will never be approved to adopt and that hurt them. They didn’t want to give up their jobs. They love their careers. They finally found a place where they belong and they weren’t ready to give that up. Not even for a baby. The baby thing wasn’t going to happen. They also couldn’t conceive. They tried that and it didn’t work. And so tonight might just be the end of their parenting dreams.
Later, Sadie woke up. She told them that her husband and Mack were about to do a job. It was supposed to be a home robbery only her husband found out there was more to it. It turns out the home invasion was supposed to be a cover for an assassination. They were going to kill a famous footballer, AJ Knox. Miles knew him. Miles was even at his house when the cops learned about the plot. They called him and it made sense to Miles. Miles reconnected with his old college friend. He went to a party at his house and he saw a lot of concerning things.
Miles saw that AJ’s childhood friend was stealing from him. He warned AJ about it and AJ dismissed it. He said that was just Sean. He hid the good stuff. He let Sean borrow the rest. Anyways, the party went into the early morning because Miles couldn’t leave. He tried to leave when he ran into Lucy’s friend, Rachel. Rachel was drunk. She wouldn’t leave the party and so he called Lucy to come get her girl. He was staying until Lucy showed up and that’s when Sean made his move. He got into debt with the wrong kind of people. And he wanted to take AJ for all that he has.
When Sean’s friends showed up, the house had three cops in it. Miles, Celina, and Lucy. There was also Celina’s boyfriend but he hid in a room while the cops did the rest of the work. They called for backup. It arrived in time to arrest everyone. Miles saved his friend. Lucy lost sight of Rachel for a minute. She found her and she talked to her. Rachel was going through something. Her dad apparently died a few months ago from cancer and she hadn’t been ready to discuss it because it was a long drawn out death. It left her feeling depleted.
Rachel got into the party scene to forget. She missed her job interview at the hospital. She blew off friends and now that Lucy knew the truth – she was going to be there for her. But at the end of the day, Miles was offered a job as AJ’s Chief of Security. He turned it down because he wanted to be his own man. He had a chance to ride AJ’s coattails before. He turned it down then and he did so again tonight. He was a cop. He wants to stay being a cop.
And the billboards got taken down. Wes found out who put them up. It was the serial killer Liam Glasser. He was trying to tank the jury pool at his future trial and now he might lose his lawyer for helping him target cops.
THE END
