ABC/Caitlin Cronenberg
Tassie Cameron talks with THR about the emotional finale and if the series could return.
[Warning: This story contains spoilers from the "74 Epiphanies" season finale of ABC's Rookie Blue.]
McSwarek fans should be pleased. After six seasons of on- and off-again dating, Andy (Missy Peregrym) and Sam (Ben Bass) finally got hitched during the sixth season finale of ABC's Rookie Blue.
Meanwhile, Oliver (Matthew Gordon) returned to the white shirt, and the rest of the original rookies learned that not only will 15 Division remain intact, but they've all received various promotions in order to make room for a new wave of officers.
Whether viewers will be able to witness that journey, however, remains to be seen. With Rookie Blue's future still up in the air and showrunner Tassie Cameron leaving to pursue other projects, it's still unclear if the show will continue with new boss, writer Sherry White.
To find out what went into crafting that perfectly imperfect ending, saying goodbye for the final time and what could potentially come next, The Hollywood Reporter caught up with Cameron to get the details.
Was there ever any way you were letting Andy and Sam walk out of that finale without getting married?
No, there wasn’t. That was something I’d just hoped to be part of since the first episode and we saw the chemistry between Missy and Ben.
You worked with Ben, Missy and director David Wellington to put those vows together, was the result true to your original words?
We worked around a few things to make sure that those actors were happy and that it came out of their mouths easily and it felt authentic to them, but it would be interesting for me to compare. They were, in the end, quite close, and it was fairly dictated by the fact that Sam had prepared and written them, which means they’re going to be a certain way and he’s going to have thought about them, and then Andy is in a kind of different space; her vows are off the cuff and stream of consciousness. That was very fun to write, those two different approaches.
There’s been speculation that Andy’s dress ripped before the actual wedding because she could be pregnant -- is there any validity to that theory?
I will leave that to Sherry White to figure out. We wondered that ourselves but I think it really was more born out of figuring out all of the terrible things that we could throw at Andy on her wedding day.
Did you contemplate having Sam's baby mamma Marlo (Rachael Ancheril) at the wedding?
We thought that was a bridge too far. To make Andy have to look at Marlo, I don’t know. We talked to Rachael about it and she said she felt Marlo wouldn’t go; she wouldn't do that to them. It just seemed, that they are all respectful grownups at this point. Why make Andy suffer that?
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You’ve said everyone gets a happy ending – can you defend Gail’s (Charlotte Sullivan)?
Her happy ending involved the fact that she has evolved enough to make the right decision about the child she wanted to adopt. There was so much stuff happening in her life and with Steve (Adam MacDonald) and with the division that she recognized it wouldn’t be the best thing for that child necessarily. She was grown up enough and mature enough and strong enough to make that decision. There was also still a possibility of love out there for her. Whether it’s with Frankie (Katharine Isabelle) or if Holly (Aliyah O'Brien) returns… It was a bittersweet ending, but it seemed honest.
Were there actors you wanted to get back for the finale but just couldn't?
There were a million characters we would have loved to have had at that wedding, but for various reasons – I think Lyriq Bent was shooting something – we couldn't. Some of them were just availability issues, but also bringing important characters back and not having enough time to give them much to do seems sometimes worse. I would have loved to have had Sam’s sister (Robin Brûlé) there. We debated fitting Holly into the episode … but there wasn’t the space. There were so many elements going on that we couldn’t give them anything good to do.
Did you re-watch the pilot for some of the homages here?
I didn’t even need to re-watch the pilot – although I think I did – but I rewrote that pilot so many times I could probably recite it word for word. That final scene, as much as the wedding, was how we’d all as a story team and a producing team had imagined the end of this part of the show. Them coming in, but as the grown-ups this time. We tried to echo it very consciously and I think we all imagined that from very early on, that ending.
This is the least cliffhanger-ey episode we’ve done. That was partly because I knew it was my last episode I maybe selfishly tied it all up for myself. I wanted to tell the story the way I wanted to end my time there but still leave some room that if it did come back the division would be restructured, we’d have our core cast still there in a different role, and have new rookies. I wanted to keep that open, but my goal was to wind it up the way I’d imagined it.
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Duncan — played by Matt Murray — exited. Was that so he could do pilot season?
Duncan had a much longer shelf life then we’d all imagined. We figured he'd flame out after a few episodes or possibly get killed. But he was such a charismatic and interesting actor that we kept him alive and on the show and made him change and grow. I’m really glad we did because he ended up being a favorite character of mine these past couple of seasons. But it felt like he’d done his arc. And yes the actor wanted to do pilot season but it also felt organic to the character.
Do you have any inkling as to whether there will be a seventh season?
It is in hands of people I’ve never met. I don’t know what’s going on. I imagine we’ll hear very soon though.
Were you satisfied with that Rookie Blue finale? Sound off below.
Twitter: @amber_dowling
