Chenford fans were delivered a crushing blow in the latest episode of The Rookie when Tim Bradford (Eric Winter), after spending much too long lying to Lucy Chen (Melissa O’Neil)—for her own good, he stressed!—about what he was up to when his military past came back from the dead, dropped a bombshell on her in the final moments.
After lying to IA (and therefore saving his job and protecting Lucy and Alyssa Diaz‘s Lopez, who had both become tied up in this despite his best efforts), Tim arrived at a heartbreaking conclusion. Though Lucy said he was in an impossible situation and she would’ve done the same thing in his place, he argued she never would’ve been in that place and put her self-interest over her team. “You thought you could handle it. You were wrong but you made it right, so it’s fine,” she pointed out.
But for Tim, it’s not that easy. “I just betrayed everything I thought was right about myself,” he explained. “I’ve been lying to myself, for a long time. That’s clear to me now, and I can’t just go back to the way things were—not right now, maybe never.” He broke up with her, even as she tried to argue, “You don’t get to do that. You don’t get to lie to me and then use that as an excuse to leave me. That’s not okay. That’s not okay. What you’re doing is not okay.” His attempt to make it better? “I know. You are an incredible person. … You deserve so much better. That’s why I’m walking away.” It didn’t. And after kissing her forehead, he left her standing there.
As the promo, which you can watch above, shows, the Chenford breakup is a hot topic in the next episode, airing April 30. Lucy wonders, “How did he let go so easily?” And Tim, now back at patrol, has Danielle Campbell‘s psychiatrist, Blair, riding along with him. Maybe that’s for the best—after all, what Tim seems to need right now, given what he said about lying to himself and being unable to go back to how things were, is probably therapy.
But this breakup is an especially tough pill to swallow since Tim and Lucy just got together last season, following a long slow burn that fans had been waiting to ignite since the beginning of the series. Still, we can’t help but try to be optimistic about this breakup (because otherwise, what will we do?) and think that this might ultimately make them a stronger couple when they do (inevitably) reunite. Tim will have worked on himself, and maybe he’ll feel like someone that Lucy deserves since he doesn’t at the moment. And yes, that is an inevitable reunion because how else could the show end (when it does) but with the two together after the time and story invested in building up their relationship?
But we also have to acknowledge that The Rookie hasn’t been renewed for its seventh season yet, though ABC has started announcing pickups for the 2024-2025 season (both 9-1-1 and Grey’s Anatomy are returning). So could—or would—the show potentially leave off Season 6 with Tim and Lucy not back together? Or could that mean a reunion isn’t that far off?
