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The Rookie casting Michael Trucco proves he needs his own series

By Brittany Frederick

THE ROOKIE - "The Dark Side" - Officer Nolan and team are charged with escorting a notorious female serial killer to the graves of her previously unrecovered victims. However, when they arrive, they unearth even more than they expected. Meanwhile, Officer Chen meets a seemingly perfect man who sparks her interest, and Officer Lopez worries about Wesley as his PTSD continues to increase, on "The Rookie," airing SUNDAY, DEC. 8 (10:00-11:00 p.m. EST), on ABC.(ABC/)MEKIA COX, MICHAEL TRUCCO, NATHAN FILLION
THE ROOKIE - "The Dark Side" - Officer Nolan and team are charged with escorting a notorious female serial killer to the graves of her previously unrecovered victims. However, when they arrive, they unearth even more than they expected. Meanwhile, Officer Chen meets a seemingly perfect man who sparks her interest, and Officer Lopez worries about Wesley as his PTSD continues to increase, on "The Rookie," airing SUNDAY, DEC. 8 (10:00-11:00 p.m. EST), on ABC.(ABC/)MEKIA COX, MICHAEL TRUCCO, NATHAN FILLION /
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Michael Trucco’s guest performance in The Rookie midseason finale proved that someone needs to give him his own TV crime drama already.

Sunday’s The Rookie midseason finale featured a very welcome guest appearance by Michael Trucco, and prompted the question: Why doesn’t this guy have his own series right now?

SPOILER ALERT: This article contains spoilers for the most recent The Rookie episode, “The Dark Side.”

In “The Dark Side,” Trucco took a plotline that could have easily been stereotypical—the hard-nosed Assistant District Attorney makes life difficult for the cops, potentially because of his own ambitions—and made it interesting.

Almost more importantly, between this episode and his prior appearance in “The Shake-Up,” he’s made ADA Sean Del Monte someone the audience enjoys seeing.

That’s particularly notable with “The Dark Side,” when the script had Sean pointed in the entirely opposite direction. He should have been the person that fans hated, or at least were frustrated by, for the conflict he created.

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But because of who was playing him, we not only understood him, we actually liked him. That’s not an easy accomplishment for an actor; Trucco was able to do a total 180 with the character.

Sean’s purpose in “The Dark Side” was to establish the premise of the episode—as it was the District Attorney’s Office that cut the deal that saw serial killer Rosalind Dyer (fellow guest star Annie Wersching, Castle) let out of prison—and to create a fair bit of tension with the police officers, who largely disagreed with the controversial agreement that saw Rosalind’s death sentence commuted if she led the LAPD to the bodies of three of her victims.

We’ve seen it on TV crime dramas before: attorney, often self-centered, makes life harder for the cops by disagreeing with them or putting some obstacle in their way.

So when The Rookie shot Sean early in the episode, it would have been easy as pie to kill him off. The other characters had already made it quite clear what they thought of his plea deal, and so he would be pretty expendable—sort of a cosmic “We told you so.”

The Rookie
THE ROOKIE – “The Dark Side” – Officer Nolan and team are charged with escorting a notorious female serial killer to the graves of her previously unrecovered victims. However, when they arrive, they unearth even more than they expected. Meanwhile, Officer Chen meets a seemingly perfect man who sparks her interest, and Officer Lopez worries about Wesley as his PTSD continues to increase, on “The Rookie,” airing SUNDAY, DEC. 8 (10:00-11:00 p.m. EST), on ABC. (ABC/Kelsey McNeal)MICHAEL TRUCCO /

The show didn’t do that, and lucky for viewers, because Michael Trucco is too good of an actor to be dispatched for dramatic effect. Or to just be used in guest spots on other dramas. Before The Rookie, it was SWAT and Chicago PD, and chances are you still remember his work on both Castle and Criminal Minds.

He’s got plenty of experience in this genre over the last several years, and he’s proven that he can play any role a TV crime drama needs. Detective? Check. U.S. Marshal? Check. Serial killer? Yep. Or District Attorney? Well, that’s twice now—remember Fairly Legal.

In “The Dark Side” he made Sean someone viewers not only understood but empathized with. Even though reference was made to his career ambitions in the episode, we never thought that was Sean’s only reason for striking a deal with Rosalind, or even any reason. He felt genuine, and he defied every expectation for his character arc.

Honestly, Michael Trucco’s a dream choice for anyone who needs a compelling lead for the next crime drama. Even though his role in The Rookie is a supporting one, he’s demonstrated that he can build out his character into someone we want to know more about, based on his interactions with the other actors (particularly Harold Perrineau, who was equally impressive this week).

He doesn’t need everything to be on the page; he can take that chemistry with another actor, or the few facts he is thrown, and make them into something that works.

And he’s able to take the contrary point of view and make it understandable; even though Sean was advocating for something the rest of the characters didn’t agree with, we understood why he did it and that he genuinely believed in the decision he’d made. The best TV crime drama heroes are the ones who don’t do or say what we’ve seen before. When Michael Trucco plays a character, he never takes the ordinary route.

Which is why it’s a bit baffling that he’s in all these guest spots on crime shows, and not a series regular on one right now. If he can do what he’s doing in The Rookie, which is to develop and humanize an ADA who could easily be a stereotypical pain in the butt, imagine how great he’d be starring in a legal drama. Or even a cop show. All of his recent experience, coupled with all of his talent, would be a killer combination.

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The Rookie returns Feb. 23 at 10 p.m. ET/PT on ABC.

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