As The Rookie is set to return for its eighth season soon, the ABC show continues to have an avid fan base mainly because so many viewers love its characters.
While the trailer for the series' upcoming season confirmed the return of a character from The Rookie's spin-off, some figures from the show's past simply can't return. Thanks to the fact that the show has featured some criminal masterminds, some of its characters have met their untimely demise.
In most cases, The Rookie's writers have made the right choice when they had a character pass away. However, there is a long history of TV shows going downhill when they had a character die. Sadly for The Rookie's many loyal fans, the police procedural drama series featured one extremely notable death that never should have happened, especially the way it did.
Why The Rookie's Jackson West shouldn't have died
When The Rookie began, there was no doubt that Nathan Fillion's John Nolan was the show's main character. Still, the show also closely followed the careers and lives of two other rookie cop characters, Jackson West and Lucy Chen.
While Nolan and Chen still are at the core of the show's storylines, West has been gone since The Rookie's fourth season premiere. During that season's opening moments, fans saw security footage showing West from behind as the character's life was violently taken.
While fans saw West's friends on the show grieve his passing, it didn't take long for the series to move on to the point that the show's storylines are now written like the character never existed. That is a turn of events that never should have happened. After all, at the very least, West's absence should have left a hole in the show that was big enough that his character never should have been forgotten. While everyone tries to move on after suffering a loss, West was so important to many of The Rookie's characters that his passing, especially because of how it happened, should have created lasting effects.
In an ideal world, West's character never should have died at all. The character's death had a massive negative effect on The Rookie because it resulted in the show missing out on many potential storylines that would have been entertaining for viewers. Perhaps the best example of that is, it would have been very compelling to see West continue to grapple with how his career choices affected his relationship with his highly respected father.
Why Titus Makin Jr. left The Rookie
While looking back at what happened to West's character, it is important to note why the character exited the show.
In September 2021, TVLine interviewed The Rookie's showrunner, Alexi Hawley, who explained West was written out because the character's actor, Titus Makin Jr., quit the series before filming for the third season began. "It's heartbreaking, but I didn't really have a choice. He wasn't coming back, and because of the way we set things up with the [Season 3] finale, there was just no way to tell that story without Jackson."
In January 2021, Makin Jr. spoke to Entertainment Weekly about the issues he had with The Rookie that ultimately led to his character's exit. At that time, Makin Jr. explained that following the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor inspired outrage at the behavior of police officers, his feelings on starring in The Rookie changed.
"A lot of people are finding a voice, and I found that for myself, where I was like, 'Oh wow, I've been complacent,' I woke up one morning and I was watching the news, and I was like, 'I can't do this. I can't go play a cop on a show and not talk about the fact that I'm a Black cop.' My character hadn't addressed any of that."
"I had that conversation with Alexi [Hawley], our showrunner, and he was extremely gracious and he totally understood everything I was saying. I did come to that point where I was like, 'If you want to write me out, I politely receive that. I would rather be written out than ignore the reality and not be able to tell the story.'"
The Rookie season 8 premieres on ABC in 2026.