Major spoilers below for the latest episode of The Rookie, so be warned if you haven’t yet watched “Dead Ringer“ on ABC, via Hulu subscription or Disney+ subscription.
All good things must come to an end, especially when such goodness has turned more sour and harder to control. So it went on The Rookie, which didn’t even wait until next week’s Season 8 finale before one of its series regulars was killed off in a most cold-blooded way, and star Bridget Regan opened up about bidding a bloody farewell to Monica Stevens.
The drama, which avoided becoming one of several recent TV cancellations when ABC officially ordered up Season 9, gave fans a shocking penultimate episode that put Regan’s stressed lawyer into a corner that she just couldn’t escape from, even though she was literally trying to do just that by getting out of Los Angeles. Unfortunately for Monica, escaping the task force, the dangerous Cooper Johnson (and other criminals) and a life in WitSec just wasn’t in the cards, and she was shot point blank by a faux rideshare driver.
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Speaking with TV Insider, Bridget Regan shared her thoughts and emotions regarding The Rookie’s biggest death of the 2026 TV schedule so far — fingers crossed for the finale — and shared why she wasn’t surprised to learn about Monica’s doomed fate, saying:
Truly, I was not surprised. I was thrilled that she lasted as long as she did. If you play with fire, as long as she has, eventually you’re going to get burned. And as I said to Alexi and everybody, I was like, she’s not on her ninth life. She’s on her 37th. She’s escaped multiple assassinations and prison time and being thrown in a wood chipper. When her number was finally up, I wasn’t surprised. I thought, fair enough. She’s had an amazing run, four years on this show. I’m only filled with gratitude.
To Regan's point, Monica Stevens has had quite the excitable journey in her four seasons on The Rookie, and has survived enough close calls that it wouldn't have been completely out of the realm of possibilities for her to survive this latest narrative path. Alas, her wick was burned up at both ends. But even in the end, she showcased the self-concerned ego that kept her around for as long as she was, with that final request that her shooter: "Not in the face."
But even though Monica's tragic fate didn't come as a surprise to Bridget Regan, she shared that she was taken aback by how much empathy she felt for her character, and Monica's desperately hopeless plight to steer away from darker instincts and behavior. In her words:
But what I was surprised by was just how incredibly sad I was for her. Not that she died, but that she never truly flipped, that she actually succumbed to the dark side and couldn’t find her way back. And I felt like there was this version of Monica that could have been something else, but she just could never get there. So to me, that was the real heartbreak of it all.
Indeed, such "What if...?"feelings were addressed in Monica's emotional (and final) talk with Shawn Ashmore's Wes, when he tries to tell her that it's not too late, and that she can still make a choice that won't automatically doom her. But as Regan put it, Monica was too far gone for any kind of truly plausible escape.
With zero doubts about whether or not Monica actually is dead, given how much screentime her corpse got, it's possible we could see her popping back up in flashbacks. But Regan says such possibilies are entirely up to creator Alexi Hawley, and that even if zero flashbacks happen, she's more than grateful for the time she's spent in Monica's platform-heeled shoes.
The Rookie's Season 8 finale is set to air on ABC on Monday, May 4, at 10:00 p.m. ET. Will it set up a future where the characters head out to new locations, per co-star Jenna Dewan's wishes? We'll have to wait and see.
