Nyla Harper has been put through the wringer on The Rookie this season — and actress Mekia Cox said there are more hurdles ahead.
Warning: Spoilers below for season 7, episode 5 of The Rookie.
“It’s been a long time [since] she has been this fragile,” Cox, 43, who has played Harper since season 1 of the ABC series, exclusively told Us Weekly after Harper was stabbed with a needle by an assailant during season 7, episode 4.
Cox explained that Harper had never been “this scared” after a case, which caused her to become even more invested in the outcome.
During episode 4, which aired on January 28, Harper was taken by surprise by a criminal who injected her with something that causes temporary paralysis. When episode 5, which aired on Tuesday, February 4, picked up, Harper learned that she was in fact attacked by a serial killer who previously infected his victims with diseases.
“She immediately is on the move. She’s on the go. She’s gonna find this person [and] she’s gonna figure it out,” Cox said of Harper’s mindset in the latest episode, noting that for a while she was “terrified” that she had a disease, but after the FBI ruled that she was clean she got back to work.
By the end of the episode, Harper figured out that her attacker, a.k.a. a wanted serial killer, was a man named Liam Glasser (Seth Gabel), who used a rundown building at a mental health facility to torture and kill his victims. Harper, however, didn’t have the evidence to prove it, so she decided to threaten Glasser and tell him that she’ll be watching his every move.
Cox told Us the tactic was to “scare” the criminal and “give him that same feeling that she had.”
The actress noted, “Until she can actually gather all the evidence to prove that it’s him, she doesn’t want this happening to anyone else out there. She knows what it feels like. She’s had a taste of it, and she does not want that for anyone else. She’s trying her best to make sure that he is in a place where he doesn’t do it again.”
Cox teased that “it’s not exactly the last” fans will see of Glasser, revealing that it’s going to be “really hard” for Harper to focus on other cases while he’s free.
“When she gets focused on something, she gets laser focused,” she explained, adding that Glasser will “always gonna be in the back of her mind until he is caught.”
That pressure will also leak into Harper’s personal life, which has been rocky all season since she and husband James (Arjay Smith) don’t see eye to eye on how to handle police corruption.
“As trauma does, it does sort of seep into other relationships,” Cox shared. “Her hyper focus on these sort of things does tend to alienate others around her sometimes.”
Glasser, however, isn’t the only villain the LAPD will face the remainder of the season. While Bailey Nune’s (Jenna Dewan) ex-husband, Jason (Steve Kazee), was taken down and killed during Tuesday’s episode, the criminal he escaped with from prison, Oscar Hutchinson (Matthew Glave), is still on the loose.
“It’s fun,” Cox told Us of Oscar’s return later this season, confirming that he is still very much on the lam. “I feel like anytime Oscar’s on screen, it’s a lot of fun.”
Oscar is a career criminal who has occasionally helped the LAPD solve crimes when it suits him. However, Cox reminded Us that he is a “bad man” that must be stopped.
“This is the first time that you get to see him in a position where I think it’s been a while,” Cox teased. “There’s been a while where he’s kind of helped us. We’ve gone in and he has been there to sort of guide us. This is not the position he’s in right now.”
The Rookie airs on ABC Tuesdays at 10 p.m. ET.
