'The Rookie's Breakout Character Deserves More Credit

Image via ABC Published Aug 23, 2026, 5:14 PM EDT Jeffrey is a freelance features writer at Collider. He is an MPA-accredited entertainment journalist and a Tomatometer-approved critic based in the LA area. He graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a Bachelor of Science in Radio, TV, & Film and a Bachelor of Arts in Theater. Sign in to your Collider account When the firefighter Bailey Nune (Jenna Dewan) made her initial debut in the Season 3 finale of the ABC series, The Rookie, "Threshold," it was easy to be a bit suspicious of her. At first, the potential new love interest for John Nolan (Nathan Fillion) seemed too good to be true. Bailey shows up at Nolan's doorstep, wearing nothing but a towel, after locking herself out of a neighbor's home where she was house-sitting. Early on, the series arguably took a superficial approach to Bailey's development. Her appearances quickly established a relationship with Nolan, depicting her as an extreme, heroic badass, one who can keep up with Nolan's equally extreme lifestyle as an officer for the Los Angeles Police Department. The problem is that Bailey's initial appearances lacked an organic, natural quality, and her character development felt rushed. However, since her introduction, the show has taken a much better approach in writing Bailey, and while her character isn't perfect, she has since become one of the show's strongest characters. Bailey Nune's Early Appearances Felt Unnatural and Rushed During her debut episode of The Rookie, it's revealed that Bailey Nune is a Los Angeles firefighter, a lieutenant in the Army Reserve, and a Capoeira instructor. The show dumped a lot of exposition on the character without ever truly showing her in action. When things pick back up, and Nolan and Bailey start dating in Season 4, the series eventually depicts Bailey on the job as a firefighter and an EMT more often. But Bailey's introduction was not the most organic way to introduce a character and potential love interest. Collider Exclusive · TV Medicine Quiz Which Fictional Hospital Would You Work Best In? The Pitt · ER · Grey's Anatomy · House · Scrubs Five hospitals. Five completely different ways medicine goes sideways on television — brutal, chaotic, romantic, brilliant, and ridiculous. Only one of them is the ward your instincts were built for. Eight questions will figure out exactly where you belong. 🚨The Pitt 🏥ER 💉Grey's 🔬House 🩺Scrubs FIND YOUR HOSPITAL → 01 A critical patient comes through the door. What's your first instinct? Medicine under pressure reveals who you actually are. AStay completely present — block everything else out and work through it step by step, right now. BTriage fast and delegate — get the right people on the right problems immediately. CTrust my gut and move — I work best when I stop overthinking and just act. DAsk the question everyone else is ignoring — what's the thing that doesn't fit? ETake a breath, make a joke to cut the tension, and then get to work — panic helps no one. NEXT QUESTION → 02 Why did you go into medicine in the first place? The honest answer says more about you than the one you'd give in an interview. ABecause I wanted to be where it matters most — right at the edge, when someone's life is actually on the line. BBecause I wanted to help people — genuinely, one patient at a time, in a system that makes it hard. CBecause I was drawn to the intensity of it — the stakes, the drama, the feeling of being fully alive. DBecause medicine is the most interesting puzzle there is — and I needed a problem worth solving. EBecause I wanted to make a difference — and also, honestly, I didn't know what else to do with my life. NEXT QUESTION → 03 What do you actually want from the people you work with? Who you want beside you under pressure is who you are. ACompetence and calm — I need people who don't fall apart when things get bad. BTrust and reliability — I want to know that when I pass something off, it's handled. CConnection — I want colleagues who become family, even if that gets complicated. DIntelligence and the willingness to be challenged — I have no interest in people who just agree with me. EFriendship — people I actually like spending twelve hours a day with, because those hours are going to happen either way. NEXT QUESTION → 04 You lose a patient you fought hard to save. How do you carry it? Every doctor who's worked a long shift has had to answer this question. AI carry it. All of it. I don't look for ways to put it down — that weight is part of doing this work honestly. BI process it and move — you have to, or the next patient suffers for the one you just lost. CI feel it deeply and lean on the people around me — I don't think you're supposed to handle that alone. DI go back over every decision — not to punish myself, but because I need to understand what I missed. EI grieve it genuinely, find some way to laugh about something unrelated, and try to be kind to myself — imperfectly. NEXT QUESTION → 05 How would your colleagues describe the way you work? Your reputation on the floor is usually more accurate than your self-image. AIntense and completely present — no small talk during a shift, but exactly who you want there. BSteady and dependable — not the flashiest in the room but never the one who drops something. CPassionate and occasionally chaotic — brilliant on the hard cases, prone to drama everywhere else. DBrilliant and difficult — right more often than anyone else, and everyone knows it, including me. EWarm and self-deprecating — not the most intimidating presence, but genuinely good at this and easy to like. NEXT QUESTION → 06 How do you feel about hospital protocol and procedure? Every institution has rules. What you do with them is a choice. AProtocol is the floor, not the ceiling — I follow it until the patient needs something it can't provide. BI respect it — the system is broken in places, but the structure is there for a reason and I work within it. CI follow it until my instincts tell me not to — and my instincts are usually right, even when they cause problems. DRules are for people who haven't thought hard enough about when to break them. EI try to follow it and mostly do — with a few memorable exceptions that still come up in meetings. NEXT QUESTION → 07 What does this job cost you personally? Nobody works in medicine without paying a price. What's yours? AEverything outside these walls — I've given this job my full attention and the rest of my life has gone around it. BMy idealism, mostly — I came in believing the system could be fixed and I've made a complicated peace with that. CStability — my personal life has been as chaotic as the OR, and that's not entirely a coincidence. DMy relationships — I am not easy to know, and the people who've tried to would probably agree. EMy sense of gravity — I use humour as a coping mechanism, which not everyone appreciates in a hospital. NEXT QUESTION → 08 At the end of a long shift, what keeps you coming back? The answer to this question is the most honest thing about you. AThe fact that it's real — that nothing else I could be doing would matter this much, right now, today. BThe patients — individual human beings who needed something and got it because I was there. CThe people I work with — I have walked through impossible things with these people and I'd do it again. DThe next unsolved case — there's always another puzzle, and I'm not done yet. EBecause despite everything — the exhaustion, the loss, the absurdity — I actually love this job. REVEAL MY HOSPITAL → Your Assignment Has Been Made You Belong In…Your answers have pointed to one fictional hospital above all others. This is the ward your instincts, your temperament, and your particular brand of dysfunction were built for. The PittYou are built for the most unsparing version of emergency medicine television has ever shown — one that puts you inside a single fifteen-hour shift and doesn't let you look away. You need your work to be real, not romanticised — meaning over drama, honesty over aesthetics. You find purpose inside the work itself, not in the chaos surrounding it. You've made peace with the fact that this job takes from you constantly, and gives back in ways that are harder to name. Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center demands exactly that kind of person — and you would not want to be anywhere else. ERYou are the person who keeps the whole floor running — not the most brilliant in the room, but possibly the most essential. You show up, do the work, absorb the losses, and come back the next day without needing the job to be anything other than what it is. You care about patients as individual human beings, not as cases to solve or dramas to live through. You believe in the system even when it fails you — and you understand that emergency medicine is about holding the line just long enough. ER is television about endurance. You have it. Grey's AnatomyYou came to medicine with your whole self — your ambition, your emotions, your relationships, your history — and you have never quite managed to leave any of it at the door. You feel things fully and form deep attachments to the people you work with. Your personal and professional lives are permanently, chaotically entangled — and that entanglement drives both your greatest disasters and your most remarkable saves. You understand that extraordinary medicine often happens at the intersection of clinical skill and profound human connection. It's messy at Grey Sloan. You would not have it any other way. HouseYou are drawn to the problem above everything else — the symptom that doesn't fit, the diagnosis hiding underneath the obvious one. You're not primarily motivated by the patient as a person — though you are capable of caring, even if you'd deny it. You work best when the stakes are highest and the standard answer is wrong. Princeton-Plainsboro exists to house one extraordinary, impossible mind — and everyone around that mind is there because they're smart enough to keep up. The only way forward here is to think harder than everyone else in the room. That is exactly what you do. ScrubsYou understand that medicine is tragic and absurd in almost equal measure — and that the only sane response is to hold both of those things at the same time. You are warm, self-aware, and funnier than most people in your field. You use humour to get through terrible moments — and at Sacred Heart, that's not a flaw, it's a survival strategy. You lean on the people around you and let them lean back. The laughter and the grief are genuinely inseparable here. Scrubs is a show about learning to become someone worthy of the job. You are still very much in the middle of that process — which is exactly right. ↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ The initial impression of Bailey is that she is an overachiever who is good at everything. One of her colleagues in the Season 5 episode, "The Choice," even outright calls her an "adrenaline junkie." Bailey initially attempts to break up with Nolan over text, claiming that she’s "terrible" at relationships, and she is "a lot" to deal with. However, Nolan persuades Bailey to continue giving their relationship a try, and the two resume their courtship. Although it was nice to see that Nolan was finding love, Bailey's character lacked depth. But later in Season 4, the depth and meaning of her words about being terrible at relationships and her being "a lot" to deal with became abundantly clear. That’s when the show essentially threw all the initial assumptions regarding Bailey out the window. Jason Wyler Becomes a Pivotal Storyline for Bailey Nune's Development Image via ABC During Season 4, Episode 9, "Breakdown," things are going so well between John and Bailey that he's thinking about proposing. However, their romantic bliss is interrupted by the arrival of Bailey's estranged husband, Jason Wyler (Steve Kazee). Wyler is a toxic and emotionally abusive partner whom Bailey was trying to divorce, and Wyler attempts to ruin Bailey's life and her relationship with Nolan when he returns. Jason's presence offers greater depth and explanation for Bailey's attempt at rejecting Nolan earlier in the Season 4 episode, "Five Minutes." When Bailey first meets Nolan, she's still dealing with the trauma of trying to separate from an abusive, manipulative partner. She might not have been ready to trust Nolan and start a new relationship. It's clear that what she truly meant by saying she's "terrible at relationships" was that she was trying to recover from the emotional damage from her marriage. Nolan is initially upset that Bailey neglected to tell him about Jason, but he supports her efforts to effectively cut him out of her life. Jason is not only abusive, but he's a manipulative drug dealer who attempts to destroy Bailey's career. In the episode, "Heart Beat," he tries to frame her for drug possession. With help from Nolan and the Mid-Wilshire Division, Jason is sent back to prison in the next episode, "End Game," and Bailey can finally divorce him. The Jason Wyler episodes were important because they added depth to Bailey's character. Even though she was a victim of abuse, the series never depicted her as a helpless victim. Dewan showcased incredible vulnerability in these scenes, yet she also displayed Bailey's strength and grace in overcoming her past traumas. Despite Jason's attempts to ruin her life and happiness, Bailey and John take decisive action in bringing Jason to justice. The Jason Wyler storyline was compelling and a major challenge in Bailey and John's relationship. Through the ordeal, John proves himself as an understanding, compassionate individual, accepting Bailey's past relationship with Wyler. Bailey finally divorces Jason, not allowing his past abusive actions to define her life, and her relationship with her true love, John Nolan, finally moves forward. Bailey's later proposal of marriage to John in the Season 5 episode, "The Fugitive," is a perfect example of their unconventional romance. While John and Bailey's relationship started on shaky ground, it's since become one of the best aspects of The Rookie. 'The Rookie' Gives Proper Context for Bailey's Type-A Personality In the following seasons, The Rookie has gone out of its way to develop Bailey more as a character on her own. There are comedic subplots, like when she became obsessed with the sound of scratching underneath John's home and ended up trapping a coyote in a cage or storylines like when she finally got a day off and was still unable to relax. These storylines helped to flesh out Bailey's character in a way that we hadn't seen yet. We see that not only is she a brave character, one who is willing to spend her honeymoon dealing with an active crime scene, but also someone who is trusted by her colleagues. One bump along the way was seeing Bailey's involvement in Jason's death. When it was revealed that Jason and Oscar Hutchinson's (Matthew Glave) both escaped prison, Bailey went on the offensive. She was willing to help the assassin Malvado (Jimmy Gonzales) when he had a contract out for Jason's life, which became a source of contention between her and Nolan. These scenes offered a look into her character and contrasted her stance with Nolan's. Although her husband did not approve of her actions, she felt they were justified, and ultimately he sided with her. Bailey has become a vital part of the show, with the most recent season seeing her moving to Washington, D.C., and taking on a dangerous covert mission at the Pentagon. While your mileage may vary on how effective the storyline was (and whether it makes sense for the LAPD to be involved), the storyline did a lot to show how far Bailey has come since the days of her showing up at Nolan's door in just a towel. She has become an indelible part of the series. It's difficult to imagine The Rookie without Bailey Nune. Release Date October 16, 2018 Network ABC, Hulu Showrunner Alexi Hawley Starting over isn't easy, especially for John Nolan who, after a life-altering incident, is pursuing his dream of joining the LAPD. As their oldest rookie, he's met with skepticism from those who see him as just a walking midlife crisis. Main Genre Comedy Seasons 9 WATCH ON HULU