Rookie Blue - Deception

When the suspected pedophile and kidnapper (Michael Cram) who an obsessed Cruz (Rachael Ancheril) has been threatening and stalking gets beaten up, Andy (Missy Peregrym) fears the worst, especially after the man's neighbor witnessed an altercation between the man and a woman matching Cruz's description the night before. Meanwhile Epstein (Gregory Smith), Gail (Charlotte Sullivan), Chloe (Priscilla Faia), and Nick (Peter Mooney) work around the clock on the final day of a drug sweep led by Nash (Enuka Okuma) and a missing Swarek (Ben Bass) who abandons his post and ropes Andy into helping hide evidence of Cruz's off-the-book investigation into Ford.

Things heat up at the drug sweep with the arrival of a second gang casing the operation which forces Nash to call in Steve Peck (Adam MacDonald) for backup and try to take down the leaders of two gangs at the same time. Despite Swarek's absence, and the delay of backup that doesn't arrive in time to be of assistance, the team is able to take down one of the 15 Division's biggest collars. Oliver (Matt Gordon), after being abandoned by Andy, keeps going door-to-door until he finds a neighbor of Ford with a young son. fresh bruises, and definite motive to do the man harm.


Andy is able to alter evidence to keep Cruz's name out of the investigation but in doing so strains her relationship with both Sam (who pushed her into doing it) and Nick (to whom she can't explain why she was working off-book with Swarek all day). The episode ends with Andy deciding to tell Nick the truth, although the episode ends before we learn just how much McNally tells her new boyfriend about what happened.

The return of Ford, who it seems will continue to plague 15 Division for the season's remaining two episodes, works well and shows us how far Cruz can go off the rails when there isn't anyone around to pull her back in. We also see how far Andy is willing to go to cover for a friend, and how the guilt of her actions continues to weigh on her afterwards. "Deception" is also noticeable for some nice moments between Olivier and Andy (about both her happiness early in the day and her noticeable absence the rest of it) and Chloe and Nick (discussing his new relationship with Andy that he won't quite cop to).