"The Rookie" and "The Rookie: Feds" Cast on Celebrity Family Feud

I am a huge fan of Celebrity Family Feud; actually, I've been a fan of Family Feud overall since I was a kid, but that's another story for another time. The current iteration of Celebrity Family Feud has been part of ABC's usually summer collection of prime game shows for at least five years, and I've seen many great groups on this version currently hosted by the legendary Steve Harvey. TV show casts, athletes, comedians, and this season featured teams of WWE stars. Speaking of this season, the latest episode featured the casts of two of my current favorite shows: The Rookie and The Rookie: Feds.

As of this writing, The Rookie wrapped their 5th season and got renewed for a 6th, while the spinoff, The Rookie: Feds, finished their debut season but has yet to receive a renewal, and the current strike has hampered the freshman show's chances. The original series stars Nathan Fillion as John Nolan, who--after surviving a bank robbery--decides to become a cop after two decades in the construction business. It was during the show's fourth season that Niecy Nash-Betts debuted her character, Simone Clark, who joins the FBI in a two-episode backdoor pilot for The Rookie: Feds, which debuted on the fall of 2022.

Regarding Celebrity Feud, the Rookie cast was represented by Richard T. Jones (who plays Sgt. Wade Grey), Melissa O'Neil (who plays Officer Lucy Chen), Eric Winter (who plays Officer--later Sgt.--Tim Bradford), Mekia Cox (who joined the show in Season Two as Officer Nyla Harper), and Jenna Dewan (who has played Nolan's girlfriend-turned-fiancee, Bailey Nune, since Season Three). Rookie: Feds was represented by the aforementioned Niecy Nash-Betts, Felix Solis (who plays Matthew Garza), Britt Robertson (who plays Laura Stensen), Kevin Zegers (who plays Brendon Acres), and James Lesure (who plays Carter Hope).

If this was, say, about six months ago, I'd say I'm a fan of everyone I just named. However, that ended up changing one Tuesday in April.

The woman doing the world's worst job of looking "too cool for school" is Melissa O'Neil, who has played Lucy Chen since the original series began, and has appeared in the role in Rookie crossovers. I remember watching O'Neil on SyFy's Dark Matter as Portia Lin, aka "Two," which also starred Roger Cross, Anthony Lemke, and Jodelle Ferland. As a fan of Dark Matter, I was happy to see O'Neil on The Rookie every week. That all changed on the evening of April 18, 2023.

On that evening, ABC aired the antepenultimate episode of Season Five, "S.T.R.," with the central focus of the episode being the return of Isabel Bradford, Tim Bradford's ex-wife, a fellow cop who became addicted to drugs. The reason this was the focus was because Tim and Lucy finally did what we all expected them to do: they became a couple. So I was watching this episode, I was live-tweeting on Twitter, and then I see something I didn't want to see: cyberbullying. Someone who called themselves a "fan" of The Rookie was harassing someone just because they weren't crazy about Isabel. Yeah. I wish what I was saying wasn't true, but it was, because I saw it for myself. That's a growing problem; fandoms get so damn tribal, that a fan can't even express an opinion about a character without being unjustly crucified.

However, this was worse than a crucifying. The bully responded to the fan's disapproval of Isabel by telling them to commit suicide. That's just disgusting. So where does Melissa O'Neil fit in? Turns out she actually liked the bully's disgusting tweets. Sickening. Melissa O'Neil saw this bully telling a fan of her show to commit suicide, and instead of, oh I don't know, taking a stand and admonishing the cyberbully, she likes the bully's tweets. And yeah, it was more than one. It was about five of them. I saw them for myself. Now, the good news is that the bully got suspended for those awful tweets, but the bad news is that because they got suspended, the tweets are suddenly gone.

Even so, the fact that Melissa O'Neil liked the cruel tweets showed me what kind of person she is. I even saw more of a glimpse of that on Celebrity Feud; when Jenna Dewan's answer resulted in a strike, O'Neil gave what looked like an absolutely mean and hateful look towards her fellow cast member. Kinda makes me wonder if O'Neil's causing some backstage drama on that show.

Regarding the episode, the cast of the Rookie shows appeared in the first half, and it was fun to see, drama aside. But on the other subject, cyberbullying is wrong, and so is condoning cyberbullying. No one deserves to be harassed and picked on, and a celebrity actually liking bullying tweets is just disgusting.