Rooster season 1 episode 8 recap: Russo helps Cristle with Tommy

Rooster episode 7 was full of a lot of fun and exciting moments, along with some soul-crushing ones.

Nevertheless, we saw an abundance of growth from our Ludlow College characters. Katie may have gotten her hopes up for her rekindling with Archie, but she finally saw his true colors on full display. Russo and Sunny’s dad had two very awkward meetings, but it made for the funniest scenes.

In episode 7, Russo, Tommy, and Cristle are on thin ice, but it leads to Russo fixing his friendship with Walt. In turn, Walt saw the errors of his ways and made Dylan the Dean of Faculty at Ludlow College. 

Future Officer Tommy or Author

After Russo tells Walt he’ll talk to Cristle later, he turns in his chair to find her in his office following Walt’s departure. She wants to set some ground rules for their final eight days as co-workers. Her rules are very out there, but I respect her for standing her ground on their breaking up. As she’s leaving, she calls him out on mentally undressing her, and he admits he kind of was doing it. Honestly, I love their personalities. 

Despite Russo's weirdness with Cristle, Tommy seems happy in Russo’s class again. His sunglasses are gone, and he seems to be engaged with the page-turning lesson. He even compliments him for participating in class again after everything. They are finally okay, and Russo agrees to help him get back on track as they make a plan to meet in his office at 3 PM.

Later on, Russo approaches Tommy’s friends, asking if they have seen him because Tommy missed their meeting. Later on, Cristle sits in Russo’s office and sadly tells him Tommy said he’s dropping out of school. She agrees to let Russo step in and try to help. Then, she almost misreads his kindness as wanting her to fall for him again, but he quickly confirms he just wants to help Tommy. 

Russo sits down with Tommy and his friends to confront him about wanting to drop out of school. They lead the table to have a private conversation. Russo tells Tommy about being a lonely kid, and even as an adult, he loves that Tommy has good friends to surround himself with and not leave them behind. He encourages his friends not to encourage him to leave school.

Without fail, the cop walks in because he misplaced his gun yet again, ending Russo’s conversation with Tommy. He didn’t make any progress as he tells Katie that Tommy is going on a ride along with the cop because he expressed interest in being a cop. 

Russo walks up to Tommy’s ride along to find them jamming out to Creed. He pulls them outside to chat, and Tommy tells Russo he’s having a blast. Tommy goes in search of donuts as Russo tries to tell the cop that Tommy needs to finish college. He plays his get-out-of-jail-free card as Tommy comes back out with donuts and the cop’s misplaced gun.

We finally hear his name as Russo tells Tommy that Officer Donny was telling him the downsides to being a cop. He looks stunned that he’s using his get-out-of-jail-free card in this way. As they sit in the cop car, Tommy doesn’t see the downside, and Donny tells him that he faced pulling over people he knows along with the other officers not having his back. They encourage him to give this career move some thought as they catch the mascot redhanded. They leave the cop car and chase the mascot throughout campus. 

Tommy is gaining on the mascot, both of them surprisingly running very fast. He tackles him to the ground, knocking off the mascot head to reveal one of his friends. As Officer Donny pulls up, Tommy tells his friend to leave as he picks up the mascot head. They purposely send Donny in the wrong direction to find him. Tommy confirms he’d be a bad cop when he realizes he’d let people go instead of arresting them. He felt bad about his writing and all the red marks, but Russo tells him that he has potential.

To confirm his honesty, he recits one of his sentences for his story, wishing he’d written it himself. He’s not good yet, but he thinks he could be pretty good. Cristle pulls up to pick him up as Tommy wishes he hadn’t seen so much of Russo. As they peel away, Russo puts on the mascot head and lounges in the lawn chair. 

Katie comes clean

We see a glimpse of Russo and Katie’s Thanksgiving break as they watch a movie. Back for the final part of the semester, Russo tells Walt that Katie seemed upset but wouldn’t tell him why. 

Then, Russo tries to comfort Katie and thinks she’s seeing someone else and not Archie. She points someone out across the hockey rink and Russo tells her to go sit with him and she does. To make matters worse, the guy is there on a date as she pretends she’s with him for her dad’s benefit. The next morning, Katie runs into Archie and they talk about their Thanksgiving break. It is obvious it is a bit awkward as she confronts him about only giving her two days to decide. She’s upset that he got her hooked on croissants. They part ways as she calls over her shoulder that she hopes he’s better to Sunny. 

Tommy runs into Katie and tells her how lucky she is to have Russo as a dad. He wishes Russo was his dad because his dad doesn’t care about him. As things grow awkward, she tells him he can leave now. But I think she knows she’s right that if something is bothering her, she needs to come clean to her dad. She shows up at his door and he has a bike for her. They sit on the porch as she tells him everything. 

Sunny’s job offer

Sunny talks to Walt about moving to New York. She’s conflicted because Archie is finally showing interest in their child. Walt reminds her that she’ll always be faced with challenges in life, but she’s capable of handling them. 

Following Archie’s great lecture, he walks into his office to find Sunny and Mo in there. Sunny tells him about the parenting books she’s reading. Mo calls Archie out for not clocking the emotions going on in Sunny’s mind. Then, they read his negative reviews about his teaching, with Mo making one up to take a dig at him.

At home, Sunny finds Archie sitting in bed reading one of the parenting books. She finally feels brave enough to tell him about the job offer she got. He’s so excited for her until she tells him they want her to start in January in New York. As he says that’s not where he’ll be, she confirms she didn’t take the job and distracts him by climbing in his lap to kiss him. I love how Mo yells from the other room that it’s a huge mistake and that Sunny needs to take the job. 

Dylan’s poetry class

After Dylan’s successful meeting with one of her students, she’s on a walk with Russo telling him he can’t take her since she’s in both their classes. A talented writer and poet that they both see potential in. Then, they passed the town’s window display of Russo’s books, since he’s in town. Of course, he makes her mad when she’s jealous that poets aren’t celebrated like authors are. They laugh as they walk away from the window display.

In a separate meeting, Dylan discovers her student just wants to do poetry for fun since it isn’t her major. Although that bums her out, she doesn’t give up. Later, she confronts her after school hours and takes her out to eat to chat. It really bothers her that she said she wasn’t a poet because she already is one. She shows her a mockup of poetry in print, which gives her permission to put it in the real release.

The next episode of Rooster airs on HBO and HBO Max on May 3 at 10 p.m. ET.  

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