Scott Speedman is close to wrapping up his first stint as an investigator in the Sunshine State on ABC, but first, he must return to the fateful day that sent him down this path. R.J. Decker began with the titular former photographer being sentenced to 18 months in prison for assault, thanks to a damning fake testimony by Emi Ochoa (Jaina Lee Ortiz) that sealed his fate. However, he’s about to learn that there is much more to the incident that derailed his life than meets the eye. Ahead of the Florida-based procedural’s season finale, Collider can exclusively share a new sneak peek that sees the team gathered to unpack what really happened with Lucas Ochoa (Maximo Salas) and how it related to his corrupt senator father.

R.J. opens the clip with a recap of the story everyone knows — Lucas breaks into his car and steals a camera, R.J. catches him and fights him, and the Ochoas railroad him in “a joke of a trial.” What he didn’t know before last week, however, was that this wasn’t just something a spoiled rich kid did on purpose, but a targeted attack at the behest of his father, Victor (David Zayas). Emi reveals that R.J. had unwittingly captured incriminating evidence that would’ve jeopardized the Ochoa patriarch, and he wanted the footage destroyed. Only two of R.J.’s assignments line up with the time frame, and with all due respect to the baby hippo birth, a mob-style hit where a financial advisor was murdered at a diner seems like a more compelling lead. Although he was the first person on the scene, he doesn’t recall capturing anything so damning it would’ve caught Victor’s attention, so he knows there’s an angle they’re all missing.

The Season 1 finale of R.J. Decker will be dedicated to uncovering whatever connection there is between the hit and Victor. If the ex-con’s inner circle can pull it off, they’ll finally be able to send Victor Ochoa behind bars. Without R.J.’s old camera, though, that may be easier said than done. His journalist ex (Adelaide Clemens), her detective wife (Bevin Bru), his cellmate best friend (Kevin Rankin), and Emi have all helped him crack disappearances, murders, and more strange cases involving suburban housewives, Little League coaches, and beyond, but this final case threatens to be both his most difficult and consequential to date.

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.

You 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 are the person who keeps the whole floor running — not the most brilliant in the room, but possibly the most essential.

You 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 are drawn to the problem above everything else — the symptom that doesn’t fit, the diagnosis hiding underneath the obvious one.

You 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.

Created by Robert Doherty and based loosely on the satirical crime thriller novel Double Whammy by Carl Hiaasen, R.J. Decker wasted no time establishing itself as the latest colorful procedural under ABC’s belt, like High Potential and Will Trent. It currently holds a 75% score from critics on Rotten Tomatoes, including a 7/10 review from Collider’s Jennie Richardson, and the Florida Man-adjacent energy immediately captured 3.69 million views on the network alone and over 11 million views across all Disney platforms with its premiere. With those numbers, the Speedman-led series became the most-watched 10 p.m. drama ABC has seen in five years. Viewers have since leveled off, though, and R.J. is still in a fight for his life with no renewal yet for Season 2. Moving it up an hour with the space now open shows, however, that there’s a level of confidence that the rough-around-the-edges P.I. can steal the spotlight when given the chance.

R.J. Decker’s season finale airs tonight at 9 p.m. ET. Check out our exclusive sneak peek in the player above.

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ABC

Scott Speedman