WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Thursday’s season finale of Rookie Blue — and beyond. If you have yet to watch, avert your eyes now. Everyone else, you may proceed….

In Thursday night’s Season 3 finale of Rookie Blue, Andy finally got from Sam what she’s wanted for so long: to hear him say “I love you.” But still aching from their abrupt break-up and feeling like she’s neglected her career, the rookie decided to leave for a secret task-force assignment — with fellow cop Nick joining her on the undercover mission — instead of meeting up with her ex. Meanwhile, Traci decided to stay at the precinct to be with her son, and Chris pondered a move to be with his own boy.

Below, executive producer Tassie Cameron explains Andy’s big decision and previews where the action will pick up in Season 4.

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TVLINE | This season has been kind of heartbreaking with Dov’s storyline, Gail getting kidnapped and Sam breaking up with Andy. Do you go into it intending to do something a little bit darker?

We always go into every season trying to be as honest as possible about where we think our officers are in their own growth. We all felt after two fun seasons of young cops on the beat and some big storylines, we wanted to show them growing up a little bit. That involves a little bit of a change in tone and involves some of the darker storylines. I don’t think we set out to be darker this season, per se, but we were trying to grow our characters up and grow some of the stories. That, obviously, meant that some of the stories had to go to darker places.

TVLINE | Sam finally said those three little words to Andy. But she still chose to leave for the task force. What’s going through her head when she makes that decision?

We try really hard with the Sam and Andy stuff to design situations — and write these moments with these characters — in a way that they both have very strong and very different perspectives on what is going on. When you’re looking at this from Andy’s perspective, she has been fully into this relationship all season. She said, “I love you.” She’s trying to make it work, and then he dumps her after this horrible thing happens without a word of explanation and breaks her heart. She’s been sidelining herself at work… She doesn’t know he’s going to come back. So she needs to move on. She needs a fresh challenge. She needs to prove herself and distract herself and get on with it. She doesn’t know that he’s going to come in and say this thing. It’s frustrating. We tried to build it in a way that she had a really good argument for leaving and not being that girl, the girl who’s going to stick around just ’cause the guy finally decides he made a mistake — and with the perspective that if he really loves her, he’ll be there when she gets back. Then we tried to build that he has an equally passionate and righteous argument about how things went this season.

TVLINE | Will the action take place in multiple locations next season, with Andy and Nick in one place and Chris maybe in another city?

That storyline is tied up in the first episode. You’re going to feel like you’re back on our show again by Episode 2.

TVLINE | Is there a bit of a time jump, then?

We are jumping ahead six months. We’re picking up with [Andy] and Nick in their undercover operation at the moment that it intersects with [Precinct] 15.

TVLINE | How will their unexplained departures affect Sam and Gail?

I hope that is the fun of watching Season 4. [Laughs]

TVLINE | Sam, in particular, doesn’t seem like one to let this unanswered question go by.

I just gave you my passionate argument on Andy’s behalf. I could give you an equally passionate one on Sam’s behalf. He would be pretty upset. He’s been back and forth with this girl a number of times now. He would be pretty frustrated.

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TVLINE | He seems like the type that would go digging for answers about where Andy is.

[Laughs] That’s interesting. I actually had a similar conversation with Ben Bass [who plays Sam]. We’re shooting Episode 1 [of Season 4] right now, and he’s like, “Does he know where she is?! He would know!”

TVLINE | Will the cliffhanger about where Chris ends up be resolved in the Season 4 premiere, too?

Not in the first episode. He’s going to have finally received an answer from the other police department about whether he can go or not. It’ll be a decision he’s trying to make.

TVLINE | Dov’s storyline was really interesting and complex and messy this year. Since it wasn’t touched upon in the finale, can you talk about where he’s headed?

We felt that the end of the story, in some ways, happened in Episode 11. We like leaving it in that slightly messy place for him and then picking up six months later to see where he’s at. What I can say about Season 4 is after quite a dark Season 3, we’re hoping to have a little more fun with Dov in Season 4.

TVLINE | Is Dov still with the sister of the guy he killed? Did you mean to leave it ambiguous?

It’s over. We feel we played that story out. It was complicated and messy and hard to do. We were nervous about it. When he gets beaten up, he leaves her alone. I don’t know. Maybe we should have been more conclusive about it and finished that up. Maybe we’ll address that in one of the episodes [next] season. But for us, that was the ending.

TVLINE | With so many characters possibly in different places next season, will we see new character interactions? Andy and Nick have lots of potential, we’ve talked about Luke and Gail before. There was even a great scene with Sam and Gail in the finale.

Yes, I think so. [Laughs] It’s tricky. It’s hard to say more. Andy and Nick, we’ve showed quite an interesting, strong friendship developing between those two in Season 3. Now they’re going to go off and work together for six months without anybody else, so that’s going to deepen the friendship, which is always complicated. We always try and come up with new dynamics for our characters every season to keep us — and them and you guys — on your toes.

TVLINE | Will Traci regret her decision to stay at the precinct?

In the wake of her private tragedy with Jerry, it was so clear to that character that leaving her son at this moment for an undetermined time [to go] undercover would just be the wrong decision. I don’t think she has a huge amount of regret about that. But it is really interesting working on Traci’s character and where she’s at after last season, because it was a pretty heavy one.