SPOILER ALERT: This story contains details of tonight’s Blue Bloods Season 8 finale.
Blue Bloods has long been and will continue to be one of my favorite Big 4 series and tonight’s Season 8 finale of the Tom Selleck led NYPD family drama served to confirm that opinion. In lieu of the traditional cliffhanger, the end of this season of the already renewed show brought resolution and depth at a point when most procedurals are barely doing much than hoping to go through the motions
Perhaps what worked best for me in tonight’s ‘My Aim Is True’ was how old wounds were opened up to show us new facets of already established characters like the Magnum P.I. alum’s Commissioner Frank Reagan. An arch that moved to show how deep Blue Bloods’ bench is besides its lead as the show simultaneously enlarger the multi-generational cop clan with a love for one son that finally reveals itself as loss still cripples another sibling.
Bookending the September 29, 2017 season opener and its revelation of the death of long time series regular Amy Carlson’s Linda Reagan, tonight’s disarmingly intense finale began with Donnie Wahlberg’s Detective Danny Reagan in a snow flurry at his wife’s graveside. “I’m putting on a real brave face here, but between me and you I’m having a real hard time babe,” says the rarely vulnerable son and grandson of the current and past NYPD boss. As the emotionally charged moment lingered for a beat, the Wahlberg portrayed character is called away with a “Danny, it’s time” from his equal no nonsense partner Detective Maria Baez, played by the always solid Marisa Ramirez.
By the time the drive-by shootings and bullet strewn episode penned by executive producer Kevin Wade ended a new partnering of sorts had taken place in the Reagan clan. Coming to dinner table of his father after a near fatal attempt on his life youngest son Officer Jamie Reagan (Will Estes) announced he and longtime parole partner Eddie Janko (Vanessa Ray) were getting married.
Having held off on the romance up until this year despite seasons of obvious emotional tensions between the cop couple, the “no retreat, no surrender” vows of the two mirrored the deep relationship that the series developed between Wahlberg and Carlson’s characters – a nice touch with implications for next year.
As Selleck cut the tension with a “welcome to our family, Eddie” some of what was clearly broken with death of Amy begins to heal for the Reagans, even Danny. While I can only speak for myself, fans too may have received some closure from Linda’s death and Carlson’s still fundamentally unexplained sudden departure between Season 7 and this year.
Unlike the choices and compromises that brilliantly defined the just concluded adventurous second season of FX’s Emmy winning Atlanta, Blue Bloods has never even considered pursuing a path of transformation but it has a pace all its own in many ways nonetheless. Not trying to reinvent the wheel or even primetime TV, Blue Bloods has become very good at what it promises and delivers on that and commonly more
As represented by tonight’s resonating finale and its narrative drawn from the harsh injustice pummel upon the so-called falsely accused Central Park 5 in the late 1980s and their 2002 vacated convictions, the show swivels from its headline ripping technique to multi-generational plot lines. In a mix that also features fellow cast members Bridget Moynahan, Len Cariou and Sami Gayle, Blue Bloods often hides its real spine under the guise of old skool TV and those Sunday dinner table homilies to find its unique sweet spot season after season.
Simply put Blue Bloods has a formula – it’s called being engaging and driven TV and that’s a good calling card for viewers of all ages and backgrounds not just Magnum or New Kids On The Block fans
Whether you are blinded by the crimes surrounding the drama that Blue Bloods actually excels in for this time when so many Big 4 shows strive to seem relevant and exciting, the 10 PM offering from CBS manages to surprise by being so predictably smart and week after week. A result all the more impressive when you consider it comes on a landscape where cable and streaming are virtually unrestricted in their content and depictions.
Similar in one aspect to Atlanta’s finale with “family first” message, the Robin Green and Mitchell Burgess created Blue Bloods has seen quite a bit of change this year. As well as the loss of Carlson, there was a new mayor in the Big Apple as a foil to Selleck’s often ornery top cop and an increased role for the deftly maturing Gayle as his often contrarian granddaughter Nicky Reagan-Boyle – both of which bode well for a show heading towards its ninth season and all the challenges that entails
You can joke about the myth of the average age of CBS’ audience and you can marvel at the tens of millions that watch Blue Bloods every Friday, go ahead on both counts. In this age where friction between law enforcement and far too many communities has become the defining element of an increasingly dangerous and dysfunction relationship, Blue Bloods is heartfelt television that doesn’t need to brag about how smart and fulfilling it is, the facts are on the screen for all to see.
Warning: Spoilers ahead for the eighth season finale of Blue Bloods.
Well, Blue Bloods fans, they finally did it.
In the CBS procedural’s eighth season finale, fan-favorite pair Jamie (Will Estes) and Eddie (Vanessa Ray) finally got together after years of playful squad-car flirting and bickering, no doubt granting the wishes of many an audience member.
Titled “My Aim Is True,” the episode tied up many of the season’s loose ends, as well as completing a year of grieving for Danny (Donnie Wahlberg) after the sudden death of his wife (Amy Carlson, who exited the show), but nothing was as surprising as when the show headed into its final Sunday family dinner of the season. For the first time in the show’s 100-plus episode run, a Reagan family member introduced someone new to the table. In this case, it was Jamie, bringing Eddie along — and announcing their engagement.
That wasn’t all, of course: The couple even shared their vows in one of the most romantic moments in the show’s history. But things weren’t entirely rosy, as Frank (Tom Selleck) couldn’t help but remind the lovebirds that some changes were afoot.
To break down why now was finally the right time for Jamie and Eddie to get together, what the mood was like on set, and what fans can expect next, EW chatted with Blue Bloods showrunner Kevin Wade. Read on below for all that and more.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: What made you decide to finally bring Jamie and Eddie together?
KEVIN WADE: The writers recognized early on that these two actors had a terrific chemistry together. It played very well for a number of seasons, just as people riding along, but also, two attractive people who recognized an attraction to each other. I think we played that out. Then the question becomes, “Are you going to throw the baby out with the bathwater?” If two people recognize that they love each other and they’re happy enough together to say that they want to marry each other, you set up the problem that there are no good scenes in a happy marriage. Once you put a couple together and they’ve said, “This is it, I’m so happy!” there’s nothing there for the audience. So it was really a matter of, if we do this and they double down, but we manage to keep the obstacles alive — like the fact that they probably won’t be able to ride together anymore, that one of them may move precincts or get a promotion — it just gave a bigger landscape to play out the relationship. I think it needed to change. You can only have two people riding along in a squad car for [so long] without going, “We need to change it up a little bit.”
The audience was also waiting for this.
There was also some recognition — not that I get a retail fee back — that the audience felt like, “When are the writers going to wake up and realize that these two should be together?” There was some sense of audience expectation, which is part of my job, too. All that being said, pretty on early in this season, I just had the idea that, “Well, if we wait until the very last scene of the last episode of the season, we can probably pull this off.” And then do a reset when we come back for season 9 with a heightened sense of expectations, and certainly heightened stakes for these two as a couple.
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How did Will and Vanessa react when they heard the news?
Will was cautious, at first, and rightly so, because he had the fear that, frankly, he had every right to have: “Are we going to be playing scenes where we’re holding hands, gazing into each other across a checkered tablecloth in a dimly lit restaurant?” I assured him we had no interest in writing those stories, and I know he has no interest in playing them. We talked a lot about the dynamic that was there — the chemistry that was there in front of us — and having to push it further. The nature of a show like Blue Bloods is [that it’s] obviously not a serial — it’s a procedural, so it’s close-ended every week — but there is a character evolution that has to happen, to keep the characters growing and the audience interested. This seemed like the prime candidate: Let’s grow these characters into a real couple and see where we can take it from there.
Vanessa has become an increasingly major part of the show; it wasn’t until season 4 that she was even introduced.
Yep. And Vanessa and Will together make almost a third [major] thing, and I really wanted to capitalize on that. So once Will and I and Vanessa talked it through, and then when they got the script, I think they were pleased with how it turned out. And it was a great scene to shoot. We’d never, in 170-odd family dinner scenes, introduced a new character into that Sunday dinner.
It did feel almost poetic that this engagement was announced there. What was the mood on set like?
The mood is very much reflected in what you see onscreen: a genuine sense of, “Wow! We’ve never done this before, how do we deal with this?” The actors reacted in character. In Donnie, there was a twinge of “happy for him and sad for himself.” Certainly, for Frank, it was like, “Okay, I can’t really upset the mood here, but you guys realize you can’t ride together anymore.” And then when they go, “Well actually, that’s not written anywhere.” And he’s like, “Well, okay.” I wanted to make sure that it had an impact that would make the audience go, “Huh, they’ve done something nice here, but they’ve also painted themselves into a bit of a corner.”
You’re headed into season 9. Why do you think the show continues to resonate with viewers?
If I knew, I could probably do it better. I don’t know exactly. I think that there’s an aspirational quality, almost, in a very elemental way of being close to your family, of being close to different generations of your family, of having those people to lean on. It’s a very last century — or even century before that — small-town way of living, and a small-town values system. Everything has gotten so spread out and isolated that I think, at the end of the day, it’s a nice place to go on Friday night.
You touched on it a bit, but what can you tease about where we’re headed with Jamie and Eddie?
They’ll have to deal with a couple of things. We laid in a couple of episodes earlier that there was a sergeant’s exam that at least she was taking, and we left it open-ended [as to] whether he was going to take it too. And we’ll have to deal with how Jamie and Eddie as an engaged couple manifest in their work life.
The following contains major spoilers from the Season 8 finale of CBS’ Blue Bloods.
CBS’ Blue Bloods this Friday capped a tension-filled Season 8 finale with more than a bit of feel-good sunshine.
After tugging at heartstrings with Danny’s visit to Linda’s grave, abruptly assassinating Erin’s boss, Monica Graham, and then spending much of the next 40 minutes fretting over which Reagan might land in the vengeful gunman’s crosshairs, viewers were probably and understandably spun up. Right up to and including a sequence where Jamie (played by Will Estes) came thisclose to being popped at close range, as a distraught Eddie (Vanessa Ray) raced to avert the tragedy.
That cheating of death gave the NYPD partners the push they needed to embrace life by not only copping to their feelings for each other, but take things ever further — which they announced at the family dinner, after Jamie had a place cleared for… his fiancee. (Damn, it’s dusty in here all over again….)
TVLine spoke with showrunner Kevin Wade about the very happy finale twist, its timing and the cast members’ own reactions.
TVLINE | I have a sense you put a lot of happy tears in people’s eyes at the end of this year’s finale.
Oh, I hope so. And I’m especially pleased that it seemed to have remained a surprise up until [the time of this interview] almost 24 hours before it airs.
TVLINE | I was keeping an eye on the promos, because the promo people are always full of surprises. But they didn’t hint at it, didn’t even show Jamie and Eddie’s embrace in the street.
No, CBS has been great. I said, “You know, we had to surprise people with a not-pleasant surprise [Linda’s death] in the season premiere, so if we have a pleasant surprise in the finale, let’s at least endeavor to keep it secret.” And it looks like we have, which is great. I’m glad you liked it.
TVLINE | So, why now with Jamie and Eddie?
Well, it had run its course. It was clear from the start that the two actors had great chemistry and that all our writers were able to write to that chemistry, and then at a certain point in a long-running show, which this has certainly become, you do need to change things up. We played the “Will they/won’t they?,” the “Which one’s going to get seriously involved with someone else?,” and then I thought, “This isn’t ringing true anymore.”
What we had to really figure out was, how do we do this without throwing out the baby with the bath water? There are no good scenes about happy couples, so we have this one finale to have this one moment where you go, “Oh, that’s great, they finally recognize what the audience has known for three seasons.” Really, the last scene of the last episode of the season seemed like the only place to do it, so that’s the “Why now?”
TVLINE | The great “zag” was that if you simply had them recognize their feelings for each other in the finale, the audience would’ve been like, “Huh, that’s nice. We’ve been waiting for that.” But the fact you made the leap to engagement, that’s kind of fun and different.
I hope so. We kind of doubled down by having them share these vows that they’ve written for each other, which were about the exact same thing that cop partners would say to each other, you know? “I’ve got your back, I’ll wait for you, you can count on me,” all those things. It hopefully paves a road to go on, where we get to see those people together still, but they’ve recognized and shared with the audience that they get it, too, they’re kind of meant for each other.
TVLINE | I’ve got to ask, because we’ve presumed it all along and every time I’ve interviewed Will [Estes] and Vanessa [Ray] they’ve quoted it chapter and verse, how partners can’t be romantically involved, can’t be married: Did you have to fudge anything about the facts of the situation there?
No, it turns out it’s bulls–t. [Laughs] It’s not written anywhere. What is said in that scene is the absolute truth. It’s not written anywhere.
TVLINE | There’s nothing, no deterrent?
The only thing that has to happen is that their CO has to be informed — if not by them, then by somebody else. Two cops who are engaged to be married and working in the same precinct would be beholden to tell their CO of their plans, so we will deal with that in the beginning of the next season. But I think it was a surprise to even Jim Nuciforo, who’s a veteran NYPD and our long-standing tech advisor. I said, “Jimmy, is it written anywhere?” He said, “Of course it is, let me get back to you….” And he came back and he said, “Actually, no, it’s not.”
TVLINE | What kind of reaction did you get from the cast?
Pleasant surprise. Will and Vanessa needed to come around a bit; I needed to put it in some context, and assure them that we weren’t going to turn them into “the happy couple staring at each other over a checkered tablecloth at their neighborhood Italian restaurant.” I told them, “We have no appetite for that as writers and the show has no room for it, so we’re just going to acknowledge that you guys have grown this relationship into it and move on. You will continue to have to be each other’s advocates and devil’s advocates and we’ll go from there.”
TVLINE | Was it planned symmetry that you started the season with an empty chair at the table, Linda’s, and you ended the season filling it?
If you write it that way, I would look really good, but no. No, I’d say around the middle of the season or a little before I sort of went, “I think this is where this is going and I think this is how we could do it.” It was always going to be the last scene of the season, so then we got to go, “Oh, we’ll just make it the family dinner scene and he brings her in.” For 178 episodes or whatever it is, there’s never been a non-family member at that table so this is a great way to break that pattern but keep the tradition alive. It’s a new family member.
TVLINE | Lastly, tell me about the crazy weather you got for this finale, because in the cold open with Danny at the cemetery, there’s snow everywhere — and then there wasn’t. What happened?
[Laughs] It was one freaky week in New York. The open was not written to be the open, but once I got there and looked around, and we had to shoot it, I thought, “OK, well, this is going to be kind of a standalone [moment].” [Director] Dave Barrett shot it beautifully, but God and nature provided this sudden April or late-March snowstorm that I think really sets a very nice mood for the finale.
Danny considers taking a new job that would ease his financial struggles after investigating the death of a wealthy man. Also, Nicky tries to avoid involving her family when she is sexually harassed by her boss at her new internship, and Garrett advises Frank to regain the public's trust after a rookie cop is caught on video questioning a pedestrian's immigration status.
