SPOILER ALERT: This story contains details of tonight’s Blue Bloods series finale and Season 14 ender ‘End of Tour.
“Our dinners are never about the food,” proclaims NYPD Commissioner Frank Reagan (Tom Selleck) near the end of Blue Bloods‘ final episode. “You know, we’ve got a lot to be thankful for, and looking around this table, I gotta say, I couldn’t be more proud, or grateful,” the patriarch adds before the family bows their heads to pray like the good Catholics they are.
In the end, as it was when the Robin Green and Mitchell Burgess created CBS series debuted on September 24, 2010, Blue Bloods remains all about family – the fictional multi-generational cop family of the Reagans, the fraternity of the police, plus the District Attorney’s office, City Hall, and New York City itself. With a guest appearance by Edward James Olmos as an incarcerated ganglord Lorenzo Batista, who has a long sit-down with Frank, hoping to stop his vengeful son, find the guilty shooters and end the war.
(L-R): Tom Selleck as Frank Reagan and Edward James Olmos as Lorenzo Batista
Starting with a dead New York Supreme Court judge, a wounded Mayor, and the killing of Officer Eddie Jacko-Reagan’s partner of three seasons Officer Luis Badillo (Ian Quinlan) the end of Blue Bloods is much bloodier than the primetime NYPD family drama goes. Yet, with the Big Apple turned into a gangland war zone as a ruthless banger tries to get his daughter back and Commissioner Reagan given” the keys to the city” by Mayor Peter Chase (Dylan Walsh) from a hospital bed, the Siobhan Byrne O’Connor and Kevin Wade co-penned and Alex Zakrzewski directed “End of Tour” is putting pedal to the metal to get over the finish line.
In the bluntest terms, as one gang leader tells the city in a video: “The more time you waste, the more of your people we waste.” It gets messy.
(L-R): Len Cariou as Henry Reagan, Tom Selleck as Frank Reagan and Bridget Moynahan as Erin Reagan Boyle
A full uniform and bagpipes funeral for Officer Badillo is a tearjerker by any measure, for all concerned.
Stay tuned for Deadline’s Q&A with Blue Bloods EP Kevin Wade for the BTS skinny on the series finale. That interview will post at 11 pm PT, after the episode airs on the West Coast.
Outside of the whole family focused on shutting down the bloodshed on the streets, the end of Blue Bloods has youngest Reagan son Sargent Jamie Reagan (Will Estes) and his wife Eddie Janko-Reagan (Vanessa Ray) tells the family that they are having a baby on “June 13.”
With grandpa and ex-police commissioner Henry Reagan (Len Cariou) overjoyed at a fourth generation joining the family, Assistant DA Erin Reagan (Bridget Moynahan) decides to pause telling everyone that she and her ex-husband Jack Boyle (Peter Hermann) are getting back together – “party of two, City Hall.” Something they don’t seem to have even shared with their back from the West Coast daughter Nicky Reagan-Boyle (Sami Gayel).
A semi-regular on the show since Season 10, Detective Joe Hill (Will Hochman) the rediscovered son of deceased Reagan son Joseph and Frank’s grandson, is also at the table in the series ender, now fully accepted and accepting of his kin.
Absent from Reagans’ table, but not “End of Tour” is Detective Marie Baez (Marisa Ramirez). The longtime partner of Frank’ oldest son Detective First Grade Danny Reagan (Donnie Wahlberg) is, as always, instrumental in bringing down the bad guys in the episode. Unlike past episodes, especially after a heart-to-heart widower Danny has with his grandfather, End of Tour looks like the beginning of the long-anticipated romance between the partners – who head out arm-in-arm for a pizza, no euphemism.
The 293 episode of Blue Bloods doesn’t wrap it all up in a bow, and none of the Reagans or their extended professional family are killed off, as many a series ender would find hard to resist.
Avoiding the pitfalls of many series finales, what the 18th episode of the 14th Season does is celebrate its characters with the solid storytelling Blue Bloods has been putting on the small screen for 14 years.