Blue Bloods

So you think she should let criminals go free, ignore the law and be disbarred to make her family happy?
In spite of the fact that none of the characters on the show share your viewpoint?

"In the Name of the Father" (12/10) [Sorry I'm so late. We actually watched it early in the week, but I just didn't have time to post a review until tonight.]

I liked the opening where they arrested the old DA. That’s because we don’t get to see those in real life. I’d like to see Comey and Schiff hauled off in cuffs for lying to Congress. Or how about some arrests for the people who threw the observers out of the ballot counting rooms during the election? Or the ones who spied on Trump’s campaign and launched the bogus Russia collusion investigation? Sadly, we’ll probably never get to see any of those scum get arrested, let alone spend time in jail.

This whole episode was like a template of some things we’d like to see.

For starters, we see a slick pedophile trick a young girl into his van. But wait, a cop rushes out and nails the perp before he gets away. And of course, he’s Joe Hill. And Frank smiles with grandfatherly pride while pretending he barely knows the guy.

Then we have the story of the drug dealer who kills a man who was going to testify against him. Danny promises her daughter that he’ll bring her dad’s killer to justice. But we know if won’t be that easy. Well, actually it is. They stage a big raid on his warehouse (the only place we see Jenko this week except for the family dinner). Then he’s dumb enough to send his son and mother to traffic the drugs since he’s short-handed. Danny and Jamie pull the son over for a minor traffic violation and then claim they smell something, which allows them to search the car and find the drugs. I actually don’t like the whole, “I smell something” or “I smell pot” as an excuse for an illegal search. That can easily get your case tossed out in court. Unless he was trafficking marijuana, I don’t think you could smell the drugs.

No matter, though. The guy folds like a wet umbrella to keep his son from going to jail. Then they tell him they’ve got his mother, too. He tries to bargain for both their freedoms but Danny tells him they’ll need more than that. Boy, this guy never called his lawyer and gave a confession way too quickly. How did he ever manage to be a successful drug runner? Anyway, we get to see his crooked lawyer who sold him the address where the witness was living get busted as well. Turns out his ex-cop bodyguard decided to be a cop again and wore a wire to get a full confession out of him. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy. May all criminals become this dumb.

Meanwhile, Joe Hill goes out as the poster boy for the NYPD, but soon finds that telling his story over and over again just feels like bragging. And he’s anxious to be a real cop on the streets again. Frank is more than happy to let him do that, and relieved his secret identity is still secret.

But it’s not all good news for the Reagan bunch. With the DA arrested, Erin seems like a cinch to get the job, but is worried because she knows there’s another candidate. Turns out she’s a Black attorney imported from Atlanta and she’s going to get the job. I must say I loved the scene where Erin had been talking to the future DA and Anthony walked in on them. She tells him the woman is an old classmate of hers. Later she walks into Anthony’s office and sees the DA’s face on his monitor. “You never told me you went to a mostly Black college,” he says to her. “You do know I’m a detective!” he reminds her.

Anyway, to wrap up the night we have the Sunday dinner scene. Baez has been forgotten all about now. But we now have Joe Hill and his mother, and they are told they must both attend every Sunday come what may from now on. Guess those rules only apply to people related by blood or marriage. Oh, and the news that Joe Hill is the grandson of the Police Commissioner will be coming out in the paper tomorrow. Maybe that’s the real thing we’d like to see more of – a reporter who actually investigates things.

Atonement (S11, E3)

What’s with the title here? Who’s atoning for what?

This may be the first time they ever started with the family dinner, although it was a carryover from last week – and they have another dinner later on.
Poor Joe just wants to be a straight-up good cop, but is hassled by other cops for being the police commissioner’s grandson. In the end, it’s too much for him and he needs to take some time to evaluate his position. So, he breaks the Sunday dinner rule his first week out. Can’t blame the guy though. We’ve got to figure he’ll come back. Why introduce the character at all unless you have future plans for him?

Erin and Anthony receive gift-wrapped evidence from the former crime boss in town who is now an informant for the Feds. They talk to him and find out who his successor is likely to be. When the up-and-coming younger mobster in town tosses that same name in front of their faces, and they aren’t surprised, he knows who to go after. But being a bit of a dumbass, he advertises the fact that this is what he just did. He then promptly takes out the successor. Fortunately, the old mob boss was suspicious of this guy and had him followed, thus being able to tell them where he dumped the gun. This leads to them hanging out the old boss as bait and letting the young guy threaten him. They take way too long to come out of hiding and arrest him; his excuse of “I was just trying to intimidate him,” could actually stand up in court. Never mind, though. They’ve got him for murder of the other guy, so why did they even need to take this dangerous step in the first place? And what crime boss dumps a gun not wiped down in a dumpster? Why not the river? Not one of their finer hours, really. Except for one outstanding thing that I will address in a separate post.

Meanwhile, Danny hears about a 5-day old crime from a young woman and asks why she didn’t come forward earlier. She says she did and the police ignored her. The sergeant she reported it to was none other than Jamie. Danny checks with him and he remembers the woman telling him that God knew her grandfather had been attacked, but without anything else to back it up. He thought she was a little crazy (understandably) and never took the report. Being the honest, by-the-book cop he is, he immediately reports his failure. Danny is told to step down from the case and let 2 other detectives handle it. Being his the-rules-don’t-apply-to-me self, he continues the case anyway. Those other detectives were obviously cracker jack operators, because when he goes to see the woman’s family no one ever says, “We already told the other detectives,” which means they hadn’t even started on the case yet. Even his supervisor lets Danny side-step the rules but gives him a 24-hour deadline. Sadly, it turns out that it was her own brother who accidentally killed the grandfather when he tried to steal his watch in order to pass a gang initiation. There’s a great scene where Jamie manages to talk the brother down from jumping off a building. Good drama, but when you stop to think about it – the poor girl and her brother would have been better off if she hadn’t insisted on going to the cops about her grandpa’s death.

Interesting episode letting Danny and Jamie’s personalities clash there. Otherwise, pretty routine stuff this week. But still better than any other cop show these days.

Nice to see Jack and Nicky again at the Christmas dinner. Good to know we’ll still be able to see them on occasion.

S11 E4 – “Redemption”
Well, no qualms about the title this time. Lots of redemption to be had in the stories tonight.

Danny and Baez was probably the weakest of the stories. The idea of a rideshare rapist was clever, but the rest was predictable. I was glad the first girl managed to get away without any physical harm. I agree the guy looked guilty right away. You’d think he’d have acted a little more clever. Like when Danny noted that he had cleaned the back of his car, he should have said, “Hey, I deliver medical supplies. With this pandemic going on, you bet I keep it clean!” Instead, he cockily says that he’s always been a neat freak. (Come to think of it, though, no one has mentioned the pandemic at all in this show. Maybe someone put that line in, but then it was taken out.)

Anyway, he outsmarts Danny (illegally) putting a tracker on his car and then practically confesses over the phone that he’s got the girl in his car. Guess some people are just so arrogant they think they can get away with anything. He gets nabbed in the end pretty easily. Was nice to see Baez in a wig doing a little undercover work; too bad it was for all of about 2 minutes.

Thought Janko might be front and center tonight when she and Witten were opening the show, but it was more of Jamie’s story (though Janko was still around for most of it.) Didn’t see it coming that Flores had stepped away for a pack of gum when his partner got shot. Glad it wasn’t him who took out the shooter later on. He was a good cop; what happened was just one of those things. It’s not like he sneaked off to have a quickie with his girlfriend or something.

Then we have the wheelchair-bound cop who wants to stay on the job. Have to admit I was rooting for her the whole show, even though that would indeed make it difficult for her to do her job. Persistence and proving herself in the field made a good combo and Frank decides she’s worth taking a shot on. Wonder if she’ll pop up in a future episode. If so, I hope it’s to show her finding ways to make her job work. Kudos to Baker for standing up for her by the way.

Best story of the night was Erin’s dilemma. She wants a harsh sentence for a drunk driver who killed a young girl. But later, the guy protects a bunch of little kids on a playground and even gets a knife in the gut bringing the guy down. Have to admit my first thought on seeing him on the playground was that it would turn out he had paid the guy to threaten the kids so he could look like a hero. I was glad they didn’t take that path. The Reagans would have figured that out pretty fast anyway. It was nice to see Erin in church praying on how to make the right decision. Powerful ending had me almost in tears. Lots of great lines, too: “I told Father I was tired of playing God; he told me ‘imagine how God feels.’” “Should a person be judged for what they did on their worst day or on their best day?’ “Every bad person once did something good. That doesn’t give them a pass for all the bad they did.” A solid emotional, well-done story.

Overall, a very satisfying episode and well-acted by all.

I don't know, they seemed to do pretty well, any LEO could need help, male or female.

I liked the overarching theme of family strife, boundaries, and reconciliation, Frank and Henry, Sean and Danny and of course the two brothers of the murdered man, we'll likely never know but I hope they reconcile.

I notice you use the word cop, be aware that a lot of LEO's find that word offensive

From my early youth

www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiThdldGxJg

That many people say worse isn't the issue, there will always be a worse insult, that I've learned that some find the term offensive is enough for me not to use it.

Did you watch the video I linked?

Spilling Secrets
Wow. Great episode tonight. A mix of great stories and emotions. Where to start?

Have to say, I’d find a new tax accountant if I were Frank. She did indeed violate client confidentiality. I know it was out of concern but still. Didn’t like seeing Frank and Henry at odds with each other early on with Dad angrily telling him to “back off”, but everything finally came out well. No, not a secret child or anything like that, but his Dad feeling guilty about putting someone in a wheelchair who may not have had a gun, and sending him money over the years to try to help out. His comment about Frank putting his regrets in a box leads to a wonderful scene of the commissioner telling his staff how wonderful they are. Leave it to Sid to end it on a funny note by mentioning a raise.

Sean gets a rare chance to have a story of his own when he finds someone scrawled a hate message against cops on his locker. Danny gets wind of it and wants to investigate, but Sean tells him (respectfully) to butt out. “It’s butt out and back off night,” I told my wife at one point. Later, he follows up on a teacher his Dad had suggested as a suspect. She could easily have been a stereotype character, but it turns out she’s had a change of heart after seeing her local police stand up to the rioters and looters in her neighborhood. Loved her line, “They weren’t protestors. I’ve seen protesters!” After hearing shows like NCIS: NEW ORLEANS slobbering over BLM, it was good to hear someone defending the men and women in blue for a change. Anyway, it turns out to be his girlfriend who gave away his locker combination in order to stay friends with other girls who were dissing her for being friends with a cop. When confronted with the truth and her attempts to apologize, Sean says, “You know what I heard all my life from a family of cops?” I waited for some boom to be lowered on her, but he instead says, “Everyone makes mistakes.” A beautiful message of forgiveness. I really love this family.

Danny’s case was an interesting change of pace. I rather figured that the brothers were way too obvious as suspects. I remember thinking when they interviewed the bank lady that maybe it’s her (since she was the only other person involved in the case.) I liked the way Danny got the two brothers to try to patch up their differences at the end since they were all they had left now.

Topping the list was the Janko and Ritten story. First off, the dramatic face-off in the beginning. I was nervous that someone would get caught in the crossfire or shot by mistake, but the perp got taken out by the book by Ritten. Then I thought that the story would be about her dealing with her first shooting, but instead it was about the poor victim’s father being unable to deal with his daughter’s death by trying to pretend it didn’t happen. Very powerful story, especially the final scene.

At the dinner scene midway through, I realized this was the first we were seeing of Jamie tonight (and the last as it turned out.) But that’s okay, he’s been front and center on most of the other episodes. When they talked about Danny and Jamie fighting as kids and how they kept the fact that one of them had got their head split open - well, that sounds like kids of that day. But when they said they had to bribe Erin with their allowance money to keep it a secret. For shame, Erin, you naughty girl.

Anyway, great batch of stories all around tonight. My favorite episode so far this season.