[This story contains spoilers for the series finale of Blue Bloods on CBS, titled “End of Tour.”]
Of course it had to end around the dinner table.
Blue Bloods has been a remarkably consistent show over its 14 seasons on CBS — the core cast has remained intact throughout, and a number of the show’s writers and producers have been there for all or nearly all of the run as well. On screen, scenes of the Reagans gathering for a meal have been a constant, and closing out the series without a family dinner scene would have been unthinkable.
Blue Bloods ends after 293 episodes, even if most of its cast would have been happy to continue making the show. Tom Selleck, Donnie Wahlberg and others have said as much in recent interviews, and the show is bowing out as a still reliable draw for CBS. The final episode feels like a season finale, but as a series ender, it’s definitely of the “life goes on” variety, implying that Reagan family gatherings will continue offscreen.
An eventful episode involving every member of the family, however, had to happen before that final scene, and “End of Tour” — written by showrunner Kevin Wade and fellow executive producer Siobhan Byrne O’Connor — presents a citywide crisis that touches on everyone’s jobs.
Two gangs have joined forces to demand the release of members in prison or awaiting trial — and emphasizing their demands by killing a judge, shooting at officers on patrol and wounding the mayor (Dylan Walsh) as he dedicates a city landmark. From his hospital bed, the mayor tells Frank (Selleck) he has the “keys to the city” — and oh by the way, to ignore the city’s public advocate, who assumes mayoral duties should the elected person be incapacitated.
Eddie (Vanessa Ray) and her partner, Luis Badillo (Ian Quinlan), are caught up in the fray as well when they’re set up with a bogus call to be ambushed from behind by two shooters on motorcycles. Eddie is grazed by a bullet and manages to wound one of the assailants, but Badillo takes a shot to the chest and, Eddie learns soon afterward while in the hospital, he dies as a result, leaving Eddie in a rage as she learns the shooter she wounded is on the same floor, before she’s sedated.
Frank’s strategy to bring down the aligned gangs involves Danny (Wahlberg), Maria (Marisa Ramirez) and Eddie tracking down the gang leader who murdered the judge, Carlos Ramirez (Danny Perez), last seen in the show’s opening episode of the fall, while Jamie (Will Estes) and his nephew Joe (Will Hochman) do some off-book investigating of Badillo’s killer. Erin (Bridget Moynahan) leans on her ex, Jack (Peter Hermann), to get her information on an inmate who’s the father of the mayor’s shooter, so that Frank can meet with the man personally.
Erin isn’t otherwise involved in the manhunt — giving her and Jack time to contemplate getting married again, a development that’s only come to pass in the show’s past couple of episodes. She proposes a “party of two, City Hall, tell everybody about it after the fact,” and he says yes.
The inmate, Lorenzo Batista, is played by Edward James Olmos, and he and Selleck share a few tense scenes where Frank tries to lean on Lorenzo to give up his son’s location so he can be arrested and charge with the attempt on the mayor’s life. Watching the two go at it is one of the highlights of the finale, with Frank finally gaining the upper hand by implying he’ll let Lorenzo’s fellow inmates know he’s an informant.
Danny also manages to bring Carlos Ramirez in without violence by appealing to Ramirez’s commitment to his young daughter (the same girl with whom Eddie bonded in the fall premiere), while Jamie and Joe track Badillo’s shooter to a hospital, arresting him as he comes to see his newborn child.
With the case wrapped, the Reagans and other members of the force attend Badillo’s funeral before gathering for the final family dinner of the series. Eddie and Jamie announce they’re going to have a baby — she’s 13 weeks pregnant — and on the heels of that, Erin opts out of telling everyone that she and Jack are back together.
Frank gets the final lines of the show, ones that could double as a message from Selleck to his co-stars: “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.”
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