Critic’s Rating: 4.8 / 5.0
4.8
I know I keep saying it, but Blue Bloods’ cancelation is the worst television news in a long time.
We’re more than halfway through the final batch of episodes now.
Blue Bloods Season 14 Episode 15 had everything that made me fall in love with this show and then some. I don’t know what I’m going to do with my Friday nights after December 13.
Joe Just Had To Be Joe On Blue Bloods Season 14 Episode 15
I’m still hoping that Joe Hill will end the series by becoming a fully accepted member of the Reagan family.
To me, closure about his father’s death means the entire family embraces Joe and vice versa.
I’m not sure that will happen now, though.
Danny saying Joe was a great detective was a step in the right direction, but Joe did the same annoying thing he always does that makes his uncles dislike working with him, and that often carries over into their personal relationship.
Joe’s stubborn streak is far more annoying on him than it is on Frank or Erin. He always feels a need to work the case his way, even though his way is going to get someone killed.
He was disobeying Danny’s orders while Danny was in the room. Sheesh.
It’s taken me a long time to warm up to Joe because of that.
Maybe if he’d been part of Blue Bloods from the beginning, I would shrug it off as Joe being Joe, but as is, he comes across as disrespectful, hotheaded, and annoying.
He was less so than usual this time, though, so maybe there’s hope for him yet, especially since Danny seems to have gained respect for Joe.
Erin: Want to lend a hand?
Danny: I will. Right after a drink.
Henry: You still worked up about working with Joe?
Danny: I’m not worked up. He’s a great detective, smart kid. It’s just he seems more into making the collar and not so much into the people involved.
Additionally, Joe did save Danny’s life during the climactic scene. I will never understand why the ten million police procedurals on TV insist on having cops go into situations without proper backup, but Joe’s shooting the bad guy who was trying to kill Danny has to count for something!
I wonder why Joe wasn’t at the Reagan family dinner, though. He’s appeared at the last few, but his absence this time allowed Danny and Erin to talk about Danny working with him.
Although Joe’s working with Danny was important, I’d have loved for Baez to have been involved in this storyline on Blue Bloods Season 14 Episode 15.
I always want more Baez on general principles, but in this case, her inclusion would have made sense.
She might have been able to help with anyone who only spoke Spanish and possibly give some insight into the culture among the compañeros, which could have made it easier to solve this case.
Erin’s Case Demonstrated Why She Should Have Run For DA After All
Crawford was beyond annoying.
I understand that she has cases to close and is the boss. I also understand that she resents Erin’s relationship with the Reagans.
Additionally, her snide remarks pointed to one thing: she’s focused only on raw numbers and doesn’t get why anyone would bother to care about the human beings involved in the cases they close.
Erin is an ADA because she wants to get justice for victims, not merely so she can brag about how many cases she’s closed.
Crawford’s opinion that Erin shouldn’t care about Del because she’s not a social worker aggravated me.
It added insult to injury that she visited him in the hospital after he risked his life and acted like she thought he was a hero all along. GO AWAY.
New York City needs more people like Erin and less like Crawford.
I REALLY hope this is her last appearance. With only three episodes left, I’m not in the mood to waste any more airtime on her.
A New Recruit Was Fired For Saving a Life On Blue Bloods Season 14 Episode 15
Even Crawford didn’t make me as angry as the way new recruit Jaylen was treated.
He charged at a robber who was holding a woman hostage, saving her life as well as Eddie and Badillo’s lives, only to be kicked out of the academy because non-graduates aren’t supposed to get involved in life-threatening situations.
In what world does that make sense?
I understand that recruits should not enter dangerous situations because they are not yet equipped to handle them.
However, in this case, the guy saved someone’s life and the situation likely would have ended badly if he had not.
Jamie was willing to send Eddie to the hospital so they both could think about how to handle the report (though he ended up submitting it early). Why not say in the report that Jaylen was acting as a bystander, not in any professional capacity?
Problem solved. As Eddie pointed out, if Jaylen were a private citizen, he’d be hailed as a hero.
Jaylen’s termination was probably more because the idiot husband sued than anything else.
That’s doubly unfair because Jamie uncovered evidence that the entire lawsuit was fraudulent and the woman Jaylen saved had torn her ACL months ago.
It’s great that he can still work in Nassau — I guess that doesn’t count as being out of residency — but the thanks he got for saving a life should not have been a frivolous lawsuit and the loss of his position in the academy.
I hated that Jamie and Eddie got into a fight over it, but Eddie was right. Jamie should not have filed that report without talking to her.
Sometimes Jamie is too much of a straight arrow for his own good. He takes after Frank that way.
No, Sid Isn’t Leaving, But Blue Bloods Season 14 Episode 15 Made It Seem Like He Was
Frank struggled with what to do when he learned Sid was living 80 miles away when cops were supposed to live in New York City. When he confronted Sid about it, Sid admitted he was ready to retire.
That seemed like an answer to what will happen to one of the characters when we get to the finale in a few weeks, but then Frank decided to unofficially allow cops to live where they wanted.
While the residency debate was interesting, I was irritated by the Sid situation.
It could have been solved easily if Sid had spoken to Frank about what was going on in the first place.
Frank tries to do what’s right and sometimes can adhere too rigidly to the rules.
However, does ANYONE think that if Sid had come to him and told him that his mother was dying and he needed to be upstate with her, Frank would have responded by firing him for not staying in the city?
Of course not. It would have ended the same way it did, with Frank agreeing to look the other way on this, only without the extra drama that took up a third of Blue Bloods Season 14 Episode 15.
It’s not surprising that Frank would make an exception without admitting that’s what he was doing.
People often mistake Frank living by his own moral code for being so rigidly rule-bound that empathy and humanity go out the window.
But that’s a misunderstanding.
Frank lives by HIS values, and most of the time, those values include following the rules. Sometimes, though, his value system requires him to put a bigger cause ahead of the letter of the law, and that’s what happened here.
As for the residency requirement itself, I agree with Frank and Jamie that cops ought to live in the neighborhoods they patrol.
I think that at least some of the tension between police and citizens comes from cops who live elsewhere and whose only interactions with citizens are when they are pulling them over or arresting them.
When cops live in the community, they become neighbors as well as police officers, and when they and the residents of a neighborhood get to know each other, both sides see each other’s humanity.
Additionally, Eddie’s comments about living paycheck to paycheck and Garrett’s complaint about the optics of Frank living in a big house while the rank-and-file struggle to pay rent aren’t indicative of a problem with NYPD policy.
It’s a problem with the high cost of living in New York City, and someone needs to talk to Mayor Chase about focusing on doing something about that instead of wasting time with policies that don’t do anything for anyone.
Over to you, Blue Bloods fanatics. What did you think of Blue Bloods Season 14 Episode 15?
Vote in our poll to rank the episode then hit the comments with your thoughts.
Blue Bloods airs on CBS on Fridays at 10/9c and on Paramount+ on Saturdays.
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