TV Underdogs: Can ‘Blue Bloods’ season 6 use more of Vanessa Ray’s Eddie Janko?

At its core, “Blue Bloods” season 6 is a show about the Reagan family. It’s hard to deny that, and we also understand it. The multi-generational nature of the series is one of the reasons why it is so popular in the first place. It helps it stand out from the flurry of other crime shows on network TV, at least along with the way that it handles police cases without exploiting the shocking elements for ratings or attention.

With all of this being said, there are also other great characters outside the Reagan clan that are worthy of a little bit of love, and we’re here specifically in our TV Underdogs series to talk about one of them: Vanessa Ray’s Eddie Janko. We know that she is the partner of Jamie Reagan on the show, but she can be so much more.

Why she’s an underdog – She has only been on the show now for a few seasons, so she doesn’t have the same built-in backstory as some of the other characters. She often does not get too much of a focus on her life outside of work, or away from the Reagan family. Yet, you root for her in so many ways. She’s great at her job, and you want to see her succeed and move up the ranks in a police force that is still for the most part populated by men. This marks her both an underdog within the world of the show and one we want to root for at home.

Why we don’t see more of her – As we said, this is a Reagan show. She doesn’t have a family dinner, and when you consider the typical storylines that populate every episode (there’s always a Frank component and a Danny component), there is only so much time allotted to Eddie. Even then, she may fall into the background unless the Jamie story for the week also includes her.

Ways to see more of her – We know that “Blue Bloods” is not a show too interested in experimentation, but wouldn’t it be interesting to see more of an episode themed around what a day in Eddie’s life looks like? We’ve already seen the strained relationship with her father, but why not get to know more of her extended family or her friends away from work? What about a story where she contributes more to what is going on with Frank than Jamie, shaking up the cast dynamics a little bit?

Of course there is a desire to see Eddie and Jamie get together romantically in the near future, but we also don’t want a rise in Eddie screen time to come just as a result of that. We’d like to get a chance to see more of what she could do on her own, even if it is just for a few episodes a season.

(Photo: CBS.)