‘Blue Bloods’ season 6, episode 20 review: Did Danny Reagan stop Thomas Wilder?

We’re not sure we have had a pit in our stomach over an episode of “Blue Bloods” quite like what we had going into Friday night’s installment. The Thomas Wilder saga was coming to a close, and it did so with a case that put Danny through hell in a way that we have not seem from him to date.

We knew that Danny already had a vendetta against the serial killer due in part to everything that he had done to date, but after Wilder realized that Danny was starting to look at his family to draw him out, he decided to retaliate in the most horrific way possible: Capturing his niece Nicky, and putting her life in jeopardy. This arrest came at a time when the family was already trying to be protective of her thanks to her dating a police officer, but at the same exact time, they did not detect what was coming here until it was too late and Wilder had already captured her.

The end result of this were emotional. Danny was able to eventual track Nicky and Wilder down, and she was ultimately safe. In the process, though, a tense stand-off led to Danny shooting him, thinking that he was about to pull a gun out from behind his back. This scene may be one of Donnie Wahlberg’s strongest performances on the show as his character had to make a spur-of-the-moment choice between killing an unarmed man, or committing an act of self-defense. Maybe he will be able to convince his fellow officers that it was the former, but there were no witnesses at the scene.

Yet, Danny will probably find a way to be okay in the end, given that he does still have his family. That is something that Frank reminded us of during his speech at the end, and given the way in which Wilder came at him in the seconds before his death, we can understand the sentiment that his actions were justified. The punishment may just be him having to relive this moment for the rest of his life. Episode: Grade: A-.

(Photo: CBS.)