‘Blue Bloods’ season 7, episode 3 review: Danny, Baez’s struggle; did Jamie get a TV job?
For far will someone go to ensure justice? We’re not going to sit here with a shocked expression and say that Friday night’s new episode of “Blue Bloods” is the first time we have seen such a theme expressed on the show, but it was certainly prominent across a pair of different plots.
We begin tonight with Danny and Baez, who faced a difficult situation after a rape victim, despite some evidence and her traumatic experience, was fearful of ramifications and refused to testify against her attacker. There were moments in here where we got very annoyed with Danny and his attitude about this whole case. While he may have been factually correct regarding the odds of a rape case facing trial without testimony, he didn’t have to be so negative and rude about it. He could’ve pushed harder to figure out how to get the rapist off the streets, and as the episode moved forward, he eventually showed remorse for it. It seemed as though he was going to get off without any charges, and that’s a horrifying thing to think about.
Ultimately, Danny tried to turn things around by orchestrating a setup plan with the victim, but it didn’t work out — this time. The thing to remember with this show is that it’s real, and sometimes horrible people do escape. Hopefully, there will be time later this season to address this further. The good news is that Danny has almost the whole PD looking after him now, and he earned redemption for his earlier attitude. Kudos to the writers for reminding us that these people can be educated.
As for Frank, he had a very different sort of dilemma, but one where justice was still at the center of it. He had to figure out a way in order to ensure that a police fundraiser saw the error of his ways after he was cutting through traffic in a fake police vehicle; basically, he was trying to reap the rewards of being an officer without any of the downsides, and he had to figure out a way to delicately handle this.
Jamie’s story this week was very different from the other two, but in a way incredibly interesting since it was different than almost any that we’ve seen on the show before. It’s not often we see an investigation into cop shows while also on a cop show, and he stressed a point to them that many technical police consultants working out there try to enforce to showrunners: Make it authentic, and remember that what you put on TV directly influences the perception of cops out in the field. After it was clear that the show’s technical adviser was lying about his experience, Jamie was offered the job instead — but he refused.
Episode Grade: B+. While we hated the end of the Danny story in terms of its outcome, it was certainly powerful and true to what the show does best: Telling realistic stories. When Frank’s plotline is the weakest in the episode, “Blue Bloods” is doing something right.
(Photo: CBS.)