‘Blue Bloods’ season 7, episode 10 review: Could Frank Reagan, Darnell Potter work together?

Tonight on “Blue Bloods,” the show gave us what was an incredibly-emotional case in “Unbearable Loss,” and it may be one of the few cases in which a guest star really took center stage and shined in a way we don’t often seen.

This particular guest star in this case was Ato Essandoh, a man we’ve seen more as of late on “Chicago Med” and before that HBO’s “Vinyl.” Tonight, he returned as Reverend and activist Darnell Potter, a longtime opponent of Frank Reagan, as he faced a terrible tragedy: The death of his son. He wanted justice for him so badly that he was willing to do anything and everything in order to make it happen. Unfortunately, in the process there were also a few times in which he was ready to make this entire investigation into an indictment on the NYPD and their policies investigating the case.

For the first 45 or so minutes of the episode, we saw Potter ready to blame the police at almost every turn, and he certainly did so with Danny Reagan in particular. We understand why. When you consider some of the incidents of police brutality that Potter’s seen, why would he want to trust those he viewed as the aggressor? At times, Danny and Frank were also guilty of not communicating the purpose of their job the right way, and understanding that he, as an activist and outspoken leader, was not going to react to the death of his son in the same way as everyone else.

Eventually, and through some hard conversations and realizations, Potter realized that appointing a special prosecutor — or at least attempting to — wasn’t going to bring his son back. Instead, it was only going to make matters worse, and cause him even more problems when it comes to getting the justice he so sought. Eventually, the responsible party was discovered to be someone who ironically was involved previously in one of the Reverend’s programs. He didn’t realize that he was killing Potter’s son, but that doesn’t change facts. The past is the past, and the crime is the crime.

The show did an excellent job as well making it clear that there is no guarantee Potter and the NYPD are going to be on the same page moving forward; yet, in showing him invite Frank and Danny to his son’s funeral, there was progress. That may have to be enough.

Jamie’s own struggle – During tonight’s episode he shot a mugger in self-defense, only before realizing that this man was actually the child of a former officer with the PD. While there were some important moments in the episode such as Eddie refusing to give in to intimidation from said father, we cannot fully attest to this being a grade-A plot given that fundamentally the parent / child dynamics were too similar to what was going on with Frank. It was entertaining enough, but we would’ve preferred a little more contrast.

As for Erin… – After a killing took place aboard a prison transport vehicle, she and Anthony had to figure out why there were some differing stories regarding the victim’s cause of death. The methods they used, plus the staunch stances that they had to take, proved interesting; yet, at the same exact time we prefer Erin stories when they are a little bit more tied into the other characters and there was nothing about this one that was terribly memorable.

Overall – Sometimes, it happens where you have one storyline that is so dominant and fantastic that it is hard for the others to compare. Therefore, we almost wish that, other than maybe a Jamie / Eddie moment, we cut out most of the subplots and focused almost entirely on what was going on with Potter, and linking the supporting characters into that if the moment called for it. Sometimes, a break from structure can be good, even for a show as used to structure as this one is. Grade: B+.

(Photo: CBS.)