‘Blue Bloods’ season 7, episode 14 review: The Mario Hunt debate

As it was said at the “Blue Bloods” family dinner table Friday night, the NYPD does not negotiate with terrorists. This just in: The same rules also apply to gang leaders.

At the heart of Friday night’s new episode for Frank Reagan was a choice when it came to trying to figure out the right way to clean up the community: He could try to utilize the imprisoned Mario Hunt (Method Man) in order to help clean the streets and stop a gang war, or he could figure out a way to do it on his own. The problem is that Mario is not the sort of guy who’s going to just do things to be nice — he wants something in return. Specifically, what he wants is to have a chance at a life outside of a cell.

There’s a difference between redemption and a Get Out of Jail Free card. Mario’s not reformed, and giving up a better sentence or a chance to be released soon would only mean more chaos. That’s why Frank eventually balked at the opportunity to make a deal with him, and instead turned the tables on Mario instead, telling him that either he could help and stay where he was, or not help and be shipped down to another prison in Atlanta, one that is the home turf for a rival gang. He wasn’t keen to lend a helping hand, so we gotta assume that he’s going to be fine down in Georgia.

While there was nothing particularly special about this episode, it was nice to have Method Man back. Any chance the show gives us to revisit an old story is one that we’re going to celebrate.

Danny and Baez’s part to play – The gang violence first erupted after a leader was shot, and the two were obviously tasked with finding the person responsible. That proved challenging, especially when they realized that their main suspect was someone who was a former convict, and may have had the support of his parole officer, who was tied to him romantically. He manipulated her into thinking that he was this changed man, but the reality was that he was still more than fine to kill her if the situation called for it. This is what seemed to happen, tragically, at the end of the episode when Danny and his partner closed in on them. Danny had to shoot him, so the gang battle on the outside of prison may now start to slow down.

So what about the Jamie / Eddie story? – Obviously, we enjoyed the end of it watching them engage in an epic takedown, and also give a little bit of a PSA about how the police are always looking for trainee analysts. However, at the same time there wasn’t a whole lot of meat here other than what we saw in the closing minutes of the story. It may just because of all of the romantic development between the two recently, but some of the typical street cases for them doesn’t hold the same candle anymore.

Overall – A solid episode of the show, but maybe not one we’d remember in a week’s time. Getting Mario Hunt back into the mix was a smart move for the sake of paying off the past; however, aside from Frank and Danny’s storylines, the rest of the episode was fairly quiet and not big on character development. Grade: B.

What did you think about this episode of “Blue Bloods”? Be sure to share now in the comments.

Photo: CBS