Blue Bloods season 8 episode 14 review: A principal goes rogue
Hudson, best known for Ghostbusters and some other movies many decades ago, stopped by tonight in the role of a high-school principal who effectively had enough when it comes to gang activity at his school. He wasn’t getting the help he requested from the city to deal with the problem, and things went from bad to worse when a student felt pressured by a local gang to hurt her favorite teacher.
Then, Hudson’s character opted to take matters into his own hands. He picked up a gun and threatened to kill his own students!! Why do this? He thought it would be the only way to save them, by having all of them feel the danger that they previously made others feel. This sort of tactic rarely ever works, and instead it just led to an almost-deadly standoff with snipers positioned to take him out in the event he made one wrong move.
Luckily, we did see Danny talk him down and arrest him — the school is now in need of a new principal, and unfortunately, we’re not sure that the gang problem is resolved beyond just more people being aware that it exists.
As for some of the other storylines in this episode…
Frank versus the Governor
As wonderful as it was to see David Zayas back on the show, we really wish sometimes that the writers would come up with some more uses for Frank beyond just having him engage in political battles with people over his cops shooting innocent people by mistake. We’ve seen so much of this story before, with the only real difference being that we typically see this play out between Frank and a Mayor as opposed to Frank and the Governor.
How do the writers fix this? We’d suggest figuring out a way to throw Frank outside of the officer for something, or having him take on an issue that is even more topical than this in 2018.
Erin’s guilt
Finally, we turn to another great guest star in Once Upon a Time actor Raphael Sbarge, who played a friend of hers in Mickey who unfortunately got mixed up in an illegal gambling ring. She wanted to protect him from testifying, much to the dismay of others within the prosecution who felt that getting his perspective on the stand was necessary.
The one thing we did learn for certain by the end of this episode? It was pretty darn clear that there were some people desperate to keep him quiet at all costs. How else do you explain him being killed off by the end of the episode? This is terrible for Erin, who now blames herself for what happened and doesn’t know if she can move forward from it.
CarterMatt Verdict
With Blue Bloods season 8 episode 14, what we saw was an excellent performance by Hudson mixed in with two other storylines with varying degrees of effectiveness. It was great to have Sbarge on the series, for example, but we wish there was more time to flesh out his history with Erin.
What did you think about Blue Bloods season 8 episode 14 overall? Be sure to share in the comments!
(Photo: CBS.)