‘Blue Bloods’ season 3 spoilers: Jennifer Esposito will not return

For those of you who loved seeing Jennifer Esposito on “Blue Bloods,” there is some bad news coming in now: it does not look like she will be back on the CBS drama series moving forward.

According to a report from TVLine, the actress, who initially left the show in October after a battle with CBS, is not going to be returning at any point in the future. The initial claims were that Esposito had requested a more limited schedule in order to balance out her work while also taking care of her fight with Celiac Disease. However, the network placed her on a leave of absence instead, saying that there was largely no way that they could accommodate her due to the rigorous demands of playing her character of Jackie Curatola.

As a replacement for Esposito, CBS has been frequently subbing in a pair of other actresses in Megan Goode and Megan Ketch to work alongside Donnie Wahlberg, and we have to think that one or both of them may be around in a big more of a regular capacity moving forward into next season. “Blue Bloods” has not been confirmed just yet, but at the moment it is considered to be likely to return thanks largely to the fact that it only needs one more season to make it into syndication.

“Blue Bloods” has dropped steadily in the ratings, with the most-recent installment pulling just a 1.3 in the 18-49 demographic despite pulling in a large overall viewership. It remains one of television’s oldest-skewing shows, but “CSI: NY” still seems to be a more likely target of cancellation than it.

Photo: CBS