Reviewer Rating: 4.5/5.0
4.5
upright. humble. family.
These are values that Americans aspire to, and Blue Bloods Season 14 Episode 14 demonstrates them particularly well.
Sadly, there are only four episodes left of this fantastic series.
This seemingly disproportionate conflict over Danny’s potential win showcases everything that made me fall in love with it, making the impending end of “Blue Bloods” all the more heartbreaking.
Grace Edwards’ reason for not giving Danny the award is completely ridiculous
For some reason, Blue Bloods Season 14 Episode 14 brought back Grace Edwards as the villain in the awards story.
The character has only appeared once before, in the first episode of Season 7 of Blue Bloods.
In that long-ago story, she wants Frank to prevent her son from graduating from the police academy.
She feels her son’s negative attitude toward police would be too dangerous for him to become a police officer, but Grace is hurt and angry when Frank refuses to flunk a new recruit because his mother disagrees with his career choice.
This history is barely featured in Blue Bloods Season 14 Episode 14, making her an odd choice to be the villain of the story.
Grace is now delighted her son has become a police officer as he is doing a good job but is unhappy with the idea of the Irish Society giving Danny the award, allegedly because he is a “loose cannon”.
I call this bullshit.
Danny hasn’t been a loose cannon in years, and Grace seems to have an ax to grind.
She says she doesn’t hold a grudge, but she also says that Danny, being part of New York’s most famous police family, would tarnish the reputation of the Irish Society…what?
I don’t know if she’s jealous that the Reagans are getting so much respect, or is more angry that Frank didn’t do her bidding seven years ago, but either way, her decision on Blue Bloods Season 14 Episode 14 makes no sense.
Danny has been questioned about his reckless behavior before, but his most serious trouble came when he was retaliated against for refusing to stop investigating a case that the police wanted to cover up.
It shows integrity, and I feel that way, but Grace doesn’t have much of that feeling.
I’m not basing this solely on her insistence that Danny should not receive the award. When Frank points out her hypocrisy, her response shows that she will do some despicable things to achieve her own ends.
Frank collects records from other recipients so that he can confront Grace with evidence of her hypocrisy. But she always maintained that he was trying to blackmail her and eventually accused him of threatening to embarrass her by publicly releasing the records if she didn’t do what he wanted.
Anyone who has spent five seconds with Frank Regan knows how ridiculous this idea is. He was the last person to do so, and he was shocked by the suggestion in Blue Bloods Season 14 Episode 14.
However, the fact that Grace’s mind went there suggests that she would do the same thing to others.
Besides, she was too conceited to consider what Frank had to say.
Instead of accepting that he had proof of her hypocrisy, she kept answering “blackmail” until she could no longer escape. When forced to consider the evidence, she came up with numerous excuses to explain why it was “different.”
I think Irrational’s Alec Mercer would have a lot to say about the processing errors her brain creates there (for us laymen, this is called “mental gymnastics”! ).
Danny’s decision is more important than the rest of this conflict
Meanwhile, back at home, the Regans make a critical mistake, or at least Henry makes a critical mistake: rallying others to convince Frank not to interfere in the situation and leave Danny out of the equation.
I understand why no one told Danny.
Frank believes that if Danny had never known about the award, he would not have been upset about the award being revoked.
That might not be so bad if Henry hadn’t decided to get the entire Reagan family involved in a campaign to convince Frank to allow the award to be revoked because of his superstitious belief that it would lead to the death of police officers.
Everyone keeps this huge secret from Danny, which makes the Regan family dinner one of the most awkward in the history of the series, and when they finally tell him, Danny’s anger is completely justified.
Eddie: I don’t understand what just happened.
Danny: Let me tell you what happened. Apparently, I was competing for an award that everyone knew about but me, and no one wanted to tell me about it or see how I felt about it. Instead, you were all making small talk among each other.
Whether Danny wants the award or not, he’s right, and Frank and Henry are arguing over who gets to decide how to handle the situation for him.
Wanting to be considerate of his feelings doesn’t excuse treating him like a kid who can’t face the truth. No wonder Danny left dinner early!
Of course, the debate isn’t about the awards. This is about Joe, whose death will forever hang over the Regan family.
The last supper scene not only makes up for the blandness of the family dinner scenes, but also pays homage to Joe, making it all the sweeter, while Danny shows off a softer, more humble side of himself.
He got into police work for the right reasons; the job was its own reward and he didn’t want or need anything extra.
Overall, the Regan family’s commitment to something other than themselves is refreshing.
The information that people like this can and should exist is what this country needs right now, even though that seems to happen mostly in fiction.
It was great to revisit Witten in Blue Bloods Season 14 Episode 14, but…
I usually like Witten’s appearance, but as a social worker by training, I didn’t know what to make of this story.
I appreciate the message that serving people with mental health issues is so difficult, and sometimes they don’t get what they need until something dramatic happens.
I also liked that Eddie went out of his way to ask why people with schizophrenia become violent, breaking the stereotype that mental illness causes violence.
Still, I don’t believe that as a social worker, Rachel thought the best way to get the city’s attention was to have her clients physically attack her.
When I was a social worker, we were trained to find resources that people didn’t know existed and to think creatively to help people without having to endure long waiting lists.
I’m also trained on what to do if a client is in danger of harming themselves, and putting yourself in the line of fire isn’t it?
Calling the police is not always the best option because the police do not have the correct training and the person in need is fearful of the police due to past traumatic experiences due to a lack of police training, creating a vicious cycle.
That’s why social workers can turn to mobile crisis teams and other volunteer services in these situations.
However, in Rachel’s case, she knew two police officers who were better at helping in this situation than the average cop.
Jamie is particularly good at it and Addie is her best friend.
These two could have helped Jimmy get to a safe place during his mental health crisis so he could get the treatment he needed without additional drama.
I also had a hard time understanding how Jimmy ended up hanging his sister from the window, and I didn’t believe he suddenly stopped because Rachel told him to trust her instead of the voices in his head.
It seemed too convenient that she was the only one who could reach him, forcing McNichols to admit that suspending her was a mistake.
I also think it would be better for the police to have a mattress or other type of safety device underneath the building so that if Jimmy’s sister does fall, she will be more frightened than physically harmed.
Neither of them knew how to convince Jimmy, so it made more sense to do something to lessen the damage from his threat than to try to do so.
Random thoughts about Blue Bloods Season 14 Episode 14
- The award-winning dilemma was so mesmerizing that I barely noticed the actual case he and Baez were working on. However, I thought the son would reveal that he was the real murderer after his mother was arrested.
- This is the first time I remember Erin not having a storyline.
- Danny still seems exhausted from the trauma at work. I can’t help but wonder if this will come up in his final storyline
- Didn’t anyone know that the suspect they were looking for was reportedly drunk somewhere and was going to die? I guessed it when they said he was missing.
Over to you, blue blood fanatics.
What did you think of Blue Bloods Season 14 Episode 14?
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The final episodes of Blue Bloods air Friday at 10/9c on CBS and Saturday on Paramount+
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