Friday’s TV Ratings: ‘Blue Bloods’ Tops the Night With Engaging Season Finale

Blue Bloods finished its eighth season on a high note, dominating the TV ratings Friday night as the most-watched show. It was also tied with Hawaii Five-0 as the top-rated show of the night.

Starting off at ABC, a new episode of Once Upon a Time kicked the night off with 2.31 million viewers and a 0.5 18-49 rating. The series, which is wrapping up its final season, was up just a tenth in the ratings, according to TV By The Numbers. Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD was also up slightly, with 1.94 million viewers and a 0.5 18-49 rating. The news magazine 20/20 finished the night with 2.45 million viewers and a 0.5 18-49 rating.

At CBS, the new season of Undercover Boss: Celebrity Edition reeled in 5.04 million viewers and a 0.6 18-49 rating. Following that was Hawaii Five-0, which was up to a 0.8 18-49 rating with 7.05 million viewers.

The Blue Bloods finale tied Five-0 with a 0.8 rating in the key demo, which was only up a tenth from last week. It took in 8.74 million viewers, making it the most-watched show of the night.

The Tom Selleck-starring police procedure ended with big news for the Reagan family, as the central “will-they, won’t-they” couple decided to get married. Jamie Reagan (Will Estes) introduced Eddie Janko (Vanessa Ray) as the next “Mrs. Reagan” during the family dinner at the end of the show.

In an interview with TVLine, showrunner Kevin Wade felt this was the natural next step for the characters. Trying to keep the relationship platonic was not working any longer.

“It was clear from the start that the two actors had great chemistry and that all our writers were able to write to that chemistry, and then at a certain point in a long-running show, which this has certainly become, you do need to change things up,” Wade said. “We played the ‘Will they/won’t they?,’ the ‘Which one’s going to get seriously involved with someone else?,’ and then I thought, ‘This isn’t ringing true anymore.’”

Blue Bloods fans will now have to wait until the fall to see how their wedding will turn out.

Now back to the ratings. Fox’s two-hour Meghan Markle: An American Princess drew 3.66 million viewers and a 0.7 18-49 rating.

NBC’s Blindspot was even with last week, earning 2.79 million viewers and a 0.5 18-49 rating. Dateline averaged 4.16 million viewers and a 0.7.

The CW’s Dynasty mustered just 580,000 viewers, while Life Sentence had 380,000. Both shows earned a 1.0 18-49 rating.

Photo credit: CBS