Blue Bloods’ 14-season run is officially done, and the series did a surprisingly good job of staying away from one focusing on one specific side of the spectrum. While the series was known to go into some heavy topics, especially as a police procedural, it was never one to stick to one side of the story. Showrunner Kevin Wade told Deadline that people “appreciated the show didn’t have an agenda.”
“That’s the thing we worked hardest on, and it was something that could easily, in some hands, have slipped into preachiness,” he continued. “We didn’t take sides.” That’s what set Blue Bloods apart from every other procedural, on top of the fact that it greatly centered around family. Of course, with the show being set in New York, there were certainly some storylines that they couldn’t avoid, but they did it pretty well.
Videos by PopCulture.com
In response to some fans seeing the show as “pretty Red State,” Wade said, “That may be, but if we had a motto, the motto was, if you’re going to build a soap box for one side of an issue, build a soap box of equal dimensions for the other side so that the audience could not feel like they were being preached to. So perhaps they could accept the show as a character driven story with different characters with different points of view.”
Meanwhile, the finale was an intense one that certainly put on a show. There were a series of shootings targeting police officers and the mayor, courtesy of gangs who later put out a manifesto of members they wanted released from custody. Unfortunately, the shootings led to the death of Eddie’s partner, Officer Luis Badillo, because the series just couldn’t let everyone be happy. At the end of the episode, it was still a happy time for the Reagans, but losing one more character before the end was a low blow.
There have been discussions of a potential Blue Bloods spinoff or TV movie, and if one were to happen, it’s very likely it will once again tell both sides of the story. Fans can always stake a look back at all 14 seasons of Blue Bloods on Paramount+ and see just how well the show did with the storytelling and why it certainly deserved to go on as long as it did.
Related Posts
-
Pictured: Tom Selleck as Frank Reagan on 'Blue Bloods.' Photo: CBS -
'Blue Bloods' final season. Credit: CBS -
"Loyalty" – Jaime goes undercover with a deadly human trafficking ring and Danny and Baez investigate a homicide connected to Darryl Reid (Malika Yoba), Danny's old partner. Also, Frank grapples with whether to publicly support Mayor Chase (Dylan Walsh) on a policy decision and Eddie is determined to teach a young shoplifter a lesson, on part one of the two-part premiere of the fourteenth season of BLUE BLOODS, Friday, Feb. 16 (10:00-11:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network, and streaming on Paramount+ (live and on demand for Paramount+ with SHOWTIME subscribers, or on demand for Paramount+ Essential subscribers the day after the episode airs)*. Pictured: Tom Selleck as Frank Reagan Photo: Peter Kramer/CBS ©2023 CBS Broadcasting, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
