Joe Reagan’s death will always cast a shadow over the Reagan family.
He is never far from their thoughts, and ever since the family met the son they never knew Joe had, they have missed him even more.
On Blue Bloods Season 13 Episode 9, someone knocked over Joe’s gravestone, leading to a conflict between Frank and Joe Hill over how to deal with it.
Joe’s upset over this insult to his father’s grave wasn’t hard to understand. He never knew his dad, but he could protect his memory by finding and punishing the people who had messed with his grave.
Frank should have understood that. But although he thought he was talking to Joe as a grandfather, he was too much in the cop mindset.
Frank didn’t want Joe to investigate the gravestone attack because he felt Joe was too close to the case to be objective. That would have been fair if Joe was any old cop who Frank needed to advise.
But Joe wasn’t a random cop. He was Frank’s grandson who had felt like something was missing his whole life because he had never met his father.
If Frank had slowed down and thought about why Joe was so determined, he would have understood this.
Of course, Frank’s judgment was also clouded by his own grief.
Joe: You didn’t tell them?
Frank: I didn’t see a reason to share the pain.
Henry: Because he was my grandson.
Danny: And our brother.
Joe: I don’t get you guys. Sometimes you swear each other to secrecy for just long enough to blab to everybody and other times you say everything’s on the table but it’s not.
He didn’t tell any of the Reagans about the vandalism, ostensibly so that he wouldn’t cause undue pain. But he probably didn’t want to think about it, and telling the family about it would have been painful for Frank.
Unsurprisingly, the rest of the Reagans were eager to avenge this insult too, and they couldn’t understand why Frank hadn’t told them what had happened so that they could.
That suggests this was a Frank problem. He not only didn’t know how to relate to Joe Hill but didn’t know how to process his own feelings about the vandalism.
For all his wisdom and integrity, Frank often falls short when it comes to emotions. He is an analytical thinker who can solve complex leadership problems, but the human side of things is sometimes more challenging for him.
He told Paula that Joe Hill is more of a stranger to him than a grandson because he didn’t see him grow up. But could part of the reason Frank finds it challenging to relate to Joe be that he is a constant reminder of Frank’s loss?
Joe Hill is the son Joe Reagan never knew he had, and his presence represents a piece of his father and the loss of that man. That has to be hard for Frank to deal with.
Joe has always found it hard to break into the close-knit Reagans. He keeps trying because he wants to know his father, and the only way he can is through them.
But there is a good deal of Frank in him too. This whole argument over investigating the gravestone was partially a result of both being stubborn. Nobody would back down, and they both thought they were right, leading to an impasse.
This story provided an interesting contrast with Henry’s story.
As often happens with Henry, his attempt to help right a wrong resulted in him feeling like his family thinks he’s too old to get it or to help anymore.
This is the second time he’s helped Donna out. I’d love for them to develop more of a relationship! But getting back to the issue, Henry tends to be oversensitive about people thinking he is too old.
Erin: You know, there’s going to come a day when my grandfather can no longer do what he loves to do and that is going to break his heart.
Anthony: Let’s make sure that day isn’t today.
Erin understood a lot more than he thought she did, and she wanted to work with him to get those scammers. Her only mistake this time was assuming Henry was using the old trick of saying something happened to his friend that really happened to him.
His evasiveness about who he was helping contributed to her misperception, but he took offense for no reason.
As he told Donna at the end of the hour, anyone could fall victim to a scam. Changing technology is hard for anyone to keep up with, especially those who didn’t grow up in the digital age and may not be as familiar with computers.
In hindsight, it seems obvious that the IRS doesn’t ask people to pay them in gift cards, but these scams wouldn’t work if lots of people weren’t falling for them.
Scammers prey on people’s fears, and those targeting senior citizens assume they will be ignorant, in cognitive decline, or without friends and family to protect them. Henry’s idea of working with the Bureau of Elder Abuse to catch the scammers was brilliant. This is a type of elder abuse, even if it isn’t by someone the victim knows.
Danny’s case was confusing. Was John drinking and using to deal with the trauma he experienced while undercover or was it part of his act to get the bad guys’ trust?
It also almost felt like Danny and Naomi faked her kidnapping to get John to realize undercover work was too dangerous and come home. The story’s ending was odd, and Naomi’s rescue felt manufactured.
In any case, it was not Naomi’s job to stop John from drinking or using. She was so wrapped up in that, and I wanted someone to tell her that it wasn’t her responsibility, but nobody did.
Eddie’s dog-napping story could have been a nice story in which the cops showed a little girl that some police officers take Black people as seriously as they do White people. Instead, it got silly fast.
While Joe and Frank’s argument over the gravestone investigation made sense, Eddie’s beef with McNichols over the dog investigation seemed petty. Who cared if Eddie wasn’t the one to reunite the little girl with her dog? Why did she need to know McNichols’ motive for taking over the case?
Jamie needed something better to do than try to investigate this, and Eddie should have listened to everybody and let it go. Sheesh.
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Blue Bloods airs on CBS on Fridays at 10 PM EST / PST.
Jack Ori is a senior staff writer for TV Fanatic. His debut young adult novel, Reinventing Hannah, is available on Amazon. Follow him on Twitter.