On December 13, 2024, the Reagan family offers its final salute as Blue Bloods ends its 14-year command of Friday nights. CBS had canceled its hit show—though ratings have slipped, it’s still among the top 10 broadcast series—but negotiated a deal that the family cop series would get eight extra episodes this fall after a shortened Season 14.
Below, showrunner Kevin Wade, who’s been a part of Blue Bloods since its premiere on September 24, 2010, offers TV Insider a preview of the series’ finale.
When the show was unexpectedly and quickly canceled, did you already have a plan for the series finale, or did you quickly put one together?
Kevin Wade: Well, we had a whole season where we knew this was the last lap, so we all started talking collectively pretty early, and it was decided that Siobhan [Byrne O’Connor] and I would write the series finale. And so we started months before, talking like, what are the show’s greatest hits? What are the things that we love to do, the audience seems to love, and how can we do them in a new and fresh way, but pay some attention to what’s worked in the past?
What are the most important stories and scene that had to be part of the series finale?
[Co-writer] Siobhan Byrne O’Connor and I decided early that the finale that would work best for our wonderful large cast were stories where all of them are in pursuit of [the same] syndicate. So while each main character would have a separate alley to walk down, they were working toward finding the same criminal. That makes for the most propulsive way we can tell all four stories at once. And of course, the family dinner scene took a lot of attention just in terms of who would be there and why and would anything be promised or revolved.
Michael Parmelee / CBS
This is, sorry to say, literally the last supper.
May lightning not strike us. [Laughs] But yes, this is the last supper.
Besides the usual weekly dinner crew, what visitors can you tease show up at the Sunday table?
There are a few black sheep, including one who’s been with us on and off for many years. I have to be vague here. There are blood relatives who we haven’t seen much of in a while who are present. I will say it’s a bigger table than usual. [Laughs] The art department had to actually go into the wood shop and make an extra leaf!
You mentioned the episode is a propulsive one. Can you set up the story, which starts with the shocking murder of a judge?
In the first act, we see violent crimes and attempted murders, which don’t seem at all connected until Assistant District Attorney Erin Reagan [Bridget Moynahan] and [her investigator] Anthony [Steve Schrippa] are played a recording that will make clear that the crimes are an orchestrated effort to create chaos in New York City. Then it becomes the Reagans’ job—police commissioner Frank [Tom Selleck], detective Danny [Donnie Wahlberg], sergeant Jamie [Will Estes], and patrol Eddie [Vanessa Ray]—along with Erin and Anthony, to haul in all the nets and find out if they can solve the crimes. Gang leader Carlo Ramirez [Manny Perez], who had to flee the country, is integral to the criminal plot. He has a very identifiable objective of vengeance and comes back to wreak havoc and reclaim his child.
While all this unfolds, Frank is–symbolically—given “the keys to the city” by Mayor Chase (Dylan Walsh). What can you say about that?
Without revealing the plotting, in the course of our 14 years, something would remind us a few times a season that the police commissioner serves at the pleasure of the mayor; it’s something that Frank lived with since day one. And while he fought against many mayors, his relationship with Mayor Chase is more like strange bedfellows than sworn enemies. And so, when he has an opportunity to actually serve the mayor in a way that’s not about the bureaucracy but about a man helping out a colleague, he grabs it.
How does that affect the commissioner?
Only in that he goes back to his purpose as a cop as he reminds himself and anyone who would listen that he was still basically a cop. So when a cop has the opportunity to go get the bad guy, he’s going to take it. That’s where his skillset still lives.
There’s a photo released with the Reagan clan in full force at a funeral that has fans guessing who has died. Without naming the person, what does that scene mean in the context of the series finale?
To sound highfalutin, and forgive me for that, one of the guiding principles of the show’s storytelling over most of its life—and as we went on, it sharpened—is that every victory has to come with a loss. It’s as simple as that. The stories that were most moving we found were where, yes, the Reagans individually or collectively had a victory, but it came at a cost.
To soften the loss, can you say there’s mostly a happy ending for the Reagan clan?
Happy’s a pretty subjective term. I think there’s a satisfying ending for all the Reagans. It’s a family individually and collectively who deal with loss and loneliness and good versus bad. You know, the sun doesn’t come out and all the stuff that they deal with goes away, that would not be true to 14 years of storytelling. But our hope is that it satisfying for the audience.
