Jamie (Will Estes) and Eddie (Vanessa Ray) are ready to take a major step: adding to their family!
The last eight episodes of Blue Bloods kicked off with Eddie bonding with a young girl whose mother was murdered; she even brought her home while they waited for her grandmother to be able to come get her. After, Eddie realized she doesn’t have to be the same kind of mother hers was, and now, she and Jamie are going to try to have a baby!
Below, Ray opens up about that decision, filming this episode, and saying goodbye to Blue Bloods.
I really liked everything with Eddie and the young girl, and then she brings her home with her and we got to see another side of Eddie at the same time as we saw the cop side of her.
Vanessa Ray: This episode was so beautifully written by Siobhan [Byrne O’Connor], and when I read it, I mean, we all sort of love as a cast an all skate—that’s what I call it when we all get to kind of intersect and our storylines kind of meet up and we get to work together. Oftentimes I don’t get to work with Donnie [Wahlberg] and Marisa [Ramirez] or I don’t get to work with Bridget [Moynahan]. And so getting to play with them, it was a fun read. I was like, oh, cool. And then I get to meet up with Baez and Danny. Oh, cool. And then Erin’s also involved. But what was so wild about this episode was I had just adopted our son, Isaac, and so I was a brand new—I mean I still am, but a brand new mom. And reading this story and seeing this side of Eddie that we don’t normally get to see, she’s been open many times about her perhaps not wanting to be a mother, fears around motherhood, and getting to see this side of her where she gets to see the beauty between her work life and how it can actually positively affect her home life.
And then the sweet moment when the girl comes back to hug Eddie when she’s leaving.
So good! Unscripted. She did that. That little girl was an absolute dream to work with. So open and vulnerable and just beautiful. And I think she really anchors the whole thing. If we didn’t believe her, if our heart didn’t break for her, then the episode wouldn’t work.
The episode ends with Eddie and Jamie planning to have a baby. What makes Eddie ready for that besides seeing that she’s not going to be a mom like hers?
I don’t know that anybody knows that they’re ready. I think it’s just a shift in confidence maybe. I think she has a bit of a shift in confidence, and like I said, she was able to see what they do for a living can actually benefit their compassion and just their home life in general, that their relationship is unique and can be uniquely helpful to a child.
But there was also that terrible detective that Eddie had to deal with on the case when he wanted to talk to the girl. And I have to say I’m impressed with how Eddie handled him because the things he was saying…
Listen, just this episode, she was like, I’m not taking it from anyone. I’m not doing it. And there is sort of a power in that when you know that you are on the right side of something. And also she’s protecting and defending someone who is so vulnerable. I think that a power and a strength comes out of that. Sometimes you don’t even know where it came from, but just when you’re speaking on behalf of somebody else and you’re protecting somebody else, sometimes your “mama bear instincts” can level you in a way that’s sort of unexpected.
What was your favorite scene to film from this episode?
There was a scene with the little girl when Eddie takes her home to her apartment and is kind of showing her where the bathroom is and where her bedroom is going to be and all of those things. And just exploring as an actor, getting to explore that moment of there’s this new being in our apartment and there’s this new energy here and the sort of first date nerves were definitely being explored in that scene. And then there’s this lovely moment where she gets in bed and she’s nervous and she can tell she’s really missing her mom, obviously missing her grandmother, all the things. And then she kind of says, without saying anything, will you just lay with me for a little bit? And that moment, I mean, all of us were in tears during that moment. It was just so innocent and sweet, and that was my favorite scene to shoot, for sure.
What else is coming up for Eddie in these final episodes?
Oh gosh. There’s so much. I don’t think the audience is ready for all of the things that are going to be thrown at them for this final season. Our executive producer, Kevin Wade, said to me on the phone before we started the season, listen, this is going to be like we’re playing the hits. We’re playing the Blue Bloods hits. We’re going to go as hard as we can,
