Honestly, I went back and forth over the last Season's final episodes thinking I must have missed whatever happened to Linda. But, no, there they were holding hands at the dinner table in Season 7, Episode 22 and then wham, bam, Season 8 starts out with Danny depressed and in mourning and Linda has apparently passed on, AND you don't know for a bit whether it was because of a criminal in Danny's past etc. I see from the other reviews I am not the only one who thought this. Surely a character change of this magnitude that has followed the familial relationship and valued it so immensely should have been written into the script so that viewers weren't left doubting their memories.
7 Reviews
Welcome signs of improvement
kenosull-1137230 April 2021
Warning: Spoilers
The opening episode of series 8 offers encouraging signs that this long-running cop show is going to step up. It's long overdue and many of the characters had begun to stagnate. The format was predictable and repetitive and the series had been in danger of morphing into a saccharine-infested sentimental family show instead of an interesting series about a family of law enforcers. A sort of Hill Street Blues meets The Waltons. (I always fast forward through the excruciating family dinner scenes. They generally serve no other purpose than to offer homey parables and innocent analysis of complicated situations by the precocious children and offer nothing to the bigger picture.)
However, the sudden and brutal departure of Linda and Danny's heartbreaking reaction to it, the attack on Erin's ex and a new mayor seeking the removal of Frank from 1PP gave Blue Bloods a welcome transfusion. The final scene in this episode realigns Danny's perspective and offers hope for a more dramatic storyline in place of the schmaltzy insular over-the-top Oirish family dynamic which had become the default calibration for the series.
****
edwagreen1 October 2017
Warning: Spoilers
Extremely poignant opening season where Danny must come to terms with Linda's sudden, untimely death. Unable to cope, he considers retiring from the Police Department, only to be directly involved when his ex-brother-in-law is severely assaulted.
Lorraine Bracco appears to be effective as the new Mayor who questions Frank's authority when a police officer kills an unarmed woman who resisted him during a shop-lifting spree. The incident points to the tensions that this may arouse as well as what police officers go through in the line of duty. Despite vindication, our officer resigns from the department.
Jamie and Eddie team up to go undercover to trap a drug selling misfit whose drug was laced and caused the death of 6 people in a disco.
However, Danny's dilemma is the focus of this season opener and his saying of grace at the episode's end was most poignant.
Lorraine Bracco appears to be effective as the new Mayor who questions Frank's authority when a police officer kills an unarmed woman who resisted him during a shop-lifting spree. The incident points to the tensions that this may arouse as well as what police officers go through in the line of duty. Despite vindication, our officer resigns from the department.
Jamie and Eddie team up to go undercover to trap a drug selling misfit whose drug was laced and caused the death of 6 people in a disco.
However, Danny's dilemma is the focus of this season opener and his saying of grace at the episode's end was most poignant.
Not what I expected
schnibbitymom4 October 2017
Warning: Spoilers
When it comes to the new season of any of my favorite shows, I will save the last 2 episodes from the previous season so I can familiarize myself with whatever happened previously & see what the new season might have in store.
That said, I was seriously disappointed in this episode, as I felt, from the very beginning, that I had missed the last episode of Season 7. It was only recently that I read where Linda Reagan's character was killed off, but I honestly thought they would have more closure for her character.
As I watched Season 7 Ep 22, I was upset that somehow I hadn't recorded Ep 23, the one where Linda supposedly is killed off. But, I finished Ep 22, saw where their house was torched and waited for the last episode. It wasn't there. The next episode showing was Season 8 Ep 1.
Okay, fine, somehow my DVR didn't record, I would just have to backtrack at some point and see the final Season 7 episode. But that wasn't going to happen. Linda Reagan, (Amy Carlson), is no more. As I progressed through the new season opener, I realized that they weren't going to show anything, but were simply going to reveal that she dies in a helicopter crash (which doesn't actually become a fait accompli until much later in the episode).
Of course, they allude to the fact that she's no longer alive and indeed, in the intro, you can clearly see that the dinner table framing shows a re-arrangement of seating and Linda is nowhere in the picture.
Danny is (supposedly) quitting the force because of Linda's death. Totally unlike his character; he's a no-holds-barred-gung-ho-all-or-nothing kind of cop and to suddenly see him so iffy is disconcerting. Especially when you saw how distraught and upset he was after the fire that destroyed their home. He was clearly more upset with that then he appeared to show with the death of his wife. It just didn't mesh with my vision of him in the previous 7 seasons. While I realize that dealing with the death of a spouse is traumatic, the writers only show him "off the rails" in his grief and only a few well placed tears a couple of times and that's it. Like I said, doesn't mesh.
With all the namby-pamby-ishness, they don't show his two boys grieving at all! Good grief, they've just lost their mother and we don't see any reaction at all!
I really feel like the writers could have handled it much better; this really just felt rushed and almost as an after thought in the overall scheme of things. Maybe do a special 90 minute episode where they could have made it a bit more inclusive and personal.
The secondary plot line with Frank being fired by the new Mayor, Lorraine Bracco's character, Maggie (no last name as of yet, it seems) also was disappointing, as it clearly seemed completely contrived. Her character was overly forceful in the beginning, then, somehow at the end, very contrite and apologetic. How convenient! Not only that, but in her attempt to apologize to Frank, she somehow thinks it's necessary to tell him her first name, as if she's no longer his "boss" and has taken him to task for his ineffectiveness, but now has personalized the entire situation. Either she's forceful and strong or not. I found the dichotomy between her two personas also contrived.
I am normally a very complimentary and attentive person when it comes to the TV shows I like to watch. Overall, most of my "shows" are great and provide what I watch them for...entertainment. But when the audience is so invested in the lives, loves and day to day interactions, it is more than a little frustrating when they slap together something like this and expect us to just go along.
That said, I was seriously disappointed in this episode, as I felt, from the very beginning, that I had missed the last episode of Season 7. It was only recently that I read where Linda Reagan's character was killed off, but I honestly thought they would have more closure for her character.
As I watched Season 7 Ep 22, I was upset that somehow I hadn't recorded Ep 23, the one where Linda supposedly is killed off. But, I finished Ep 22, saw where their house was torched and waited for the last episode. It wasn't there. The next episode showing was Season 8 Ep 1.
Okay, fine, somehow my DVR didn't record, I would just have to backtrack at some point and see the final Season 7 episode. But that wasn't going to happen. Linda Reagan, (Amy Carlson), is no more. As I progressed through the new season opener, I realized that they weren't going to show anything, but were simply going to reveal that she dies in a helicopter crash (which doesn't actually become a fait accompli until much later in the episode).
Of course, they allude to the fact that she's no longer alive and indeed, in the intro, you can clearly see that the dinner table framing shows a re-arrangement of seating and Linda is nowhere in the picture.
Danny is (supposedly) quitting the force because of Linda's death. Totally unlike his character; he's a no-holds-barred-gung-ho-all-or-nothing kind of cop and to suddenly see him so iffy is disconcerting. Especially when you saw how distraught and upset he was after the fire that destroyed their home. He was clearly more upset with that then he appeared to show with the death of his wife. It just didn't mesh with my vision of him in the previous 7 seasons. While I realize that dealing with the death of a spouse is traumatic, the writers only show him "off the rails" in his grief and only a few well placed tears a couple of times and that's it. Like I said, doesn't mesh.
With all the namby-pamby-ishness, they don't show his two boys grieving at all! Good grief, they've just lost their mother and we don't see any reaction at all!
I really feel like the writers could have handled it much better; this really just felt rushed and almost as an after thought in the overall scheme of things. Maybe do a special 90 minute episode where they could have made it a bit more inclusive and personal.
The secondary plot line with Frank being fired by the new Mayor, Lorraine Bracco's character, Maggie (no last name as of yet, it seems) also was disappointing, as it clearly seemed completely contrived. Her character was overly forceful in the beginning, then, somehow at the end, very contrite and apologetic. How convenient! Not only that, but in her attempt to apologize to Frank, she somehow thinks it's necessary to tell him her first name, as if she's no longer his "boss" and has taken him to task for his ineffectiveness, but now has personalized the entire situation. Either she's forceful and strong or not. I found the dichotomy between her two personas also contrived.
I am normally a very complimentary and attentive person when it comes to the TV shows I like to watch. Overall, most of my "shows" are great and provide what I watch them for...entertainment. But when the audience is so invested in the lives, loves and day to day interactions, it is more than a little frustrating when they slap together something like this and expect us to just go along.
Script? Oops where's my wife???
trajanrome19 April 2019
Warning: Spoilers
Actors leave shows. You can't really get too emotional about it they are after all just portraying fictional characters in a story. That said this is a police drama the regular writers here must have killed who knows how many people by this season. So you write her death in carefully, you don't ignore it for half the episode it's like is she going to be there or not? In Vergil's Aeneid Book 2, Aeneas' wife Creusa is written out a bit clumsily. But far better than this. And their two sons have almost no emotional reaction to the loss of their mother they're either psychotic or their actors weren't told that the mother wasn't there. So let's assume the actress left I don't know 30 minutes before they had to film the episode a third grader could have written it better than this.
heartbreak
b-smithcutshair19 September 2022
Warning: Spoilers
I am absolutely shocked and heartbroken over the way they handled the death of a main secondary character like Linda. She was for all sense and purposes the matriarch of the family. And instead of giving her character, and the fans of the show, a proper goodbye they rushed through it. I have raved over how well
written this show is through seven seasons only to get to this point and lose faith in what is happening. This show has a great way of making you feel for the characters, and so it seems like a disservice to write her off in between seasons. This is one of the biggest shocks on network tv i can remember in a long time.
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