Why This Blue Bloods Episode Is One Of The Best On Tv

BLUE BLOODS: Family Secrets is nominated for Movieguide®’s Epiphany Prize® for Most Inspiring TV or Streaming Movie or Program of 2020, and Tom Selleck is nominated for the Grace Prize® for Most Inspiring Performance for TV. The winners will be announced on Easter Sunday, April 4, in Movieguide®’s Movies That Inspire on The REELZ Channel.

The following is a portion of our review for Season 10, Episode 19, which we determined was one of the best episodes on television in 2020. For the full review, click here.

“Family Secrets,” the 2020 season finale of BLUE BLOODS, tells several family stories encountered by the Regan family, including their discovery that the police commissioner’s murdered son, Joe, had a son he didn’t know he had who has also become a police detective. “Family Secrets” is another well-written and acted BLUE BLOODS episode and includes positive, inspiring references to Jesus the Messiah, the Holy Trinity, prayer, justice, family bonds, and the American motto “In God We Trust.”

The episode opens with the police commissioner’s daughter, Erin Regan, questioning her investigator, Anthony’s, use of the district attorney’s office computers to check up on a delinquent young relative in trouble with the law. He reminds her she sometimes does favors in her job for her own family of police officers.

Meanwhile, Anthony gets a call from one of his informants, a young man named Geo, but the call is interrupted when Geo is murdered in cold blood. Geo was scheduled to testify against a gangster in a court case Erin is handling, but the police weren’t scheduled to give him protection until the very next day. Detective Danny Regan must find out how the gangster learned the identity of the informant. He must also find a way to prove that the gangster ordered Geo’s murder. Eventually, Danny must stop Geo’s brother, Teddy, from seeking revenge for his brother’s murder.

The morning Geo is murdered, Jamie and his wife, Eddie, find an abandoned two-day old baby in an insulated duffle bag near the precinct where they work. Eddie becomes intent on finding the baby’s mother. Knowing his wife, Jamie helps her search. As they search, Eddie ponders why the mother abandoned her baby, and why they were the ones to find the baby. The answer is surprising.

Finally, Police Commissioner Regan’s grandson, Sean, during a college DNA project, learns that he has an unknown adult cousin. By a process of elimination, the cousin must be Commissioner Regan’s son, Joe, who was murdered while working on the job 11 years ago as a policeman. The family discovers Joe had a son with a woman in the Police Academy for incoming officers, but she left the Academy when she got pregnant and never told Joe about the baby. She’s also never told her son who her father was, fearing that he would join the Regan family business, even though she named the boy Joseph after his father.

Commissioner Regan learns that the woman’s worst fears have come true. Not only has her son, Joe, become a policeman, but an act of heroism has given him the chance to pick where he wants to serve. Young Joe has decided to serve in the dangerous Firearms Division, which investigates illegal weapons and illegal arms sales.

The mother asks Commissioner Regan to transfer her son to a less dangerous position, but that would be against the Commissioner’s principles. Not only does he believe that parents can’t micromanage their adult children’s lives, but he also believes that a police officer risks his or her life every day when they’re working out on the street. An officer can never truly know what each day will bring, whether he or she works in a dangerous area or a low crime area that appears safe.

“Family Secrets” is one of the most well-written and well-acted episodes of BLUE BLOODS. Because this is an ensemble series, most if not all BLUE BLOODS episodes feature multiple storylines. The multiple stories in “Family Secrets” are particularly well written because they’re written so concisely while at the same time they’re written to maximize the theme that’s depicted in the title, Family Secrets. In the end, the ultimate family secret to the love found in the Regan household is their faith in God through Jesus Christ.

Thus, “Family Secrets” ends with one of the dinner table Christian prayers that occur in some episodes of BLUE BLOODS. The grandson, Sean, leads the family prayer in this episode. He says the prayer in the Name of the Holy Trinity and refers to Jesus Christ as “our Lord.” Also, the scene where the murderous gangster gets his just desserts occurs in the courtroom with Erin, Danny and Anthony. The scene opens on the motto above the judge’s bench, “In God We Trust,” the first part of the “American Trinity” that includes Liberty and E Pluribus Unum. The camera then pans down from there to show Erin Regan requesting, and the judge agreeing, to have the police, led by Anthony and Danny, arrest the gangster for ordering Geo’s murder.

The “Family Secrets” episode of BLUE BLOODS is great TV full of strong faith and values, but there’s some foul language and two intense scenes of violence. So, MOVIEGUIDE® advises caution for older children, including younger teenagers.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by @bluebloods_cbs

source movieguide