Blue Bloods Season 12 Episode 2 Review: Times Like These

Okay. What was that nonsense with the mayor?

Frank fighting with mayors and almost losing his job happens so often it’s pretty much a Blue Bloods trope.

But it’s usually about something important, while on Blue Bloods Season 12 Episode 2 it was about the mayor feeling slighted for reasons that didn’t make sense.

As soon as the security detail arresting the homeless guy made the news, Garrett started telling Frank to get ahead of this by apologizing to the mayor for the slight to the office, but it was never clear exactly what Frank allegedly did wrong.

Would the mayor have felt the same way if a beat cop had arrested the squeegee guy?

It felt like he took it personally because Frank was involved, and from the number of times Chase insisted Frank was an egotist who just craved the spotlight, it certainly seemed like Chase felt inadequate compared to Frank.

But that was the mayor’s problem. As Frank said, he couldn’t apologize for a slight that only existed in the mayor’s head.

While Frank can be stubborn, he will back down if someone explains to him why they feel he was wrong in terms he can understand.

All that projecting Chase was doing about how Frank loves the spotlight and causes trouble to get attention wasn’t going to sway Frank because it wasn’t anything close to the truth.

A lesser man would have pointed out that Chase felt threatened because of his insecurities and not because of anything Frank did wrong, but Frank didn’t go there.

Instead, he stayed professional and used logic to point out why Chase couldn’t fire him for this spurious and self-serving reason.

Logic certainly seemed in short supply as far as Chase was concerned. He was too fixated on his belief that Frank was being egotistical to think anything through.

Actually, my statement is a question. Who among us wants to live in a city where the police commissioner comes across a crime in progress and just keeps going?

Frank

It was obvious that firing the commissioner for doing his job wouldn’t be good for the mayor’s approval rating. How Chase thought nobody would find this out unless Frank deliberately poisoned people’s minds against him is beyond me.

But everything Chase said about Frank must have been pure projection, since it had nothing to do with Frank’s behavior or character. So we can safely assume that Chase is an egotist who craves attention at the expense of others — something New York City doesn’t need or want in its mayor.

It would have been nice if Frank’s staff and his family had been more supportive, but Frank is every bit the man of integrity he prides himself on being. So he did what he believed was right despite everyone else’s disapproval.

Meanwhile, there was a ton of other more interesting stuff happening for the Reagans.

Blue Bloods built up a mystery about what Anthony had in an envelope pertaining to Erin. The suspense here was so good that the reveal that it was a bumper sticker was a bit of a letdown.

Erin running for Manhattan DA will be a compelling story if she goes through with it, and it would be one way to get rid of Crawford and her nonsense.

But the bumper sticker itself felt somewhat meh compared to the build-up because it seemed like some huge smoking gun type thing.

Not that I expected Erin to have been involved in illegal activity or anything like that, of course. It just felt like a lot of nothing.

Meanwhile, the problems in Jamie and Eddie’s marriage seem to just be starting.

Jamie was right that Eddie sneaking around and lying to him because she was afraid he wouldn’t want her to take the sergeant’s exam was a problem.

He had reason to believe she was having an affair from the way she was acting! And if she can’t talk to him about this important decision in her career, that’s not a good sign.

They already seemed to have bounced back by Sunday dinner, since Eddie was at the table cracking jokes with the rest of the family.  But this issue likely isn’t solved yet, and it shouldn’t be.

This breach of trust and fear of Jamie’s is a deep fissure in their foundation and it’s going to take time to resolve, so it will likely come up again.

Danny’s dilemma was easily the most compelling story of the hour, though.

The case itself wasn’t that interesting — I figured the victim’s brother was going to turn out to be involved in the beatdown from the second he told the cops that Matthew wasn’t talking — but Danny’s frustration and confusion over everyone’s disapproval of his tactics was.

Danny: It’s really hard when I’ve got a 14-year-old in the hospital and I can’t put the sons-of-bitches away that did it cause they got everyone afraid of them.
Baez: I get it, but that doesn’t mean you can crash through every rule like you did in the old days. You gotta be by the book.
Danny: Sometimes by the book doesn’t work, and that really sucks.

Danny’s mistake was in allowing the suspect to call his bluff.

Making the guy think he was going to be mislabeled as a snitch might have intimidated him into talking, but once it was clear that tactic didn’t work, Danny should have switched gears.

After all, the guy ending up in the hospital didn’t do anything to help move the case forward and just got Danny in hot water with everybody.

Danny: Either you snitch or you look like a snitch.
Ozzy: I lose either way.
Danny: That’s why they say crime doesn’t pay.

Danny needed to find a way to get victims to talk, and he resorted to this trick because he couldn’t find it. Maybe he would have found another way eventually, but who knows?

Meanwhile, it took him time to understand that his tactics landed the perp in the hospital, adding to the large number of people who had been beaten up by gang members in that part of town but accomplishing little else.

Danny will have to find new ways of dealing with reluctant witnesses and cocky suspects in the future, as the old ways not only get him in trouble but don’t intimidate perps anymore.

Your turn, Blue Bloods fanatics. What did you think? Hit the big, blue SHOW COMMENTS button and let us know.

Miss the episode? No problem. Just watch Blue Bloods online right here on TV Fanatic.

Blue Bloods airs on CBS on Fridays at 10 PM EST/PST.

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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.

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