Family Secrets – Season 10, Episode 19
This is the episode that changes everything for the Reagan family. During “Family Secrets,” they discover the existence of Joe Hill (Will Hochman), when a DNA match in a database suggests that saintly Joe Reagan may have conceived a child before shuffling off his mortal coil. The brouhaha is set off by Danny’s technology-minded son, Sean (Andrew Terraciano), which is an interesting twist. A little bit of research digs up Joe and his mother, Paula (Bonnie Somerville). Paula admits that she had a child with Joe Senior but that Joe’s police work tore them apart. She has dedicated herself to keeping her son out of the line of fire in the wake of Joe Senior’s death and hopes that the Reagans’ influence will keep newly minted cop Joe Junior out of danger.
This is a universe-shaking revelation for the Reagans; it proves that Joe Senior may have had feet of clay, and it causes everyone to question how well they knew him. It adds a rebellious element to the works in the form of the younger Joe. The episode also includes a fun team-up between Erin and Danny, who don’t always get to shine while working on cases together, and the first stirrings of Eddie’s biological clock have her wondering if she and Jamie ought to form a family of their own. It’s a momentous episode and an important interrogation of “Blue Bloods” history — a history that is better with Joe Hill in it.
My Aim Is True – Season 8, Episode 22
Highly decorated on IMDb, popular among fans, and filled with a certain grim driving conviction as well as a sense of romantic family-centered joy, “My Aim is True” is a heavy slice of procedural that provides an important step in Eddie and Jamie’s relationship, gives Danny a chance to put in some of his best detective work, and offers some of the show’s tensest action scenes. It’s a total package that explains character dynamics and the show’s overarching moral structure better than any other outing the show has embarked upon.
The general plotline follows Danny and Baez’s attempt to unravel a string of murders. Conducting their investigation at a distance, they try to pull the dangling threads of each case until they circle back to the recent release of a set of wrongly convicted prisoners. They must figure out if revenge is the driving motivator or if something else has gone wrong. Meanwhile, Frank tries to deal with the guilt he feels over the prisoners’ long, unjust terms. Elsewhere, Eddie and Jamie find themselves in extreme danger. The near-death experience encourages the couple to finally cement their relationship with an engagement, making Eddie a part of the Reagan clan forever.
“My Aim is True” is another example of “Blue Bloods” combining danger and comfort and familial sweetness and procedural grimness exceedingly well. That arguably makes it the most important episode to watch before Season 14 brings the Reagans’ story to a conclusion.