Blue Bloods Season 7 Episode 17 Review: Shadow of a Doubt
Christine Orlando
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Once again, Jamie Reagan’s career choices were being questioned on Blue Bloods Season 7 Episode 17.
I was surprised that this came up yet again. I think Jamie answered the question thoroughly when Frank brought it up not that long ago.
Not that having his brother bring the subject up was unrealistic. Family can be like that, they don't like to let things drop, but as a viewer the conversation has gotten redundant.
Would Jamie make a good detective? Absolutely, but Jamie would have made a good attorney too and he choose a different road.
As Jamie has said, being in uniform on the street makes him happy. He enjoys a great deal of job satisfaction.
Also, in his defense, how many other beat cops would have pushed for an investigation into that woman’s death?
If Jamie weren’t the officer on the initial call, someone would have gotten away with murder.
Danny: You know, all I heard during the Ranger game was, 'Why won't you help your younger brother, Danny?'
Jamie: Well, she wouldn't interrupt a Ranger's game without a good reason.
Once again, I love that Blue Bloods never forgets who its characters are. Danny and Jamie act like real brothers. They argue. They make fun of one another, and they root for the family team.
Elsewhere, Erin faced a dilemma about testifying against an innocent man she’d helped put in a mental hospital ten years earlier.
Yours isn't the only opinion in this world, Erin. The hospitals make these judgement calls for a reason and we back them up, for a reason.
Monica
I could see both sides of this case. On the one hand, the doctors believed Matt Kindler was part of the 1% of schizophrenics who are dangerous.
On the other hand, did the doctor’s see him that way because of his rage over being unjustly incarcerated, and that they incorrectly believed he had committed murder?
Anthony was right, in that Kindler’s conviction was not Erin’s fault. She prosecuted the case with the best information she had at the time, but I understood her feelings of guilt as well as Kindler’s anger.
In the end, Erin made the right decision, although I’ll admit that allowing Kindler to walk free was a huge risk. Hopefully he continues with his medication and treatment for his illness.
I had little doubt that Kindler would find Erin once he was released, and I was relieved to see how quickly she took out her gun.
He could have just sent those journals to her office instead of accosting her on the street. That scenario can be scary to any woman walking alone at night, only this time instead of a stranger it was a mentally ill man who had already threatened her.
Yikes!
Finally we get to Frank and Garrett.
I really felt for Garrett in this situation because it wasn’t necessarily that he’d done anything wrong, but it could be made to look like he had.
Ethics and accountability are a huge issue, especially for police, but to what degree do they apply to communication and PR. A large portion of Garrett’s job is obtaining information, getting ahead of issues, and spinning them to help the NYPD.
One of the best scenes was he and Sid reading the article and Sid asking if Billy Joel was a nice guy, because that is the kind of question you’d ask a friend in Garrett’s position.
Also, the look Sid shoots Garrett when Frank asked him to leave the room was hilarious.
I thought that Frank came down really hard on Garrett, but I suppose that it was no harder than he would have come down on himself.
In fact, it lead to one of my favorite Blue Bloods quotes of the night…
Garrett: I made my mea culpa like you would have.
Frank: How so?
Garrett: Like I was scraping out my eyes with a rusty fork, so thanks for the years of leading by example.
That’s what’s so great about Garrett. He can say things like that to Frank and Frank more or less takes it because he knows it’s true.
So TV Fanatics, was Frank right to drop the hammer on Garrett?
Did Erin do the right thing by helping set Kindler free?
And is Jamie really happy being a beat cop?
Check back after the NCAA Basketball Championships for our next Blue Bloods review, and if you want more right now, you can always watch Blue Bloods online here at TV Fanatic.
C. Orlando was a TV Fanatic Staff Writer. Follow her on Twitter.
