Summary
Boston Blue reaches a dramatic high point in “Collateral Damage”, a midseason finale arriving at the worst time, now that the show is hitting its stride.
It took all season for Boston Blue to get good, only for it to reach its dramatic high point just in time for the midseason finale. Episode 9, “Collateral Damage”, is the last we’ll see of Danny and Lena for a couple of months, and it’s a weird place to leave it, both because nine isn’t the natural halfway point of a twenty-episode season order and because, for just about the first time, I’m genuinely interested to see what happens next.
The tone is changing, of that there can be no doubt. Even the family dinners are testy this week. All that happy-clappy nonsense is falling by the wayside as things continue to go increasingly badly for everyone, which is obviously a good thing. The subplots are beginning to knit together as well, which also helps.
For instance, the whole business with the corrupt ADA, resulting in all of his prior convictions being thrown out, including the murderer of Mae’s husband, sends Jonah on a downward spiral that affects his relationships with both Sarah and Sean. Both are trying to keep him from making an incredibly detrimental error in seeking revenge for himself, and it’s his complete refusal to listen that leaves us with our big cliffhanger.
You can argue pretty credibly that Jonah’s irritating in this episode, but I think it does a fairly decent job of articulating his headspace. He and Sean are both intended to be rash and impulsive – Sean shows a bit more maturity here, but his dating a felon, who shows up again here, has the same sort of whiff of youth about it – and highlight how their much more buttoned-up parents and siblings have honed their demeanour through long careers in law enforcement.
Boston Blue Episode 9 is clever not to reveal the details of the shooting that ends the episode. It’s very much staged to look like Jonah is guilty of shooting Ronan Flaherty dead, but I doubt that’s really what happened, since in spite of its recent tendency to make things difficult for its characters, I still doubt it’d commit to having them murder people in cold blood. I suspect either someone else shot Ronan, or Jonah shot him in very justifiable self-defence. We’ll have to wait and see.
It’s once again Edwin who comes in clutch with genuine emotional sentiment, much like how he did in the previous episode. There’s a lot of sincerity in his scene with Jonah as he tries to talk him through his grief and the anger he’s feeling about the circumstances of Ronan’s release, which makes it all the more galling when Jonah ignores the advice.
I’m a lot less compelled by Danny’s “predicament” of whether he’s going to accept a full-time position in the Boston PD, which has been offered to him. This show’s already looking at two seasons, and we haven’t even finished the first yet, so it stands to reason he’s going to remain in Boston. Sure, he doesn’t like the paperwork of officialdom, and he has Baez and his family back in New York, but we’ve already implied that relationship isn’t going to work, and, let’s be clear, the show doesn’t work without Danny, does it?
I just like that there are consequences elsewhere. The answers aren’t easy to arrive at. This is exactly what Boston Blue was missing in the early portion of its run, so I’m pleased to report it’s the area where it’s really excelling now, and that determination to include every character in every episode, even when it felt scattershot and detrimental, is paying off now that the personal subplots and conflicts are starting to knit together.
Ultimately, Episode 9 leaves plenty on the table for Boston Blue to address when it returns in February, which is all you can really ask of a midseason finale. Hopefully, it comes back in the same form.
