‘Boston Blue’ Ending Explained – Breaking Down the Big Last-Minute Twist

Given Boston Blue’s penchant for sappy emotionality, pretty much everyone was expecting a happy ending to Season 1. But given CBS’s need to justify a second season, Episode 20, “Patrol”, has other ideas. Granted, most of this finale is pretty happy, winding its way to multiple positive resolutions in virtually every character arc and subplot, but a very last-minute twist that seems to kill off a major(ish) character just when it looked like Lena could focus on her future throws everything for a loop. It’ll be a long wait for fans until the show’s return.

In the meantime, let’s break down all of the family conflicts, cases of the week, relationship resolutions, and late-stage plot twists so that we’re ready for whatever comes next.

Danny’s On Patrol

As was mentioned earlier in the season, part of Danny’s official transition to Boston is a mandatory patrol shift to prove he’s still got it where it counts, and naturally, he’s teamed up with Sean for the day. And, equally predictably, they don’t get an easy ride, immediately stumbling on a robbery in progress.

Since we know that Danny is a perfectly capable cop, all of the jeopardy in this thread comes from how it pushes the ongoing arcs forward, eventually by force. Of particular note is Danny contemplating his long-distance relationship with Baez, who shows up later in the episode for basically no reason to confirm that they’re going to work on their relationship together.

The other small matter is Lena getting shot in the line of duty. This forces Danny to really reflect on their partnership while she’s in surgery, and it also leads to a big decision for Brian that we’ll get to in a minute.

Jonah and Edwin Team Up

With Mae’s political office in some jeopardy and Jonah’s testimony too full of holes to be compelling, it’s up to Jonah and his grandpa to hit the streets in order to find a witness who can testify. That leads them through the city’s unhoused population and gives them a bit of bonding time (side note: Why hasn’t Boston Blue explored more unconventional character pairings like this before?).

Since this also involves Mae, we may as well touch on her briefly. She’s on the cusp of her relationship with the judge becoming public, but she’s also still beating herself up about her approach to Lena’s birth father. The latter, at least, has some resolution here, but again, more on that in a minute, since it’s more intimately tied to Lena’s arc.

Sarah Stands Up For Phoebe

As was teased in the previous episode, Phoebe’s mother is planning to whisk her away to another country on extremely shaky grounds. Despite it sounding like a terrible idea on paper for a man’s current girlfriend to discuss his daughter with his ex-wife, Sarah nonetheless insists on dealing with this problem, especially since she considers a lot of it to be her fault.

And she’s successful! Granted, she makes a point of putting herself in Phoebe’s shoes and highlighting her own fraught relationship with her mother, whom she still doesn’t speak to, thanks to her actions during a custody dispute when she was a child. Teenage girls, not famous for being reasonable, don’t tend to respond well to having their entire lives uprooted. This seems a fair enough point to me.

Lena Finally Meets Her Birth Father

Getting shot makes Lena feel a little contemplative, and given that the troubles with her parentage have formed one of the season’s major ongoing storylines, it only feels right for the ending of Boston Blue to address it directly. So, Lena finally meets Chris while she’s still laid up in the hospital, and he promises to devote the rest of his life to making amends for not having been there in the first place, regardless of the circumstances. As Lena says, it’s a start.

But Lena also has another problem in this finale, which is also where the big last-minute twist comes from. Brian, with whom she’s working to fight against prison corruption, putting them in the crosshairs of a shady corporation, has been offered a job in the DEA that would see him relocating to Washington, D.C. Lena isn’t keen on the idea of a long-distance relationship and kind of sees it as a break-up, but after she gets shot, Brian resolves to remain in Boston by her side.

However, while the rest of the cast has an obligatory Silver family dinner and he’s out picking up flowers, he’s T-boned by a truck and sent plummeting into the river. His death isn’t confirmed, but it’s difficult to imagine how he might get out of that. And I can’t imagine it’ll do Lena’s personal arc any favours.