Blue Bloods may have ended with a character getting killed, but the Reagans were safe, and EP Kevin Wade is explaining why. The Reagan family went through the wringer throughout all 14 seasons and on Death’s door on numerous occasions, but most of them still made it out well. That’s aside from Joe Reagan, who died prior to the start of the series, and Danny’s wife Linda, who died in between Seasons 7 and 8 off-screen. But the main Reagans are still alive and kicking.
Wade admitted to Deadline the reason he didn’t kill off any of the Reagans was because he “thought the audience would have hated it,” and he’s not wrong. “It’s a Friday night at 10 o’clock entertainment, and the people who watch it out between New York and Los Angeles, which is most of the audience, I don’t think they wanted a dead Henry or a dead Frank,” he explained.
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“We wanted to have a big event that had all of them together in an emotional context,” Wade continued. “And in the pilot, it was Jamie graduating the police academy, and everyone gathered in Madison Square Garden. We couldn’t really do that again. You know, one of the other things about doing this show, and where I felt it kind of lived, was that every victory had to come with a personal loss or defeat. So for all of them to have to attend the funeral of Eddie’s partner gave us that dimension, so it was engineered that way, but not killing off a Reagan – because I thought the audience would have gone: ‘Thanks a lot.’”
Killing off a Reagan after all they’ve been through would have definitely been harsh, especially since it was previously revealed that it would be a “satisfying” series finale. Luckily at the end of the episode, everyone was happy and healthy, and Jamie and Eddie even revealed they were expecting while Erin and Jack kept their second marriage a second, at least for now. With a show like Blue Bloods, character fates are always unpredictable and no one is safe, so it’s rare for almost all of the main characters to still be around by the time the final episode fades to black. And luckily, Henry, Frank, Danny, Erin, Jamie, Eddie, Jack, Sean, and Nicky made it alive and the theories are endless as to what happens next.