As the Reagans found out the hard way, the road to hell is paved with Good Intentions.
The Blue Bloods characters have found that out as Erin’s attempts to help her D.A. boss caused trouble, Frank’s efforts nearly got him fired, and Eddie couldn’t stop partner Witten from quitting the force.
This week, more attempts to aid others just caused more problems.
Guess who’s moving in?
Danny and Baez headed out of a courthouse, Baez happy a killer had been convicted, but Danny wasn’t sure of himself. He saw David Shaw (David Quay) handing out flyers to find his missing sister Angie, lost in New York. David’s near-crying concern for his sister was enough to have Danny agree to help him.
At the precinct, Eddie was surprised to find her father, Armin (Michael Cullen), having been released from prison two weeks earlier, in a holding cell for trespassing while finding a spot to sleep. He claimed he’d changed, but she wasn’t sure.
It turned out Armin had left his halfway house as he couldn’t stand being around cons. Realizing he had nowhere else to go, Eddie put her place as his home address.
Anthony was called to the river where Detective Carrie Ewbanks (Tanesha Gary) had found a bag containing a gun which had Anthony moaning he might have “put an innocent girl in prison.”
While Baker warned “he’s hot,” Frank still met Archbishop Kevin Kearns (Stacy Keach), who was upset Father Mike McDougal had been burglarized the previous night. Frank couldn’t help laughing that a priest who spent every day outside demanding to defund the police had immediately dialed 911.
Kearns was not laughing over the call being released to the press and accusing Frank of “embarrassing the church.” Frank didn’t take kindly to that or Kearns asking, “what’s more important: your office or your faith?”
David related how he and Angie had lived with an abusive father and while he got out by getting married, Angie was forced to be with her dad all the way to the end, then left for New York. He’d struck out with the fliers, but Danny promised to help.
Anthony dropped the water-logged gun on Erin’s desk, explaining he’d arrested Jade Jones years earlier for shooting a member of a rival gang. Jade had claimed she was ordered to do it but couldn’t go through with it and tossed the gun, Anthony not believing her then. He now feels guilty that he may have put an innocent person away with Erin agreeing to help.
Kearns was hitting already by canceling any Church-related events with the NYPD. Moore and Sid were backing leaking the call showing McDougal’s hypocrisy but Frank noted that losing Kearns made this a no-win. He sent the guys out but wanted to talk to Baker.
Danny’s good deed blows up in his face
Needless to say, Jamie was not happy to find his ex-con father-in-law using his shower. He was less happy Eddie had done this without even talking to him first, despite her talk it was just temporary. And he really wasn’t happy to learn Armin needed a court appearance.
The pair had a very tense morning meeting with Jamie making it clear he didn’t like Armin both as a crook and what he’d done to Eddie and wanted him out soon. Eddie soon played referee with Armin bringing up the Reagan dinners.
Frank and Sid interrupted a meeting between Kearns and McDougal (Jared Canfield) at church. It soon devolved into an argument with Frank pointing out that “defund the police” had a different meaning with the public than what McDougal wanted while Sid was hot about it too while Kearns felt Frank’s faith superseded being a cop.
Anthony met Jade (Aleca Piper) in prison and while she was wary of trusting him, she was about to go into details when Erin burst in, telling Anthony he couldn’t talk to her in an unsanctioned meeting. Jade begged that she didn’t belong there as she was dragged out, shaking Erin enough to agree to reopen the case.
Danny caught a break to find Angie, posing as “Kim Manning,” trying to get a job. They headed to her place with a horrified Angie (Kate Villanova) breaking it to them that David wasn’t her brother but her ex-fiance.
After her father died of cancer and she lost her job, she called it off, but David wouldn’t accept it and began stalking her, forcing her on the run… and Danny led David right to her to abduct her out the back.
Bittersweet endings abound
Danny was still kicking himself over this at the Reagan dinner. Henry speculated a local priest’s sermon about betrayal was a message from Kearns to Frank. Jamie touched on it too, with Eddie wanting to give her dad another chance and the family amused at the whole thing.
Jamie and Eddie came home to find Armin gone with Jamie showing a spy cam he’d installed revealing a guy had taken him away. Eddie realized it was Barry Trask (Curtis Lyons Jr), a drug dealer from the halfway house Armin had clashed with.
Tracking them to a warehouse, Armin refused to launder Barry’s money, wanting to go straight with Trask snorting, “nobody goes straight. It’s in our blood.” Luckily, Jamie and Eddie showed up, shooting Trask when he fired at them to rescue Armin.
Just as Sid and Moore were about to reveal who had released the 911 tape, Baker detailed she’d discovered the culprit already (and the looks the other two men had were more than a bit suspicious).
However, Frank didn’t want to know because he would have to then punish those responsible and ruin the boost in morale this had given the cops.
Danny and Baez found Angie’s phone at her place, giving them a clue to a park in Tribeca. There, David was proposing to Angie with a ring in one hand and a knife in the other. When he realized Angie was never going to accept, David ran into the street only to be crushed by a van.
Jade was happy when Erin and Anthony showed up, only for them to tell her they knew that she had not only killed that kid years ago but put out a hit on the person who testified against her in court. The source of the info? Jade’s own mother, who flipped on her daughter for a deal on her own charges. Dropping her “scared girl” act, Jade hissed she’d see all three of them dead as guards took her away.
Eddie managed to talk her mother into letting Armin stay with her and he and Jamie shook hands before the couple got back to enjoying having the place to themselves again.
Frank met Kearns at church again for another war of words about faith and who was in the right. Kearns revealed he was transferring McDougal to Buffalo as it turned out he’d never enjoyed McDougal’s anti-police rhetoric either.
“I miss personal responsibility,” Frank sighed with Kearns stating, “I pray we’re just going through a brief drought.”
A unique hour from Eddie’s relationship with her dad to Frank with his priest to show how wanting to do the right thing doesn’t always end with the best results.
Blue Bloods Season 12 airs Fridays at 10/9c on CBS.