Boston Blue Season 1 Episode 18 Puts Lena Into the Middle of A Deliciously Messy Family Drama While Jonah Deals With Institutional Racism

Critic’s Rating: 4.5 / 5.0

4.5

Lena’s situation is getting messier and messier, and I love it.

Boston Blue Season 1 Episode 18 forced her to struggle with her feelings about her biological family and the secrets kept from her while trying to protect a college basketball star from a stalker — but things got messier, and now she’s reached the point of no return.

Meanwhile, instead of the usual nonsense, Jonah had to deal with the fallout of arresting a Black kid who turned out to be innocent and his own questions about what that meant. Well done, Boston Blue!

Lena Opened a Door She Can’t Close — And Now She Has To Decide How To Manage The Fallout

Boston Blue Season 1 Episode 18 opened with Lena struggling silently with the fallout of learning she had a sister, only for things to get worse by the end of the hour.

At first, she had to learn to open up to someone, if only so that she didn’t explode while trying to deal with the victim of a murderous stalker.

I loved Danny’s advice. He was right that suppressing feelings to be professional doesn’t work; it just ensures you’ll lose control at the absolute worst time.

Danny’s wisdom was hard-won. He has too often been the guy whose emotions get the better of him, and when Blue Bloods first started, he was the one Reagan who was in serious risk of ending up in trouble for inappropriate police conduct.

It wasn’t surprising that Lena told him what was going on, since he was the only person who knew the right way to push her to talk.

Unfortunately, that set Danny up to be in the center of an unnecessary conflict between Lena and her boyfriend.

Cop shows love the trope of a cop who is more emotionally intimate with their work partner than with their romantic partner. Sometimes it leads to actual romance between work partners, but let’s hope it doesn’t go there this time.

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Whenever there’s a male-female cop partnership that is emotionally honest and open, fans tend to expect that the two cops will eventually become a couple, but it’s more interesting if they stay supportive friends.

That’s especially true for Danny and Lena. Danny and Baez just broke up, but are likely to remain in each other’s lives to some degree (and possibly even get back together!), and Lena seems happy with her boyfriend.

It wouldn’t make any sense for Danny and Lena to get together romantically.

Besides, Lena isn’t thinking clearly right now. Her childhood pain over not knowing her biological father has been reactivated, and she’s reeling from learning she has a biological half-sister.

Her feelings about that aren’t entirely logical, either. Lena interprets Kristina’s existence as proof that her father wanted Kristina and even gave her his own name, but didn’t want her.

It remains to be seen whether that’s true or merely Lena’s belief, which has hurt her throughout her life. Mae and Chris’ conversation suggested that Chris didn’t even know that Lena existed at first, and then Mae barred him from seeing her.

Still, Boston Blue Season 1 Episode 18 is building up one hell of a painful family drama shortly before the finale.

Asher’s decision to tell Kristina about her sister’s existence means there is no way out for Lena now.

She can’t simply go back to her regular life and pretend that she doesn’t have a biological father or a half-sister. Kristina is going to learn about her existence whether Lena wants her to or not.

That makes Lena incredibly uncomfortable, and I love it. Uncomfortable characters make interesting decisions under pressure, and I can’t wait to find out what Lena does.

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This type of secret is somewhat soap opera-like for a police and family drama, but I’m okay with that.

It’s not much more outlandish than the discovery that Joe Hill was related to the Reagans, though this time it is from the perspective of the biological child, which means it delves more deeply into Lena’s trauma than Blue Bloods did with Joe Hill.

For The First Time, Jonah’s Case Was The Most Interesting

I wasn’t all that interested in this stalking case that Danny and Lena were pursuing. I figured the father had something to do with it the first time he showed up on screen and was waiting to find out what.

I still don’t quite understand why he killed the coach, and the whole Chinese mob thing seemed like it came out of nowhere.

Jonah, on the other hand, had to confront his potential implicit biases despite being a member of the same community he thought he had disparaged.

I had hoped since Boston Blue began that it would explore the nuances of being a Black family in law enforcement, and Jonah’s story did not disappoint.

Despite the opinions of the people who shouted at him when he arrested the kid, he did have probable cause — the stolen merchandise was in his backpack, and he ran from the cops. But that didn’t mean Jonah didn’t feel weird about arresting a Black kid. who turned out to be innocent, especially when the mother accused him of bias.

I especially enjoyed Jonah’s conversation with his grandfather about this issue — how about you?

Let us know in the comments what you thought about that or anything else on Boston Blue Season 2 Episode 18.

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Boston Blue airs on CBS on Fridays at 10/9c and streams on Paramount+ on Saturdays.

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