Summary
Boston Blue continues to raise the Season 2 stakes with a few genuinely unexpected swerves, largely wiping the slate clean for the remaining episodes to move into new territory.
Boston Blue clearly isn’t pulling any punches in Season 2. We’ve got biker gangs, full-on shootouts, a resolution in the “who killed Brian?” subplot that leads to a bit of relationship friction, and a potential stalker getting close to Danny and Maria. And it’s only Episode 2! “Ripple Effect” is clearly intended to raise the stakes, even though it’s also designed to create a bit of closure in certain areas, so the premiere feeling like it was upping the levels obviously wasn’t a one-off.
The stalker thing could be nothing. The episode actually starts by introducing it, with Danny spending time in the park with Maria and Elena, where they spot an elderly lady taking photographs of them. She identifies herself as Elena’s biological grandmother, and by the end of the episode, it turns out she is. Maria thinks Elena has a right to know where she came from, and having a biological relative in her life will help with that. But this is assuming the whole thing is above board, and I can’t say I’m convinced yet.
But we have bigger fish to fry in the meantime. Brian still isn’t allowed to work, which is creating friction between him and Lena, and that, in turn, is creating friction between Lena and Sarah, a situation made all the more complicated by the fact that Thad is accusing Lena of police brutality to derail Mae’s political campaign. So, there’s definitely trouble in paradise with the Silver clan, especially since the big lead in Brian’s case takes Lena once again to her biological father, Chris.
We also have a new character, Bet Ryan, who’s a take-no-prisoners sergeant suddenly in charge of the uniformed officers. She immediately singles out Sean, in a way that I personally took to be slightly flirtatious, a theory that is only validated later. However, it’s admittedly difficult to tell. Sean and Jonah have a subplot this week, one about a guy refusing to pay a sex worker, but they handle it particularly badly, mostly in a way designed to land them in trouble with Bet. At this point, I genuinely can’t tell if Bet is being set up as a genuine adversary, an unconventional love interest, or perhaps a mixture of the two.
Naturally, the bulk of Boston Blue Season 2, Episode 2 concerns Lena and Danny’s efforts to track down Brian’s attacker through a biker gang known as Cain’s Disciples, which is local to Chief Williams, making the whole thing a joint operation that forces Lena to work through some of her daddy issues as well as just her relationship ones. Chris feels a degree of personal responsibility for what happened, so he’s trying even harder to win Lena over than usual, but she doesn’t blame him. In fact, this is probably the most relationship development they’ve had, and they seem much closer by the end of it than they did before. They’re on first-name terms, Lena realises that Chris has been boasting about her around the department, and Chris gets to see how capably Lena can interrogate a suspect. Both are pretty impressed.
A couple of the turns in this case genuinely surprised me. For one thing, it reveals pretty concretely who went after Brian – the gang’s gopher, who tries to cut a deal. However, since the gang is now dealing meth, the Feds swoop in and take over, so I’m guessing this will be off Danny and Lena’s plate going forward. It might not be the kind of justice Brian was hoping for, but it’ll do when it comes to bringing the storyline to an end.
The more surprising thing, though, is that it devolves into a full-on pitched shootout, which isn’t the kind of thing you see every week in a procedural cop show. It has – dare I say it? – a bit of a finale feeling to it, with Sarah and the rest of the department rushing to provide backup just as it looks like Lena and Danny have been cornered. It’s a really big swing for such an early episode to take, and it also allowed the show to shortcut Lena and Sarah’s reconciliation so they both get back on the same page.
Brian still isn’t satisfied, though, and in an incredibly sulky gesture – he had a panic attack in the elevator, for crying out loud! – he decides to take the DEA job after all, which means moving to Washington, DC. Despite the fact that he thinks not working in the same department as Lena and her sister will be better for their relationship, Lena isn’t having that, and their goodbye feels pretty permanent. I can’t say I’m devastated about this, since I never really bought Brian as a character or cared much about his relationship with Lena, but it’s another move that I didn’t expect “Ripple Effect” to make.
Now, then, I’m assuming we’ll see a few cases of the week to let things settle, while we potentially deal with the matter of Elena’s grandmother and Sean’s evolving relationship with Bet. Mae even seems to have put the political mess to bed, so that’s almost everything that was ongoing suddenly wrapped up. The next few episodes will be the real test, but for the time being, Boston Blue seems to be making the most of its new episodes.