Entertainment
‘Blue Bloods’ Showrunner Explains Why Frank Reagan Didn’t Have a Love Interest in Series Finale
There was one story line that was noticeably missing in the final episodes of Blue Bloods season 14 — a love interest for Frank Reagan.
Blue Bloods showrunner Kevin Wade explained why Frank did not have a woman in his life by the show’s end.
“We didn’t discuss it much,” he told TV Insider in an interview published on December 14. “The bar would be pretty high to be able to make a good Frank Reagan police commissioner story out of him dating. We tried it a couple of times with some success, but it wasn’t an area we visited a lot.”
“He didn’t have a romance with Detective Baker [Abigail Hawk], but if this was a 1940s comedy with Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy or Cary Grant, Baker would be Gal Friday,” Wade continued.
Luckily, Frank was supported by his comrades at work, Abigail Baker, Lieutenant Sid Gormley and DCPI Garrett Moore, to help guide him through the toughest of challenges throughout the seasons.
“We called them the Dream Team — but they were anything but … But they were a wonderful work family for him,” Wade said. “So we didn’t give him a wife or a girlfriend but we gave him a blood family and a work family.”
For Hawk, 42, working with Selleck was a memorable experience. She recalled meeting him on the show’s set and the early years of working with him.
“I would go up to the PA and be like, ‘If I wanna go talk to him, am I allowed to, like, approach him or should I just not?’ They were like, ‘I don’t know, it’s my first day too lady, like, why are you looking at me?’” the Almost Paris actress said in an interview with Us Weekly on December 9. “And of course, he ended up coming to me and saying, ‘Hey, you know, we’re doing this thing. Let’s figure out some, some context.’ He just put me at ease right away.”
Selleck also opened up about his bond with his mother when he was in the process of writing his memoir, You Never Know.
“I love that he would tell us his struggles through that [process] and show us the pictures that were going in the book. We got to see those before anybody else did,” Hawk explained. “He would tell us the stories behind all of them and how he worshiped his mother.”
“I just think for somebody who is the literal embodiment of, like, the Marlboro Man [a.k.a. the smoking cowboy] and the Brawny Man [which was a lumberjack figure], and [a] mustached icon that so many of us are like, ‘That’s a man.’ He loved his mom, you know?” she shared. “I just feel like getting to see those little snapshots of the man behind the legend is what I treasure the most about him.”
Wade’s comment came after Selleck wrote an alternate ending for his character.
“I thought about that. I didn’t really have input in where the show was going for a final episode. I think in my alternate ending, the result on the audience would be that Frank Reagan remains a man alone, who never wanted the job he had, that has a hyperactive sense of responsibility, and I think he’d be commissioner till he drops,” he told Entertainment Weekly on December 12.
