'Blue Bloods' Finale: Donnie Wahlberg Fought for Danny and Baez

SPOILER ALERT: This post contains spoilers from “End of Tour,” the Dec. 13 series finale of “Blue Bloods.”

After 14 seasons and 293 episodes, CBS’ “Blue Bloods” officially came to an end on Friday night, airing its final episode.

The last hour didn’t go out with a bang; in fact, it felt a bit like the normal episodes that fans have grown to love for the last decade and a half — with a few big moments. The Reagan family was forced to deal with an attack on the city and on police in particular. Both Eddie (Vanessa Ray) and Mayor Chase (Dylan Walsh) were shot but survived; Eddie’s partner, Luis Badillo (Ian Quinlan), however, did not, being shot during a call with her, leaving the Reagan family devastated.

Luckily, the finale ended with a few big, happy moments for the members of the Reagan family. Erin (Bridget Moynahan) decided to quietly remarry her ex-husband (Peter Hermann). Moments before she was planning to share the news with the family, Eddie and Jamie (Will Estes) announced they were expecting their first child.

Meanwhile, Danny (Donnie Wahlberg) dipped his toe back into the dating world for the first time, after advice from Grandpa (Len Cariou), asking his partner Baez (Marisa Ramirez) out for pizza. Of course, some longtime viewers — myself included — were curious if the show would bring back his former partner Jackie (Jennifer Esposito) for a romance between them.

Wahlberg tells Variety that that possibility “might have been considered,” but he wasn’t part of that conversation.

“It was important to [producer] Kevin Wade to not have every partnership turn into a relationship. And I respected that, and I agreed with it. I think it was just probably important for me personally that Danny grows,” said Wahlberg. “As the audience started sort of clamoring for a relationship with Danny and Baez, I thought, it’s more important for them to grow and for her to start making an impact on him, and him to really respect her in a way that he hasn’t always respected certain people in the show.”

He felt it was very important that the audience know how much love — “not even as a couple, just as human beings” — there was between the two characters.

“I think that was a lot of me really pushing. I pushed a lot for some closure with that. I went to [writer] Siobhan O’Connor, and I was like, ‘Listen, you’ve got to do something. They don’t need to go get married, but something would be nice, just to show that there may be a future for them, or that their relationship has really evolved,'” he explained.

O’Connor came up with the scene between Danny and his grandfather and wanted to surprise the actor with it. “I did the scene with Len, and it was just gold. You understand he’s taking Grandpa’s advice. And I thought it was done magically,” he recalled. “I thought it was done with respect to the show. It wasn’t ‘Let’s tie this up with a nice bow.’ It’s just a little nod to what could happen in the future for them.”

Tom Selleck, who plays Commissioner Frank Reagan and serves as an executive producer on the series, “wasn’t part of any of the discussions about the finale” storylines, and was surprised by everything that unfolded.

“Somewhere along the line, I came to welcome [the surprises] because Frank doesn’t know what’s coming to him,” he told Variety.

Over the course of the final season, many wondered if Frank would retire from his role as commissioner. When asked whether or not Selleck is happy he didn’t, the actor was stumped.

“I don’t know. I was never confronted with it. I think there’s a story there. I know that he hated the job. He hated the responsibility, the weight on the shoulders. He didn’t want it. He didn’t audition for it when it originally came up. So, it would have been interesting,” said Selleck. “He couldn’t quit. I think he would have to get himself fired. One thing he was blessed or cursed with was this hyperactive sense of responsibility that he tried to implant on everybody at that dinner table.”

Wahlberg says that Frank’s feelings about his job added to the family dynamic through the years.

“It’s just so important that the patriarch of the family hates the job, but has the integrity and sense of responsibility to do it to the best of his ability at all times,” he says. “And all of his kids have different feelings about it.”