Critic’s Rating: 4.2 / 5.0
4.2
I have to admit, I struggled with Boston Blue Season 1 Episode 16.
It’s not that it wasn’t well done — it was, and as an added bonus, Sean and Jonah were pulled off their original silly story to help with the crisis.
Still, I feel like every medical and cop drama has had a desperate patient take innocent people hostage to force a transplant or other treatment. It was hard to focus on this episode of Boston Blue when the trope had been used so many times before.
(Ian Watson/CBS)
Yellowstone’s Jefferson White Did Great Work, But Still
I always enjoy it when actors I associate with one character or franchise appear somewhere else, and the hostage-taker on Boston Blue was one of Jefferson White’s most intense recent roles.
I just wish the story had been a little more original. The first hospital hostage storyline I remember took place on Chicago Hope in 1996, and it has been repeated in many shows since, each time less interesting than the last.
In this case, the hostage-taker was trying to get help for a very ill daughter, which is a situation I think played out on Watson recently as well.
These types of stories often feel manipulative, as if we are supposed to empathize and root for the criminal who is endangering innocent lives because they had a good reason to be desperate.
(Ian Watson/CBS)
I think these types of stories are popular because the American health care system is so broken that many people feel as if the only way to get treatment is to somehow force someone to give it, and enjoy the fantasy of someone doing just that.
The good news, though, is that if we had to have yet another hostage situation in a hospital, at least the one on Boston Blue Season 1 Episode 16 was done well.
Danny and Lena made a genuine effort to negotiate with the hostage taker. Those situations are always more tense and interesting than those that focus on getting snipers in place and finding a way to take out the bad guy without hurting innocent people.
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Danny was especially good at making headway because of their shared status as veterans and fathers.
His character has come a long way since the early days of Blue Bloods, where he was the type of cop who shot first and sorted out the details of the crime later.
(Ian Watson/CBS)
An Unnecessary Murder Robbed Focus And Raised The Stakes Artifically
Throughout the first half of Boston Blue Season 2 Episode 16, Greg kept saying that he’d only release hostages when the hospital worker who had denied his daughter her transplant came to talk to him, so the twist that she was dead made everything more intense.
I wasn’t fond of this twist. I guess it was inevitable, given the type of story Boston Blue wanted to tell, but it still didn’t sit right with me.
The problem was, the cops’ energy was split between getting Greg to stand down and finding out who killed the person who could have put a stop to the whole thing.
They were separate cases, which kept the hostage storyline from being the only story on-screen, yet they really weren’t.
(Ian Watson/CBS)
Greg couldn’t get what he wanted and threatened to blow up everybody because of it, which is a good explanation for why police shouldn’t give in to hostage takers or other terrorists.
Incidentally, it was annoying that carrying out his threat would mean killing. his daughter, too, as that seemed to defeat the whole purpose of his violence.
The solution to the murder mystery disturbed me, and I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.
Did you like the twist that Mabel was dead?
Let us know in the comments. Don’t forget to share this article with your friends.
On the one hand, the idea that someone would use money, pressure, and finally violence to make sure the person they wanted to get the liver skipped the line made a point about how broken and corrupt the organ transplant system can be.
It was especially uncomfortable to realize that the culprit didn’t see what the big deal was and didn’t think bribery and murder were any different than leveraging connections in a normal, non-criminal context.
(Ian Watson/CBS)
However, I felt like this twist came dangerously close to absolving Greg of all wrongdoing.
None of the people he held hostage had anything to do with his daughter’s situation, and they likely are all traumatized by the experience. That should never be okay, no matter how desperate someone is to get help for their loved one.
Worse still, Greg almost detonated the bomb because his daughter coded on the table, nearly killing everyone because of a temporary complication during surgery. That shouldn’t be forgivable.
Sophia deserved to have that surgery because she was sicker than the other donor, but the idea of the doctors doing it under threat of violence didn’t sit right with me, especially given Greg’s behavior during the procedure.
Meanwhile, Lena’s Connection With an Ex Didn’t Add Much
(Ian Watson/CBS)
Lena ran into a doctor she used to date, who had cheated on her at the time, while her current boyfriend teased her about keeping him up all night because of her nighttime routine.
The reveal wasn’t exciting enough to support this guy coming back, at least not in my mind. I’d rather move forward with Lena’s search for her birth father — you know there’s some juicy drama there.
Am I the only one who doesn’t like the hospital hostage situation trope? What about the Lena storyline — did you enjoy it?
Let us know in the comments, and don’t forget to share this article with your friends so they can join the conversation.
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If you enjoyed this article, check out our coverage of the rest of CBS’ Friday night lineup. We cover both Fire Country and Sheriff’s Country.
Boston Blue airs on CBS on Fridays at 10/9c and streams on Paramount+ on Saturdays.
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