‘Blue Bloods’ Season 12: Will Frank Retire? Which Guest Stars Are Returning?

Ileane Rudolph September 24, 2021, 9:30 am

Tom Selleck as Frank Reagan, Dylan Walsh as Mayor Peter Chase in Blue Bloods — John Paul Filo/CBS

Say it ain’t so! Seems like New York City police commissioner Frank Reagan (Tom Selleck) is considering retirement—again. According to Blue Bloods showrunner Kevin Wade, Season 12’s opening episodes “frame Frank as a guy who’s seen it all, done it all and [questions] does he really want to anymore.”

In the real world, Wade says, “it was very clear this year that if you were a cop in New York, it must be incredibly frustrating, because there is rampant street crime. For all the Reagans, [what] they signed up for—to protect and serve the public and carry out the law—feels out of reach.”

It doesn’t help Frank’s mood that Mayor Peter Chase (Dylan Walsh) needs the city to appear safe to boost tourism back to pre-pandemic levels. “He’s kind of like the mayor in Jaws,” Wade jokes about the movie character who ignored the great white shark gobbling up beachgoers.

Det. Danny Reagan (Donnie Wahlberg) is so unnerved by the city’s many unsolved street shootings that he pockets the sock of a toddler killed by crossfire to show to medium Maggie (Callie Thorne). Whether or not she can discern who the murderer is, she can definitely discern how lonely the widower is. “She [asks], ‘When’s the last time you went out with a woman, not to seduce her but for companionship?’ And it strikes him—the clarity with which she sees him,” Wade says. “Without spoiling the [scene’s] end, her words affect him. He wakes up a bit.”

'Blue Bloods': Frank & Mayor Chase Face Off in the Season 12 Premiere (PHOTOS)

On a lighter note, October brings another Halloween-set installment, and this spring marks the 250th episode and, by extension, the 250th Reagan clan Sunday dinner. We don’t know who’s on that guest list, but a couple of past invitees—Frank’s recently discovered grandson Joe Hill (Will Hochman) and the PC’s former partner Lenny (Treat Williams)—return this season, as do Archbishop Kevin Kearns (Stacy Keach) and Texas Ranger Waylon Gates (singer Lyle Lovett). May we please see Danny in a cowboy hat again?

Blue Bloods, Season 12 Premiere, Friday, October 1, 10/9c, CBS

This is an excerpt from TV Guide Magazine’s 2021 Returning Favorites issue. For more inside scoop on the new fall TV season, pick up the issue, on newsstands now.