‘Boston Blue’ Bosses Explain Danny’s Major Decision in Fall Finale — What Does It Mean for Him & Baez?

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Boston Blue Season 1 Episode 9, “Collateral Damage.”]

We figured that Danny Reagan (Donnie Wahlberg would have to make a decision about staying in Boston ever since he showed up in the Blue Blood spinoff premiere to be with his son Sean (Mika Amonsen), a rookie Boston cop who was badly injured in a fire. But when Superintendent Sarah Silver (Maggie Lawson) says to him as the Boston Blue midseason finale opens, “Having you on loan from NYPD is great,” Danny interjects with, “Why do I feel you are breaking up with me?” She replies, “It’s the opposite. I want to make you official.” And she offers him the Boston Police Department detective badge.

Despite the possibility of losing his long-distance girlfriend, NYPD Det. Maria Baez (Marisa Ramirez), and leaving the force he and his clan had been a part of for four generations, Danny seems to be seriously considering Sarah’s invitation — especially as he begins to create a found family with the Silvers, who include his super competent partner, Sarah’s detective stepsister Lena (Sonequa Martin-Green), Sean’s beat partner (and Sarah’s half-brother) Jonah (Marcus), and Lena and Jonah’s mother and Sarah’s stepmother, the district attorney Mae (Gloria Reuben).

Danny’s decision is cemented at the end of the episode, when a hot-headed Jonah gets himself in deep trouble after he goes off on his own, following and threatening a mobster named Flaherty, who was released from prison on technical reasons, even though he was found guilty of murdering his father, Judge Ben Silver. Found with blood on his shirt near Flaherty’s body, a stunned Jonah will have a tough road ahead, since he wasn’t on official police business and had been seen harassing the perp before the violent incident. Knowing he’s the one that will have to find out what happened and why, Danny finally delivers his choice at the episode’s end: “I guess I’m going to need that Boston badge after all.”

Below, Boston Blue cocreators and showrunners Brandon Margolis and Brandon Sonnier share more about the midseason finale and what’s to come when the show returns on February 27, 2026.

Let’s talk about the final episodes of 2025, starting with Danny’s decision to give up his NYPD shield — he’s been on loan from the department — and take on a BPD badge. What’s behind the decision and how will that affect his life?

Brandon Sonnier: Through the course of the episode, we see Danny struggle with fully removing himself from the NYPD and joining BPD. That’s a huge deal. He has been an NYPD cop his whole career. His family are all NYPD cops; he’s got two commissioners that came before him. So, it’s almost like we needed to orchestrate a family decision that he needed to make. And so we come to the end of this episode and we find Jonah Silver in this particular situation, we know that his family can’t investigate this crime because it involves one of their own.

Michael Gibson/CBS

But in order to take lead on this, as we’ve established, he’s gotta take that badge. We wanted to really drive it from an emotional place, from a family place, more so even than the procedure of it. In the second half of the season, we do back into the procedure of him becoming a full Boston PD cop and walking away from the NYPD. But for this moment, it is an emotional decision that he comes to in order to be there for his found family, to be there for the Silvers.

It’s a cliffhanger. Did Flaherty raise a gun on the rookie cop, Jonah, who was unofficially following him? Was he shot by another party, perhaps by the Irish mob, the Red Saints, to shut him up. There’s blood on Jonah’s shirt, but what happened is not yet clear…

Sonnier: Those are all fantastic questions that Danny is going to have to investigate in the winter premiere. We will return to the crime scene moments where we left at the end of the midseason finale. So those questions are very much at the center of what Episode 10 is going to be about. We’re not, by our nature, a serialized show; the emotional stories carry through, but very rarely do our cases continue over, right? This, in fact, is the only time this season where we do that, and we’re treating it as sort of a two-hour case in that we’re seeing the first half in [Episode] 9, and then in 10, we’ll continue with Danny leading the investigation. So the events that went on in that room that we did not see we will discover, and in doing so, it will inform a lot of bigger questions in terms of the death of Sarah, Lena, and Jonah’s father, Ben Silver. The motives behind that are all going to be thrown into question. So it’s a chance for us to really explore that mystery and give some final answers.

You already had the murdered Judge Silver in the show. Did you always decide to cover that more, even though this killer was put away for the crime?

Sonnier: You know, we always look for the best emotional story to build our seasons around. And we realized as we were getting to know the Silvers in the front half of the season when we’re introduced to them, a lot of it was centered around the recent passing of their father and the grief about that. So we knew that while it wasn’t a story we wanted to tell forever over the course of a series, we did want to give it enough time to really explore it and mine it for the drama and the emotion that came with it, and then move on from there. So we were excited to get to tell that story as our midseason finale and premiere and allow the second half of the season to sort of turn the page and move forward with new emotional stories that aren’t necessarily about Ben or the grief around losing him.

Jonah will be suspended from the force when the show returns for his actions, correct?

Sonnier: Yes. His gun and badge must be taken away, so we will have to deal with the fallout from Jonah’s actions. Unfortunately for Jonah, there are rules to follows and they will be implemented by his big sister Sarah, the superintendent in charge. So it is what we find our show doing at its best, a huge family conflict, but completely wrapped up in police procedure. We determine what Jonah did, to what degree he was wrong, and how to solve the case. It will be a galvanizing event for the Silver family and the Reagans.

Related

When Does ‘Boston Blue’ Return in 2026?

Speaking of Reagans, will Sean be okay? 

Brandon Margolis: I’d like to note that at the last of last episode, Sean was already at the scene of the crime with Jonah when Danny and Lena arrive. So what Sean witnessed ahead of Danny’s getting there will have to be looked into as well.

Will Sean have a temporary partner? Who will that be?

Margolis: Sean will essentially be riding along with his father as Danny leads the investigation!

That should be interesting. How protective will Danny be?

Margolis: You’ll have to wait and see.

Are they going after the Red Saints?

Sonnier: Yes. Danny, as Danny does, throws himself in to the investigation and the perpetrators behind the full extent of what happened in the murder of Ben Silver. As you recall, Sarah and Mae recognized that there is a large play going on around that.

Will Sean’s sort of girlfriend Penny (Xochitl Gomez) return?

Sonnier: Yes, Penny will return. It’s a juicy relationship when your dad doesn’t necessarily approve of who you’re dating.

Penny, of course, was in jail for a bit.

Margolis: Yeah. She’s not exactly someone that the Reagans would welcome. But I’ll say, on Blue Bloods, Eddie [Vanessa Ray] has a criminal father, so they’ve been down this path before. 

Where does the relationship between Danny and Baez stand, especially since he’s staying in Boston? Is it officially over?

Sonnier: I can’t tell you how or where it continues, but no. Relationships take different forms; they are in a relationship.

That’s good. Some fans don’t like them together, of course, but many…

Margolis: We happen to be fans that do like them together, so we’ll continue to tell those stories.

Michael Gibson / CBS

How will Danny adjust to his new reality in Boston? There was a hint that he doesn’t hate it. He actually liked a slice of Boston pizza.

Margolis: There are a great many things that he has to get used to, understand, or reject. Part of what’s fun about this show is that he’s a fish out of water in this city that he had decided to stay in. Just because you stay somewhere doesn’t mean you have to love every aspect of it all the time. I can tell you as a New Yorker who’s lived in Los Angeles for almost 20 years, you never entirely let go of New York, no matter how long you’re anywhere. 

Will there be any more visits from the Blue Bloods cast? Starting with Erin (Bridget Moynahan) and Baez.

Sonnier: We can tell you that Erin will not be the only one, but that’s all we’re allowed to say.

Are any new characters upcoming, perhaps recurring, you can share?

Margolis: There are new characters that will show up.. We will meet more members of the Silver family, and we will see members of the Reagan family we have not yet seen.

That’s something to look forward to.

Margolis: We’re still a fairly new show and so our world is still growing and expanding as we get deeper into the characters’ lives.

Sonnier: We now have a good handle on the characters we’ve introduced — drawing a full picture of who the Silver family is and how the Reagans have integrated into that family. Now that the groundwork has been laid, the second half of this season is just a full-on exciting exploration of how these relationship grow. How does this family adapt to the environment that’s sort of changing around them as the Reagan have come in? The back half of this season has been some of the most exciting television that I’ve ever been a part of.

Boston Blue, Midseason Return, Friday, February 27, 2026, 10/9c, CBS