‘Boston Blue’ Bosses Tease Jamie Reagan’s Return, Danny & Baez, and Silver Secrets in Season 2

Boston Blue Season 2 is making all of its characters ask who they want to be, and it will blur the line between the personal and professional lives of the Reagan and Silver law enforcement families more than ever before. The Silvers have always drawn a clear line between home and work lives because of their families ties to so many facets of Boston law enforcement, but the domino effect from the attack on Detective Brian Rodgers will make that hard to do.

Premiering Friday, October 9, on CBS, Boston Blue Season 2 will kick off with a time jump of a couple of months. Detective Lena Silver (Sonequa Martin-Green) is healed from the gunshot wound she incurred in the Season 1 finale, and it’s her first day back on the job. She’ll get a new lead on the attack on Rodgers, her romantic partner, that will start a storyline that’s threaded through the entire second season.

Lena’s personal life bleeding into her work life will put her on edge and cause her to act impulsively. But she has a work partner who was known to go a little rogue with his work at the NYPD in Blue Bloods. Detective Danny Reagan (Donnie Wahlberg), on the precipice of a potential career-changing promotion, will be uniquely equipped to help Lena navigate this phase of her life. Meanwhile, Danny’s personal life is entering a new phase as he and his NYPD partner-turned romantic partner, Detective Maria Baez (Marisa Ramirez, still a recurring guest star), move in together, bringing Baez’s young daughter, Elena (twin sisters Eleanor and Penelope Yataco), to Boston.

Mae Silver’s (Gloria Reuben) reelection campaign against Thad Longfellow (Ward Horton) is on the horizon and Reverend Peters (Ernie Hudson) is helping her prepare. Sean Reagan (Mika Amonsen) and Jonah Silver (Marcus Scribner) are in their second years on the force, deciding what kind of cops they want to be. Plus, Sarah Silver’s (Maggie Lawson) estranged biological mother, Gwen Silver, will be introduced (played by CSI: Vegas star Marg Helgenberger), and Lena’s biological father, Chris Williams (Erik King), and half-sister, Kristina (Alisha Wainwright), will return, stirring up more family drama.

Here, the creators of Boston Blue, Brandon Sonnier and Brandon Margolis, tease what to expect in Season 2, including the upcoming Blue Bloods cameos from Len Cariou (in Episode 1) and Will Estes (Episode 5).

You have Will Estes joining Season 2. What can you share about which episode he’ll be in and if it will be a recurring appearance?

Brandon Margolis: He’s appearing in Episode 5 this season, which is very exciting. As of now, this is a one-off story with Jamie, but we were just so thrilled because Will is someone who we’ve long admired and wanted to work with, and we were trying to figure out what’s the right story to tell. So we were thrilled he was willing to come play with us and we got a chance to revisit Jamie’s character and check in with where he’s been since our show started.

We always consider ourselves a part of the Blue Bloods universe. And as such, those characters who are still in New York have their lives and they’ve been living them and they’ve gone places. And so these are always fun ways to check in and see how they’ve grown and what they’re going through. And then obviously to get him to see how his brother, Big Brother Danny, has changed and what’s going on in Danny’s life was just a lot of fun. And Will’s just such a cool dude and a really professional, lovely human. So, it was really fun to get to know him.

Will it be a full episode thing? He goes on a bit of an adventure like we saw with Erin Reagan in Season 1?

Brandon Sonnier: He visits his brother in Boston and as we are wont to do, we put him in some shenanigans.

What can you say about any other Blue Blood stars who will be back? I know we’ll have Marisa Ramirez. Is Bridget Moynahan going to come back? Will Hochman?

Margolis: We can confirm Baez will be back. We can confirm we will get to see Grandpa Reagan [Cariou] again, and then obviously there’s Jamie. We are always in creative mode of trying to figure out ways that we can get other characters back into our world, whether those be old friends, family, or foes. That’s certainly on the table for us. So, we’re exploring all of that, but beyond those names that we’ve listed, we cannot confirm anybody. We can only tell you the confirms. Yes, there will be more, but those are the ones that we can guarantee.

How quickly will the finale cliffhanger be addressed once the season picks up?

Margolis: There is a time jump between episodes, obviously weather dictated a lot of that. So we will be picking up almost in real time, but we will be dealing with the events of the cliffhanger immediately. We don’t want to leave those questions hanging for too long. So there will be resolution within the first episode as to what happened to Rodgers, who was behind it, what it was about, and what it might lead to.

Sonnier: You said in real time, just to be clear with the actual passing of our current time, we’ve been off the air for a certain number of months. We will span those months of recovery. We last saw Lena in a wheelchair. We will span those months and come back to a slight time jump that we then fill in where everyone has been for the last few months while we’ve been off the air.

How is their partnership going to be challenged this season?

Sonnier: When we last saw Danny, he was considering taking a promotion. We’d like to hue as close to real police procedure as we can. And so in the real world, what that means is there is a difference in the relationship now in that partnership. If Danny does take a promotion, it does mean that his partnership with Lena will be inherently different and changed. How do they navigate that? How do they maintain the fantastic chemistry, the fantastic back and forth that they had when there is this shift in the dynamics of what their partnership is? [That’s] a big part of the story that we’re telling this season.

So, would that technically make Danny Lena’s superior?

Sonnier: Technically.

How will that go when she’s been at that precinct longer than he has, even though he’s older than her and has been in the line of work in general for longer?

Sonnier: These are all of the fun things we get to see them navigate.

What can you say about the status of Mae’s election in the second season?

Margolis: The election is going to be a story that carries throughout the season, dealing with Thad Longfellow, our favorite antagonist. His presence is felt immediately in the premiere as a reminder of what’s coming. And while we won’t be actually airing our election during the real election this year, because that’s only four episodes into our run, it is a story that will bear fruit throughout the season as Thad is willing to get down in the dirt and poke and prod and try to expose secrets that might’ve been better left alone in order to win the election.

Circling back really quick to the conspiracy about Rodgers, will that storyline, whoever was behind that attack, be threaded throughout the season? Or is that something addressed and then will you move forward?

Sonnier: We give very concrete answers in the first episode to what happened, why it happened, how it happened, but those answers do hook into what will drive the rest of the season.

You did a lot of exposition in Season 1. How are things being leveled up now?

Sonnier: What’s great about a Season 2 is we’re through the setup. We got to meet the family. We got a real understanding of who they are, how they operate, what they value. And now that we’re in Season 2, we get to push all of that forward with our rookie cops. What does it mean? Now that you’re through your first year, you get to decide what kind of cop you really want to be. The hard stuff is just beginning.

You get to really track what the next step is for all of our characters as they all move forward in their careers, as they all deal with their personal family issues, which we introduced new family members for Lena in Season 1. What does it look like when those new family members and that world is integrated into the world of the Reagans and the Silvers? What does it look like when old family members — we mentioned Jamie coming in — are brought into the fold and introduced to this new life that Sean and Danny are building? All of those conflicts, all of the coming together, all of that fun family drama and police work gets to be fully explored now that we have the baseline of understanding who all the characters are.

Margolis: If there was a mantra for Season 2, it’s be careful what you wish for, because at the end of the season, Lena was searching for this extended family and she found it. Well, now what? Danny talked about wanting to climb the ladder and bringing Baez closer into his life, and maybe that’s going to lead to things he could never have anticipated. Sarah got engaged, Mae’s declaring a reelection campaign. These are all the things that they were striving for, but now careful what you wish for.

How does Reverend Peters play into all of that? What is he striving for?

Margolis: Rev is always going to be that pillar, not only for his family and the extended family and the Reagans, but for the community. Obviously, he has a lot of connective tissue with Mae and her past and what she’s going through, and he tries to offer guidance to folks when he can be a spiritual or emotional pillar for them.

In particular, his connection to the community is something we want to continue exploring this season, like what we did with he and Jonah at the end of last season, exploring different sides of community policing and what that can look like and potentially as a way to tell more of those types of stories. We love Ernie and we would watch him read the phone book, so we’re going to find as much to do with him as we can.

In Season 1, we saw Jonah experience some existential crises with being a Black cop, what that meant for his place in the community, and how Sean doesn’t experience that. What is their dynamic like in Season 2?

Sonnier: Well, as we mentioned, year two for them is really when they’re planting their flag in what kind of police they want to be and what kind of policing they want to do. As we saw at the end of Season 1, Jonah is moving toward more community policing and wanting to do more community outreach type things.

We find our two guys at the top of the season, though they both believe in justice, though they both want to do everything they can to be good cops, they are two sides of the same coin in that Sean, coming from the Reagan side, does want to do more proactive policing in the traditional sense. Meanwhile, Jonah is taking a look around and saying, maybe there’s a different way, maybe getting involved in the community before handcuffs need to be involved is something that [he’s] interested in.

Part of the fun of watching them this year is watching those two guys, who love each other, who are ride or die, will have each other’s backs always, navigate their two different understandings of what their calling really is and come together in what is ultimately seeking justice from any way that they can.

Sean is figuring out what kind of cop he wants to be. How would his dad potentially accepting a promotion here impact his view of his future?

Margolis: It’s certainly inspiring to him to see his father finally take those steps and gets Sean thinking about his own future and what his path and what his ladder climbing could look like. And we’re also going to expand the universe of Sean and Jonah’s precinct this year with some new characters that step in as mentors and figures that can inspire Jonah and Sean to try their version of policing.

Danny’s not always going to be there to look over Sean’s shoulder as much as he would like to. So, Sean is going to have to decide for himself who the right influences are and what other types of police guidance he responds to. But all of it is in an effort to show his dad that he has ambition as well and he’s about this career and he sees himself climbing the ranks the way a Reagan should, but along the way, he needs to learn how to decide for himself what are the right lessons and what are the wrong lessons.

This wasn’t really touched upon in Season 1 because, of course, Baez has been in Sean’s life for so long, I think he was happy that his dad finally got with her romantically. But with Baez being more in the picture, will Sean experience any feelings of conflict about this?

Margolis: While Danny is expanding his own personal life, there’s no sense of jealousy. As you said, Sean’s known Baez for a long, long time and I think he was very happy for his dad to have somebody. And he loves Elena and the family that they’re building, but it does take up more of Danny’s time, which leaves Sean with potentially that guidance vacuum that we were talking about that other people are going to step in and fill those shoes. So, it’s an opportunity where Danny has to work harder to spend as much time with Sean as he was able to in the past, and he’s checking in with him and observing what he’s learning and what kind of cop he’s becoming, but there are opportunities for Sean to find new mentorship outside of Danny’s sphere.

Which might be a good thing anyway, because you’re working with your parent, but you don’t want to be exclusively guided by them.

Sonnier: 100%. It’s one of the fun things about this season. Yes, Danny came to Boston to be there for Sean, but he’s learning that there are other ways that he can be there for Sean. He doesn’t have to be over his shoulder all of the time. It’s about being there when Sean needs it and stepping back when it’s time to let Sean venture out on his own.

With Baez moving to Boston with Elena, will Baez’s mom [who was revealed to have Alzheimer’s in Season 1] be introduced? Is Baez going to be a series regular this season?

Margolis: She’s not going to be a series regular, but she will be a presence throughout the season, and we will get to see Danny’s home life with Baez and Elena in the front half of the season. It will actually be a pretty strong focal point up through our mid-season finale, which is all I could tell you at this point.

Sonnier: The relationship between Danny and Elena is pretty magic. It’s very fun to see. We’re showing different sides of Danny. Danny [is] going back to the role of being, for all intents and purposes, dad to a young kid, which we haven’t seen for many years, and [he’s getting] another chance at maybe doing it differently than he did it the first time around.

And with a daughter, that’s fun.

Sonnier: Yeah, girl dads are different!

So, just to verify, Danny and Baez are living together when Season 2 starts?

Margolis: They are cohabitating. It’s a relationship and transition, but yes, they are figuring it out and making it work. Danny’s got a new place and they are building a new life.

What’s the possibility that we’ll see or get updates on Jack Reagan this season?

Sonnier: It’s possible.

Boston Blue, Season 2 Premiere, Friday, October 9, 10/9c, CBS